IN-PERSON: Applying Education

Abstract

Architectural design, the coordination of the cyclical constants of solar rhythms and the inevitable pull of gravity with the less-than-predictable needs and desires of humans, is the management of complexity, almost by definition. That is, architectural design accommodates the predictable and unpredictable. When the process is successful, it results in complimentary relationships between people, buildings and cities, and nature. It recognizes the value of that which is unchanging so as to enable an intelligent accommodation to change. In the words of Wilson Pickett, “You harmonize, then you customize.” Humans have known, for millennia, precisely where the sun may be seen in the sky at any time. With the introduction of local climate and culture, human activity, and with propositions for walls and roofs, we alter the relationship of sun to space, introducing variations and impediments into the regular cycles of darkness and daylight. Therefore, our need to accommodate the unalterable daily and seasonal rhythms of daylight with human needs and desires, with the conditions of the sky, is a fascinating engagement with complexity. Accordingly, this paper will argue that an understanding of the rhythms of the sun offers architecture and education a working model for the design process and for engaging complexity. The same principles, it will be suggested, might be relevant to education in general. Additionally, as architecture is something that we do for others, there is an ethical responsibility inherent in practice. Ethics refers to standards of right and wrong that prescribe what we ought to do in recognition of our obligations to others. Ethical design begins with how human activity, the performance of our lives—is represented in the things we make. This calls for diversity and authenticity in design; the teaching of design from first principles: authentic responses to real forces and needs, and the accommodation of complex needs that may change over time.