ARCHITECTURE IS FOR PEOPLE, FOR HABITATION.

Lions and Lambs aside, this image of St. Jerome in his study by Albrecht Durer illustrates a space ideally suited for habitation: a window, a window seat, a desk and chair, adequate storage.

I studied under Professor William Kleinsassar at the University of Oregon.  One of the big “take aways” from his design and theory classes was the importance to successful design of understanding how human beings experience architecture.  Start with fulfilling human needs: functional, social, emotional, experiential.

Van Eyck used this illustration in his book about the orphanage he designed. Orphanages needed to be places where children could feel truly home. The spaces were simultaneously definitive and ambiguous.

It was in his classes that I developed my life long admiration for the writings and designs of the Dutch architect, Aldo van Eyck.

Identify a building with that same building entered and define space simply as the appreciation of it.

Make a countenance of every window.

These two statements by van Eyck poetically state what too many have abandoned: architects are charged to build for human habitation.  This goes beyond simply meeting the functional program.  If that were all there was to it we could abandon our work to the engineers.

The Inglenook in a project I designed. It provides a retreat from the larger living room space. The interior window on the far left gives those entering the room a preview of the inglenook.

He spoke of and I believe in an experiential sympathy in design; of the warming sunshine on a cool day, of a glimpse out or further in, of the satisfaction of the sensual joy which comes with the experience of space, light and construction.

Aldo van Eyck and his fellow countryman Herman Hertzberger were masters of this kind of thinking.

HABITATION COMES FIRST. All programmatic, structural, technical and technological systems must support and affirm this simple, oft forgotten, principle.

BUILD FOR OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM BUILD FOR YOU.