Architecture and building : an examination of the user's ability to sense the difference between the two situations, with special reference to commercial spaces

Abstract

The separation of architecture and buildings is not clearly visible. It is a qualitative attribute rather than a quantitative one. Habraken states architecture to be "process and product of human habitation." Hence, it is a spatial phenomena deeply bonded to the spatial existence of humans. But the prevalent social phenomena I the contemporary world is indicating a totalitarian destruction of the human civilisation. Humans are claimed to be increasingly insensitive to their built environment. But, every human at an unconscious subliminal level is sensitive to their spatial existence. This sensitivity is not outwardly expressed and for that reason is not even understood by that person himself. If prompted, these sensitivities are expressed. But the general understanding however that is there is insensitivity to the built space. This dissertation attempts to explain how a user senses and responds to physical and psychological attributes of the architecture of a building. It contains surveys done on several commercial buildings to asses how users feel physical attributes such as volume, size, scale, proportion, enclosure plane, colour, texture and lighting of the environment. Results of surveys are studied to identify how users sensed the psychological attributes such as belongingness, privacy, territoriality and identity.