If you could choose between designing an object versus designing the effects an object has on its user, which would choose? Which is more important in the first place? Which should have a stronger influence on the other? Which, the object or its effects, is the chicken and which is the egg?
These are issues that architects have always been grappling with. I would like to argue that we are now in a transition from focusing on the object to focusing on its effects. Starchitects such as Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry are perhaps some of the most extreme examples of object-oriented designers. How does this building feel apart from a bird’s eye view? How does this building effect the planet’s heath? How does this building respond to changing program uses and user types? Answer - N/A (not applicable.)
However, younger generations are starting to realize that the effects of architecture are of utmost importance to consider at the birth of architecture’s conceptualization. Herzog + de Meuron and Jean Nouvel are great at designing the sensual experience one feels as one moves through a building. That is one type of effect. Others are more concerned with the environment and how their architecture can live and breathe organically within it (Kieran Timberlake.) And others care most about how their designs can effect production (SHOP Architects.)
Effects matter. (funny sentence ^_^)
