There is no doubt whatever about the influence of architecture and structure upon human character and action. We make our buildings and afterwards they make us. They regulate the course of our lives.
- Winston Churchill, addressing the English Architectural Association, 1924- – - – - – - – - - - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
Architecture can serve as a regulatory force and has been used to influence and control public behaviour through embodying power in a number of ways. Direct use of architecture to change the economic or demographic make-up of areas ranges from policies of shopping centres and business districts to shift the social class of visitors to an area or to revitalise impoverished areas through massive development programmes. It goes as far as government-driven use of settlements to occupy or colonise territories.
Internal building layouts are analysed for their ‘power’ implications by Kim Dovey in the book Becoming Places: Urbanism / Architecture / Identity / Power, who uses a system of ‘space syntax analysis’ developed by Hillier and Hanson in “the Social logic of space” to examine diverse buildings such as Albert Speer’s Berlin Chancellery, the Forbidden City of Beijing, and the Metro Centre shopping mall in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. One interesting positioning we find in political buildings in the intentional use of something similar to what is called ‘intimacy of gradient’—a “diplomatic promenade” (Kim Dovey) selectively revealing a sequence of anterooms to visitors, their permitted progress through the structure calculated both to reflect their status and to dominate.
City layouts have been used strategically to try to prevent disorder and make it easier to put down. Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s rigid urban plan for Paris remodelled for Louis Napoléon (later Napoléon III) after 1848, had the goal to protect the city from a civil war. The wide straight streets were design as such building barricades would be impossible. Haussmann used the straight lines as a method of crowd control.
In his book “Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed”, J. Scott suggests that is it “but a small step from a simplified description of society to a design and manipulation of society, with improvement in mind. If one could reshape nature to design a more suitable forest, why not reshape society to create a more suitable population?”. He builds on the idea that it is possible and maybe even a good idea to use architecture, design and regulations to improve space and to remove anomalies and inconsistencies, subtly.
This is all important to be mentioned before playing down the role of architecture and the architect. And it is important to understand that architecture is, and never has been, as simple as “a building”. Its deeply rooted in art, sociology, collective consciousness and, more importantly, it is strongly connected with the economical and political side of the society. It is also a political and economical tool.
None of these aspects of the world can be analysed in isolation, as it is all interconnected and co-dependent. Architecture can lower the crime rate of a neighbourhood ( see “Design against crime”), that can influence the demographic, that can influence the economy and so on.
It is obviously not as simple as “seeing a problem and solving it with a building”. The complexity of the modern world are overwhelming, but it has reached this level of complexity because all the fields have watered down their borders and blended with one another. Yona Friedman thought of a system of an integrated socio-economic conception of architecture, addressed both for housing solutions and for existing metropolitan areas, even to urbanise third world countries. He argues that economy is one of the variables of civilisation that deeply affects human activity, which in turn plays an important role for the economy in different fields. Since architecture is a physical representation of human activity and is an important expression of human civilisation and its development at different times, the issue to research on is the relationship between the economy and architecture now and the special link between modern economic thought and architecture.
For today, a sustainable thought mechanism must be applied. But for that to work, the understanding of what exactly is sustainability is crucial. Sustainability includes three components, it acts like a three legged stool: Social (People), Environment (Planet) and Economics (Profit). Any sustainable decision must address all of these three, aim to protect the environment, provide the best standard of living while remaining competitive in the market. The economical aspect cannot be ignored for a society to function. Developers are understating that flexibility is an important steering mechanism to develop adaptability. And adaptability means being on top of the economic food chain. It is a stale conception that developers are not taking into account the social and environmental aspects. While it is a slower process than expected, they are shifting towards the real sustainable choices to adapt to the new social and environmental needs and to the world market.