The Human Experience

What is the human experience? From what we can observe it is to be born and to die. But for what end. Why are we different than other animals. We can logically reason, experience emotions, and all their complexities. Is this life? Is it life to feel? Is it life to reason? What makes us have a soul versus having instinct? The world we live in is immensely complex. The part that is most Bazaar of all is the fact we can’t even comprehend each other. The reality of placing yourself in someone else’s shoes is a lie, because we can’t. Even with our closet friends and family. All we can do is place ourselves in our own formulated version of that person’s life. Howbeit its short comings, it is the closest thing we can try to do to comprehend someone, but it falters when it comes to perfect comprehension. From a secular view of reality, we are all alone in our minds and experience our very limited view of the world. And from a religious view the only being who can comprehend us perfectly is deity.

Interestingly enough this is the thing that as humans we crave the MOST. To be understood and connected. It is interesting that is what we seek from everything we do.

Human Connection

Of the many things that are important the human experience, the first and most basic need outside of survival of the body is the connection to another human. It is so strongly wired into our biological fabric that without it, we could hardly maintain any sense of humanity. We experience this need and phenomenon throughout our lives in different ways. As a baby we rely solely on our parents for immediate survival. And their approval is proportionately needed to feel connection. As we get older this shifts to us becoming independent and creating space for us needing friends beyond primary family ties and eventually into a companion who we become ultimately connected to. And we can see from those that lack this connection result in various, chaotic, and often destructive mental illnesses. Without this connection a persons lived world falls apart. Because this connection to other humans is so prevalent we have to foster that need. That need has been made manifest though out the history of the world, through religion, culture, tribal communities and traditions. Until recent history the family unit was considered more important than the community at large (not that the community was not needed). But over the last decade or so we have seen a large shift to a global community trend. And with social media and the internet as a whole we are losing the physical interaction that was held by our ancestors. This great new technology may be taking us a step backwards as we feel we leap ahead. We have become falsified in our belief that real connection can be fostered solely through digital means. That it can be fabricated through perfect matches on dating apps and popularized through likes and views. In catering to this idea we nullify our individualism. We succumb to the simplification of who we are. We lose probably the best and most important part of us. The thing that makes us – Us. The things that make us ourselves.

Everyone would agree that we are all unique and that there are no two people that are the same. And we would agree that this makes us all special. If this is true of ourselves why would we treat everything else that we interact with the same way. We cookie cut our lives. Isn’t it funny that we “personalize” our factory mass produced products. And from time to time we even personalize our factory mass produced products with other mass produced products, i.e. a phone case on a phone, stickers on a laptop. It’s like we inherently understand that we are different and we deserve something that is ours and represents us. We feel we need to be connected with our things. We feel that we need to be connected to our surroundings. Just like we feel we need to be connected to our family and friends to some degree or another.

To some extent our surroundings make us who we are. If the saying, we are products of our environment, is correct then the place where we live is crucial to who we become. The ideas we are exposed to, the colors we experience, the characters we interact with. If all of these things influence our minds then why not the bed room we sleep? The dinning room we eat? The living spaces we spend time with friends and family? The street we live? The community we interact with? If this is important than it is exhorting that we give the best environments to the rising generation. Which then means we have to make the changes now to give them the best. Part of that is giving them the best in design that we can offer. This includes spaces in the home and outside of the home. Giving them the safest and impactful environment for them to grow. I would hope that means that we become active in our communities to build it to help them get the foundation that they need. It is through laying a good foundation for them that has made expansions in growth both in the community and the home. Without this growth and foundation laying we set up the next generation for failure and to deal with the mess we will leave them. If we could build up the family first and then the community we would see growth of exponential magnitude. Because this would build the individuals who are strong enough to face the world we leave. We would see growth in culture and acceptance. We would see a stronger generation than the chaos we currently live. It is through building a space for growth that we can leave a mark on the world far greater than the monuments that our ancestors erected. The greatest form of success a society can see is the single growth of a child to surpass the problems and challenges their parents left. If the first sign of civilization was the success of mending a broken bone then surely the second would be the success in maintaining a place called home.

The Human Body and Architecture

As Architects, the study of the spatial and built environment and its effects on the body are crucial to design. We try to understand the effects, and good design does. The way a body moves through a space, interacts with a space, and experiences a space are so fundamental to design we can almost forget their importance as the spaces become less frequent and are replaced with cookie cut projects and repetitive ideas sprawled across the suburban scape. But in order to address the problems of the future we need strong people which means we need individuals not cookie cuts and the same goes with design. So in a way Architecture becomes one of the many ways we can address this need. The spaces we build need to create a place for diverse growth. Places where we can feel and experience the world like a kid. Places of pure connection. Cookie cut molding only produces a cookie cut person. And we will not progress forward until we understand how to break that cycle and then do. Innovation doesn’t come from a mold but a mold maker. We need spaces that will build up the individual and create the connection points that create the type of people ready for that challenge. Places where fantasy and creativity are welcomed. Spaces that reach out to the body. Not so much this callous and cold monolithic work that is impressive to the sight but puts the user outside of the work. How much have we become like the acropolis where everything was designed on the outside approach and not the hugging welcome of a mom or dad. We need spaces that build the connection of family. Spaces that tell you “I am home” It might sound old fashioned. But some things are crucial to maintain in our philosophical cultural improvement, gravity doesn’t stop working because we learned how to fly or orbit the earth. This is the type of world we live in. Individual and Family based Architecture is important but how often do we leave them in the peripheral vision of our lives.