Human Philosophy and Architectural Design

I was recently asked by an Architect what I thought I was doing as an IT geek looking at issues of building design. I tried to relate my thinking around the relationship between human behaviour, human performance, human values and the design of work and living spaces. He indicated that he felt that these things were not relevant to the design of modern office buildings. This discussion led me to ponder my own views on this question.

Several years ago I was lucky enough to go the Balkans and Wien (Vienna, Austria) for work. As I always do, I spent a great deal of time understanding the societies in which I was working. One of the questions that was high in my mind at that time was the relationship between the Medieval Christian church and the people. I was lucky enough to have several experiences that helped me understand this.

The first was that I was in Zagreb on Corpus Christi day. This was a great experience for me. I woke to the sounds of the bells in the churches ringing in the day. Zagreb in the late Spring and early summer is stunning anyway, but to add this element was a unique experience. Through this day of religious observance I walked the streets of Zagreb, listened to services in Catholic cathedrals and churches and understood a little more what the High Catholic church had given people. These is a sense that perhaps just perhaps there is something higher, something greater. The day ended with me attending the evening service in the main Cathedral in the centre of Zagreb. It was a lovely experience and the architecture of the Cathedral still conveyed what its builders intended. I will return to this point in a moment.

I was then lucky enough to be in Wien (Vienna) for a weekend. I attended a Sunday evening mass in St Stephens Cathedral in Wien - again I could not help but feel the sense of awe that the architecture of this structure drew from people. This cathedral represented the highest aspiration of a community at a point in their development. I then completed the evening by attending an organ and trumpet recital in a small very old church a little ways down from St Stephens dedicated to St John the Baptist. This little church was built to provide a place of worship for a small service based community. And its architecture represents the aspirations of its people and time.

So from this experience I started to consider the relationship between architecture and the aspirations of its people. Joseph Campbell suggested that in the height of a cities highest buildings you can see the aspirations and priorities of a people. As we look to the architecture of today in our city hearts, I think this is still what we see. The aspiration and the dominating God is money and commerce. So we get glass and concrete towers that are dehumanizing and suggest that the real power lies now with those who handle its transactions.

So in my work, I am trying to suggest that the central role of the built environment is the abilities and capabilities of people as individuals and as a collective, working under stress trying to make life and death decisions. And so we create a built environment which allows for two key things:

1. The gathering and sharing of information; and

2. The enhancement and support of human decision making.

So to my architect acquaintance - this is why we get involved in construction - because the philosophy of these built environments is centred on the information systems and the people who use them.

About slade

Slade is an Enterprise Architect, Business Analyst and Project Manager with extensive experience in the Defence, National Security, Emergency Services and secure systems environment. Slade has been in the IT industry since 1988, and is experienced in systems engineering, systems architecture, systems integration, security assessment and development of sustainment frameworks for new systems. He is also a thought leader in human factors for the design of critical decision support systems and environments and the development of enterprise and solution level architecture for high information workload environments. Slade is the Director of EcoThought Pty Ltd