Design
& Construction
Activity:
Use
a bell pepper
to describe a designer's conventions: Plan,
Section & Elevation |
When
you build a house for a pet turtle
or dog, you first think about size. When we build our environment,
the same is true. We might not think about it when everything appears
the right size, but we quickly recognize small rooms, low ceilings,
and high windows. Sometimes size appears wrong for good reasons. Babies,
children, and adults are different lengths, which is why a classroom
for first graders has small furniture compared to one for seventh
graders.
Sometimes
buildings or spaces are too big because the architect wanted to make
them seem important and used a larger-than-life scale. Think of some
big rooms that you've been inside, such as in churches, government
buildings, and banks, and the size of their doors, ceilings, and windows.
Size affects the way we think about these buildings and what we think
happens in them.
When
you go to the store, church, or school, or for a walk in your neighborhood,
notice the size of rooms and buildings and ask yourself how you feel
about them. How about the outside rooms in your environment - are
they human size?
People's
survival and comfort affects everything we build. Aside from things
we see, many more things are hidden in walls, floors, ceilings, and
even underground. Electric wires, hot and cold water pipes, gas lines,
sewer pipes, and telephone cables are as they are and where they are
because of people's needs.
Consider
the things we put in the city to support human life and make it more
comfortable: water reservoirs and purification plants, miles of water
pipes under the streets, huge poser plants, dams and electric systems
for electricity, underground gas lines, sewer systems and waste treatment
plants, telephone lines, broadcasting stations, mail systems for communications...the
list is almost endless.
The city
is a complex environment - buildings, streets, parks, pipes, wires,
and systems - and built to maintain human life with considerable comfort.
Adapted
from Our Man-Made Environment - Book 7
by: Levy, Chapman & Wurman
