Accumulating Space

Our cities and buildings are nothing but an accumulation of different elements built or brought in different times in the past.

The edge of River Thames accomodates the London Eye next to the Parliament, the Louvre Museum has the glass pyramid in its courtyard and Eiffel Tower is the icon of Paris, although the city is famous for having Haussmannian buildings.

The accumulation is unexpected, it can not be foreseen by one single designer. It can be defined by the user of its edge or can even be expanded by another architect's contribution.

In order to let accumulation happen the presence of an edge is crucial. Instead of the tradition of the architect trying to control everything and drawing arrows of circulation, dictating the use of the spaces very clearly, the role of the architect can be dealing with this edge.

On the scale of a house, it is never used the way the architect projects his vision by collages or selects the post-construction photos in order to explain the project in a publication. What happens in the post-construction phase seems to be not in the interest of the architect. Unfortunately great things happen in terrible buildings and terrible things happen in great buildings most of the time.

In an architecture magazine or architect’s publication; we never see a shirt thrown on the chair, a glass left on the table, while the whole experience of architecture is very much affected by these.

The architect’s role must be influencing the accumulation in both urban and house scale.

Designer has to think about the connections with the adjacent spaces, the amount of light, materials, temperature and comfort of the space. He should not give up his idea of the use of the space but yet, he should respect the decissions of the users themselves. Most of the failing architectural products in the history are the dictating attempts.

The tension of trying to find a balance; the game between the designer’s idea against the user’s desire of using the space is one of the most interesting challenges of the profession.

This tension forms the accumulation on the edge that is defined by the architect. Although the result, the accumulation can not be pictured by the architect, it is not unpredictable. A lot of contemporary designs show no respect to the knowledge and input of its user. The discoveries of the new architecture can be about widening the knowledge of how space is occupied at which conditions almost accidentally, and let great things happen in great buildings too.

(this is the introduction text for my booklet)