WHY SCIENCE?

The case for a disprovable architecture.

There are many ways in which architecture can be important to a community. Public buildings and spaces not only fulfill their daily practical functions but also reflect who we are and who we wish to be. They remind us of the values of our forefathers and tell our great grandchildren something about us. From a functional point of view, city hall is often a very simple office building. But it is also the ongoing physical representation, the front door or the face, of its community. Architects with exceptional skills in the appearance of buildings should be hired for this type of project. This is a modern day version of monumental architecture and it still has its place in our world.

(All but the most adventurous of communities are going to hire a predictable architect, an architect with a recognizable style, so the community has a fairly clear idea in advance of what it will be getting. If there is a good place for the star architects of our media saturated world, this is it. Ironically, these are not the most exciting architects of our day. They offer us predictability, but it is precisely that predictability that limits their ability to give us the very best design for our specific needs.

It is a sadness of our time that local architects do not dominate this field. Local architects have the opportunity to be brilliant about their own locales, to know them the best. Local architects have a much better chance of creating a design that tells a richly true story about its community. This is only true if the local architects have prepared themselves. Not many have, but more have than get this opportunity. Instead of documenting and celebrating our specificity and diversity, we bring in the famous architect who makes our architecture just like someone else’s.)

Houses are at the other end of the architectural spectrum.
Houses must first of all be tools for living.

(There are, of course, those houses that are just for show, or primarily for show – by definition, they are not houses. Rather, they represent a private highjacking of architecture’s appropriate public representational role described in the first paragraph above. Depending on the astuteness of the observer, these houses tell much more than the owner ever intended.)

Individuation is the house architect’s most important task. A house must accomplish the very best fit between the needs of its occupants and the opportunities and requirements of its site. In the hands of a skilled architect, this fit will produce a design that also reflects the values of the site and the occupant. Skilled house architects must have an eye (and ear and nose and skin) for composition, for color, proportion and texture. But first they must know how to read sites and read clients. They must be students of how we live and how we interact with the physicality of construction. For the most part, this knowledge is not opinion based. It is scientific, objective, repeatable fact. House architects operating on opinion are charlatans. House architects who don’t have an exceptional understanding of all the humdrum details of daily life cannot possibly provide the value their clients deserve.

I start with a generic concept of house. I’ve done the “perfect house”. What do I do with the rest of my life? Happily, the perfect house is only perfect once, and in fact, probably not even once. So, I modify the generic concept in response to the forces presented by the site, the prospective occupants, and my own architectural education. House design is an exhaustive process of moving the specific design further and further away from the generic concept – but always with legitimate, genuine, reason.

Art? I think I must do everything for a reason (elegance is a measure of how many different reasons inspire one move), but I must do everything artfully.

What makes me think my reasons are legitimate and genuine? My own test is whether my client understands.

Architectural education? After thirty years, I do think I understand most of the forces. Many of the fits I have found are less than perfect and every project is an opportunity to improve the fit. These can be technical – avoiding the damaging effects of rain, and functional – how best to light a dining room.

(Clients who have their homes designed by architects with a recognizable style are subverting their own identity to that architect. Certainly, an individual has the right to do that. These architects have chosen a role similar to that of writer or painter. I can understand the desire to have your portrait painted by Picasso, but I would think you would want to have Wayne Thiebaud do a portrait, too. I can’t imagine that you would want Nabokov to write your biography. Picasso’s portrait and Nabokov’s biography are going to be more about them than you. These products will be judged on the artist’s execution of their personal goals. That’s not what a house should be about. A house is a tool for living, a specific tool for a specific environment. The owner and the architect should be clear that the fitness of that tool is the goal. All other things are secondary.)

The possibility of a scientific architecture has been a revelation to me. Conversations about architecture within the profession are generally of two types. Most are about business, about how to make money. The others are about design. What I have come to understand is that aesthetic ideologues dominate this conversation. They set the agenda. We talk about the relative merits of critical regionalism and classic modernism and so on. I am glad I live in a world where these kinds of things are discussed. I like to read the New Yorker and I like to debate the merits of this or that style. I do not believe that either is very important.

Improving the relationship between mankind and the built environment is, on the other hand, very important, as important as any task facing humanity. Aesthetes can have their esoteric world and I will enjoy it as a form of entertainment. When I am working, though, I want to do important architecture and I want my profession to get back to where it concerns itself primarily with important issues.

I do not believe that all buildings are equal. I do not believe that the only differences in architecture are a matter of aesthetic judgment. HOUSE SCIENCE can show you how a house can be truly, objectively, better. Architects who make houses that are truly, objectively, better will increase the stature of architecture and architects in our culture.