studioplusthree speak on Craft, Innovation and Human-Centred Design at Design Show Australia

Our recent talk at Design Show Australia was structured around six processes we have used in the making of architecture. Following the discussions and questions we received, we wanted to share some of the words and images from our talk.

In one sense, architecture can be described through a set of operations. Physical materials are employed or manipulated through a series of actions that can be reliably quantified, specified, and documented to produce an expected result.

Contrary to this is the fact that much of architecture cannot be exclusively described in this way, or any single way. A space may be reflected to a degree in photos, writings or drawings (and may exist in these forms in its own right, independent of built work) but the experience of it relies on human presence and perception. An elusive and ineffable sense of weight, of time, of light, of touch and movement. This is what we think of as atmosphere.

These two understandings of architecture are related; one is generally the corollary of the other. But to adapt the saying - what cannot be measured, cannot be controlled. Whilst a building may be carefully drawn and constructed, many cherished experiences may lie wholly outside these acts - reliant on a serendipitous moment of light or wind that can never be controlled or captured in fixed form. Work can be built, but it takes the intangible energies of the natural world to bring it to life.

1. Blind Light, Anthony Gormley

2. Biais, Stephane Ducatteau

3. Leça Swimming Pools, Alvaro Siza