The Important Qualities of Architecture

The first thing that | find essential to architecture is light. When we were house shopping in 2010 I noticed a common theme among the houses we saw. This common theme was natural light. I think it’s part of the effort to make houses “greener” and therefore more appealing to the majority of Vermonters in the area. There are a few catches, however. We live in Vermont, a state with little to no sunshine. I have found that our house is wonderfully lit for several hours, most of which we are not in the house for, however, when the sun declines it becomes dramatically dark.

The lighting built into the house creates an atmospheric hue at best. This issue can be resolved by floor lamps and other means of lighting, however the house was not designed to be well lit from within, and therefore does not hold (for lack of a better word) the light inside the house. In my opinion in the optimum house or building, the architect not only designs for the building.

but also how to incorporate enough light into the building.

Lighting can be tricky, and is an extremely important factor in the world today when people often work for long hours into the night. The second aspect would be the building’s relationship to its inhabitants. As we look back through history, we can tell a lot about the societies culture through what they construct. For example, in Roman times the houses would have whole rooms with no ceilings in order to be exposed to nature.

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Or you could look at why in Eastern cultures the architecture tends to focus on including and emphasizing curves, as we can see in buildings such as the Taj Mahal and Saint Basil’s Cathedral. 1n the Renaissance, the grandiose nature and plentiful colors that go hand in hand with the popularization of the arts and sciences. More recently, there are many small things, such as the eco-friendly nature, or the commonality of the “cookie cutter house.”

But what I also think is important is the individual relationship with the building. If one is eco-friendly, then they can have an eco-friendly house. Another way of saying it is how customizable the house can be, so that one’s needs are better met. This is definitely a huge part of architecture, and always has been. The third is the functionality of the house. If you live in the desert why would you have a house that is made to withstand large amounts of water? The reason houses look similar within a certain region has a great deal to do with the conditions that most commonly occur there. For example, I was looking at David Pill’s website when l was doing architecture for my senior project and followed a link to a competition he competed in. I then looked at the other entries. and while they were very cool, one of them did not consider the environment it was to be built in.

The building was for a U.S. Embassy and it was in a politically unstable area. On this particular model, the outer walls were made of a material that looked like canvas. Taking in to consideration the fact that there were most likely frequent riots, and on top of that the fact that people weren’t happy with the governmental situation, I would imagine that the structure should be built with a slightly more formidable exterior than cloth. Although this is a key aspect to architecture, it is definitely not one of my favorites, as it constricts the possibilities of what you can build. The fourth would have to be the aesthetics of the architecture. Unfortunately, human beings generally value the pretty things in life over the “ugly” or practical. This creates yet another restriction to architects. However, from here on, I will focus on the positive aspects of aesthetics in architecture. An essential part of our life is beauty.

From innovative million dollar designs to ancient classics, if we can afford to make it pretty, we will. This universal fact has proved itself not only in the construction, but also throughout the years. It is rare to find an historic building that isn’t (at least in one culture) considered beautiful. Many of the most beautiful parts of architecture are not used ubiquitously today, whether due to the expense or an odd-looking style, however they are still considered beautiful. The use of arcuated structures throughout European history, for example. One can see many inconspicuous examples of this; from how the Roman and Greek columns curve slightly at the very top and bottom, to the transition into the Renaissance from Gothic times, when they began to see the simple geometric qualities of the Gothic period as boring and simple-minded. The other aspect of the aesthetics of architecture would be the use of color. One of my favorite facts that I’ve learned over the years is that Greece and Italy did not always value and idealize the all-white look.

In fact, their buildings were meant to be extremely colorful, however due to their proximity to the equator, the sun bleached all of the buildings over time. The fifth is the practicality, as in setting out to build the Duomo in the twelfth century wasn’t very practical. A dome this size had never been built before, they did not have the proper tools to build the dome, and it took almost a hundred years to complete. No matter how much technology had advanced since then, we still cannot defy physical forces. There are simply things that we cannot construct. This considerably narrows down the field of ideas, however, as we can see with the Duomo, it has never stopped people from trying.