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Building Habitat

Interesting essay on modern architecture and why it is the way it is. 

..It is also revealing to consider how the detachment people often feel around modern buildings and urban settings closely mirrors the disconnect people with PTSD and ASD often have towards others. It all makes a great deal of sense once you think about it: people who are relationally compromised can’t come up with an architecture that promotes relationships. 

We talk about older buildings having more character and that seems to fit this explanation. You can form a relationship with something that has personality. Homes in the suburbia don't have the modern architecture the authors are describing here but there is a tremendous monotony about them that render them lifeless and inert. Reading this made me think of my neighbor's home. 

The home similar to the other houses on the street but the the needs of the family evolved over time and they adapted by creating extensions and adding features that they required. Over time, that house looks completely different than the others. I know I always notice it for that uniqueness. That is one level of interaction and the feeblest one. The people who live in that home and made it their own over the years have much stronger ones I am sure. 

The subject matter merits of the article are well beyond my pay-grade but the logic has commonsense appeal for the layperson.

As Steve Jobs once said, “The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” Indeed, if that guiding principle could lead Apple to stratospheric success, imagine what it could do as the foundation for building human habitats?

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