hopeful inquiry ben small

You are here: Home / Posts / senior capstone posts. / methodology I.

methodology I.

By

Now picture this…
It’s a cold frosty morning and you’ve just arrived on campus to begin a days work. As you walk across the cobble stone you notice the frozen lawn is beginning to thaw as the sun stretches it warm fingers across the grass. Your breath smokes from your nostrils as you pace towards the tall welcoming doorway of the library. As you pull open the door a burst of warmth rolls onto your face and hands. The high ceiling of the library vaults acrobatically above the stairs and the big glass windows allow the abundant light of day to illuminate the dusty stacks of books, causing floating particulates to appear as little golden flies drifting down the quiet hallways. In order to shrug off the chill of the world and cozy up with a book you look for a comfy chair with ample natural light. What a beautiful morning. You think to yourself. I better sit near a window so I can watch the day.
No doubt paying close attention to the feelings and thoughts we have while experiencing a place can provide insight into how we understand the built environment and our behaviors in such contexts. But I also believe that by examining our experiences in such places we can begin to understand the language of buildings, to read them, and hear what they have to say. Of course, buildings are built by people with objectives and often times these objectives are reflected in the choices of the architects commissioned to design them. I’m particularly interested in how buildings have been designed to communicate notions of sustainability.
The buildings I am planning on understanding, as a way of linking architecture to the Anthropocene (read: a time of unprecedented human impact on global systems, including challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, social/political/economic unrest, etc.) , are 4 certified Living Buildings in the Pacific Northwest, including The Bertschi School science wing in Seattle, WA; Painters Hall in Salem, OR; Hood River Middle School’s music and science building in Hood River, OR; and finally The Bullitt Center in Seattle, WA. Living Buildings are projects that have been certified by the Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge (recognized as the most rigorous sustainability certification for buildings in the world) for their achievement of various goals related to sustainability. However, Living Buildings must go beyond sustainability to become regenerative, not only breaking even so to speak, but giving back to communities in ways that make the project actively and continually productive. This regeneration, I believe, can be understood as a style of communication. If a building is regenerative it is producing something, if a building is producing something it must be able to communicate or tangibly express that fact. Therefore, I want to understand what these Living Buildings produce (knowledge/understanding of the anthropocene as a world characterized by ‘environmental problems’? ‘Proper’ sustainable behavior?) and how they communicate their product.
For my senior capstone project I plan to rely on two qualitative methodologies, architectural phenomenology and interviews, in order to understand how these Living Buildings are regenerative from concept through completion, to current use and occupation.
Architectural phenomenology.

Architectural phenomenology is a brach of architectural theory in which an observer records his or her lived experience of a building and uses these recordings as data for analysis. Architectural phenomenology absorbs the concept of subjectivity, placing the importance of analysis on the engagement or conversation between subject/object instead of solely on the object itself. Thus, architectural phenomenologists are able to extract relevant aspects of a building’s current reality which extend beyond the object’s formal qualities. Architectural phenomenological analysis may highlight aspects of subject-object interaction (building-user) that a mere formal or even semiotic analysis could not. For example, an architectural critic may look at a set of stairs and argue for the success of visual balance, material/textural qualities, etc. While an architectural phenomenologist will discuss not only these aspects of the staircase, but will also comment on the experience of ascending and descending the stairs, the feel of the handrail, the view from the landing, and more.

I think architectural phenomenology will be immediately relevant to my inquiry as I seek to understand how buildings interact with users in order to communicate notions of sustainability. That is, I’m not principally concerned with how ‘green’ a building is in terms of energy/water consumption, etc. (although I don’t deny the importance of such aspects) but instead I’m interested in how a building might show connections between users and energy/water consumption. Therefore, the important focus of my analysis is on the subject/object interaction more so than on the object itself.

Interviews.

Interviewing the architects and users of the buildings I will study will allow me to grasp many aspects of the buildings’ lives that I cannot experience in a limited time touring them. By interviewing the architects I will be able to ask how their own ideas of sustainability, climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, education, and so much more influenced their design choices. I will attempt to understand how they imagine their designs communicate ideas and lessons of sustainable behavior. Do the architects of Living Buildings think their designs influence and inform behavior? Furthermore, I will attempt to understand how the architects interpreted the desires of the clients (as well as their ideas of sustainability), Living Building Challenge guidelines, local building code, and more in the design of the building.

By interviewing the daily users of Living Buildings I will be able to understand how successfully the buildings achieve the goals set by both the architects and commissioners of the project. In these interviews I will try to see if the user feels his or her behavior is in fact influenced/informed by the design of the building, and if they feel the building successfully communicates the various notions embedded within the concept of the Anthropocene. Additionally, by speaking with daily users of the buildings I will be able to catch on to any incongruities or anomalies in their intended operation.

Further research.

I expect to gain most of the insight I need from the two qualitative methodologies listed above, however I’m aware that there is much more to any building than the design intentions it embodies and the lived experience of the resulting design. Examples of this include the legal and economic climates in which buildings are made. At this point I’m unsure whether or not it’s beyond the scope of my project to include a political economic analysis of the buildings I have selected. Perhaps such an analysis would extend my research into the local building code manual and municipal government offices as well as into the pockets, wallets, backgrounds, politics, values, etc. of those who funded the construction of the building itself. It could be that such a deep, structural analysis could shed light onto the essential qualities of Living Buildings. Furthermore, Living Buildings are often technologically advanced examples of architecture. Not only can one gather data about a building’s energy consumption, etc. but many times the buildings themselves include technologies designed to collect and monitor data. The implications of this are many; ranging from a quantitative analysis of a buildings performance in terms of energy and water consumption, etc. (BIM, or building information modeling) to drawing a techno-political analysis in terms of buildings’ use of technology as a sustainable solution versus a more socio-political focused approach towards sustainability.

For now, I plan on focusing on architectural phenomenology and will hopefully secure interviews with the architects of the Living Buildings I have selected. In the mean time, if you have any ideas or sources you think may be relevant to political economy/ecology of Living Buildings or the built environment, please let me know!

Thanks,

-Ben