The developments of the last week have included; further reading of architectural phenomenology and theory, new questions, and a decision.
I’ll start with my decision. Let it be known, I have decided to focus my research on two Living Buildings here in the PNW (instead of the 4 I had identified earlier). Henceforth, I will be doing a case study of the Bertschi School Science Wing, and the Hood River Middle School addition. I feel this decision will come as a great boon to my research by helping me focus on two exemplary buildings as well as situating my research in a particular type of living building, schools. Furthermore, these buildings are both expressly concerned with education, and environmental education at that. By situating my research in these buildings I will be able to explore how connections/relationships between individuals and large systems are taught explicitly. Granted, this may be one of the goals of the programs housed in these buildings and by studying schools I may find the task of conveying connectedness is perhaps made more explicitly than latently as in other buildings (say, such as the Bullitt Center). Regardless, the objective of exploring how architecture may be used as a tool to convey connectedness will be highlighted, and there is little reason to doubt my findings here can be applied elsewhere. That is, there may be a slight bias in these examples, the buildings are meant as science schools designed to teach children about their environment in the PNW, so, connection to events and systems like salmon runs and rivers are highlighted. However, that’s not to say my findings in these schools can’t be applied to other buildings besides schools. The focal point of my research is not the pedagogy of the science programs (although that will certainly be included in my analysis!) but the buildings in which they are housed, and how the specific architecture does or does not (who knows what it’ll do!? I haven’t written my thesis yet!!!) convey a sense of connectedness between individuals and global systems.
A shift in language.
Ah, words words words. My recent reading in architectural phenomenology has taken one of my main words and changed my perspective on it. In thinking and speaking about connections, perhaps I didn’t convey sufficient nuance in how human beings fit in global systems. That is, people are not merely connected to things like climate change, atmospheric CO2, neoliberal economic policies, etc. but have relationships to them. As architectural phenomenologist David Seamon puts it, “I argue that the development of relationship involves hazard and offers no guarantee that any growth or understanding will occur. In contrast to relationship is what I call connection — an arbitrary linkage between worlds that is susceptible to failure when changed or stressed in any way. I argue that social policy and environmental design often fail today because they are founded on the superficiality and forced contact of connection rather than on the depth and genuine contact of relationship.”
My understanding of Seamon’s relationship vs. connection distinction is that connection implies a sort of association that is devoid of engagement, whereas relationship implies a way of existing such that actions have impacts and feedback loops disperse impacts throughout the system. Perhaps the distinction is superficial semantics, but I believe that there is virtue in more clearly defining my terms. Not only are connections and relationships expressive in different ways, but there are different types of connections/relationships (directed, dependent, so on and so forth) and furthermore, there are connections between systems themselves. That is, it’s not just about people connected to other people and people connected to the carbon and water cycles, but about the carbon and water cycles themselves being connected! (That is, having relationships between them!)
Theory, phenomenology, and a shift in perspective.
Reading David Seamon’s article on the Seattle Public Library designed by Rem Koolhaas helped me feel confident in architectural phenomenology as my method of choice. I also learned that architectural phenomenology doesn’t solely include a single user’s experience of a space. Seamon’s article is very much an exhibit of architectural phenomenology as a process and method of inquiry. In it, he shows that phenomenology can in fact include user interviews and other crowd sourced data (he uses YELP reviews), as well as expert reviews, opinions, essays, interviews, etc. As a result, my understanding of architectural phenomenology has grown from a single occupants reflected upon experience of a building to include the entire process of knowing a place.
Methodologically, coupled with my new case-study approach I feel more free under my new understanding of phenomenology to try and learn about these buildings in any way possible. Additionally, I feel the structure of my case study approach along with expert and user interviews will provide meaningful data for analysis. I feel as though my chosen methods and questions are shaping up to become the truly playful (I get to explore buildings and take pictures!), meaningful (I get to advance an idea that addresses architectural production) and scholarly project I’ve always wanted!
Lastly, I’m always thinking about new questions to direct my inquiry. Recently I’ve been thinking about specific questions with which to approach the two school buildings.
Here are a few: What is a successful science-education experience and in what ways is that experience sustained, aided, undermined, etc. by living buildings?
What is the environmental education experience for students who learn in living buildings and how does it compare with learning experiences in other schools?
Has the building become an important place/object for its various user groups? Who are they? And why is it (not) important to them?
How do users describe their experiences of the building and in what ways, experientially and behaviorally, does the living building sustain or undermine its central purpose — to be a location for science education for children?
A note on my questions: I don’t necessarily want to study education or the pedagogy of these schools. I want to focus on the buildings, the architecture, (the architectonics, to sound douchey) and their impact on the educational experience, specifically in terms of their ability to communicate/invoke/convey a sense of connectedness (relationship!) between individuals and global systems.