How Buildings Learn

Corine Britto
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

How buildings learn is a study on our relationship with the buildings we inhabit. Buildings are traditionally thought of as stagnant, inanimate objects. This essay portrays them as living things which change and grow over time. She analyzes why some buildings adapt and others don’t. Building adapt poorly because we change but they don’t necessarily change and grow with us. They persist long after our way of life has evolved.

Brand observes that building is both a noun and a verb. Although we design buildings they also influence us. Building happens around a dynamic, say an office with many employees. When that dynamic changes — say workers are laid off, buildings now have to adapt to that change. Buildings are at the mercy of technology, money and fashion. Different types of building grow in different ways. Commercial buildings tend to be a symbol of the organization’s state. They grow or shrink quickly with the organization. Institutional building defy change as institutional change happens so slowly.

Buildings have layers, as all living things do. Brand breaks building down into six layers — site, structure, skin, services, space plan, stuff. These are ordered from enduring to easily modified. The slowest moving elements dominate the more flexible elements. Structure determines the capacity for growth. Service determine longevity of a building. An adaptive building manages varying rates of change between these layers. According to Chris Alexander, who writes about how design occurs in the natural world, we need to study systems that have endured in nature and mimic them. Adaptation is the key to longevity. It must be thoughtful, intelligent and deliberate. People are a part of this buildings we inhabit. We must nurture them which allows them endure and nurture us in return.

This reading transformed my outlook on the buildings I inhabit. My perspective of buildings changed from that of walls I mindlessly inhabit to a more symbiotic one. I imagine a farmer caring for his crops and receiving an abundant harvest in return. It would serve us all to apply this perspective to the world around us on a more frequent basis.

    Corine Britto

    Written by

    I am a textile designer studing to be an interaction designer.