Perspective Magazine - September 2014

In this issue

If you build it, they will come

Daniel Libeskind probably wasn’t specifically referring to schools or museums or universities or city halls etcetera when he made the observation that “In a strange way, architecture is really an unfinished thing, because even though the building is finished, it takes on a new life. It becomes part of a new dynamic: how people will occupy it, use it, think about it”.
This month, we feature a schoolyard installation that breaks all the rules, a college which hopes to guide students on their educational journey by way of the building design, as well as a library and community centre which pays tribute to the destruction wrought by an earthquake while also offering succour and hope.
Libeskind’s observation certainly carries weight, but it perhaps overlooks is the reverse effect — in other words, how a building will precisely affect the way people occupy, use or think about it. There is a reason that jails do not look like five-star holiday resorts, for example, or why the recent move to ‘soften’ hospitals away from being starkly clinical and brightly lit can sometimes make patients feel uneasy as they have come to associate precisely those attributes with the hallmarks of a top-flight medical establishment.
What should never be overlooked or forgotten in all of this is the human element. People cannot be forced to like or enjoy a building which just doesn’t work for them; at best, they will endure it for lack of choice.