Beautiful Architecture: A luxury only for the wealthy?
Everyone deserves a dignified place to call home
Wandile Mthiyane is a Resolution Fellow (Class 8) and is the Founder & CEO of Ubuntu Design Group.
Aesthetic details can either be perceived as an expected part of building or a far-fetched, unnecessary luxury for the wealthy. It all depends on the community in which you live.
One of the first things I was taught at architecture school was the three central themes of architecture: firmitas (structural strength), utilitas (functionality), and venustas (beauty). These, according to Vitruvius, author of the work Ten Books of Architecture from the times of the Roman empire, are essential to the building design process in order to create a sense of eurythermal, graceful, and agreeable atmosphere in the building. I often feel like the last one, beauty, is the one that is especially being drilled into architecture students throughout their studies nowadays, but is also very often misunderstood.
Contrary to architecture school, people often see beauty as the cherry on top, or the last—sometimes unnecessary—part to be added. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Beauty is the result of structure, layout, ornaments and all these unique parts contextually coming together to form a holistic whole. You can ask 100 clients and each will have a different preference of what they “like,” but a common denominator is that the element of beauty in architecture often lies in the right combination of the seemingly minute design details: the type of the window cornice or the right choice of wood for the dinner table, which then brings warmth and reflects bright light tones to 19th century terracotta kitchen tiles. Craftsmanship alone doesn’t produce beauty neither does effective layout but the mustering of both is what produces a beautiful building.
Reality on the ground vs. theory
I took this past year off from my architecture graduate classes to explore a revolutionary design and building approach called the Ubuntu Design process. Unlike other low-income housing schemes, the Ubuntu Design process doesn’t look at a house just as a place to sleep, but also as a place to work from. The Ubuntu Home is built to have a commercial space to enable families to run business ventures to make ends meet and pay off the mortgage it took to build their home. The process was designed to enable people who live in low-income neighborhoods to creatively take charge of designing their own homes and communities, while also including self-sustenance as the end-goal.
I traveled back home to South Africa to work with the community in executing the Ubuntu process. Our first client was a family with two handicapped parents living in a tin-roofed shack. I could not wait to see them have an inclusive home that truly accommodated their needs — a home that would also financially sustain them.
What is the problem with beauty?
Overseeing the construction here in the shanty towns of Durban, however, made me realize something surprising: local builders did not share my perspective of beauty based on small details (even the walls weren’t going up straight!). To them, it didn’t matter if one brick was off by a few inches, but to me, that meant a great deal! Being part of the project architect team, I expected the building to be nothing less than stellar quality. In staying faithful to Vitruvius´ teachings, I asked them to re-do some work that I deemed unacceptable. This started a series of fights about the quality of the building between the contractor, the builders, and the designer — me.
On Sunday, my day off, while I was sitting in a local cafe, relaxing and planning for the next week, I came across an old friend of mine who lives in the area. I shared with him my complaints about the builders, hoping he would help me understand how they could be just so apathetic. He reacted with a smile and said, “Men are a product of their environment.”
“We shape our buildings, thereafter buildings shape us.” -Winston Churchill
Thinking that my friend was suggesting my builders weren’t capable of doing high-quality work, I jumped to defend the Zulu people by pointing out that some of the most elegant, ornamental buildings are the Zulu huts from Shaka Zulu’s era. This was when another question from my friend hit me: “So what has happened between that era and now?” His question was spot on.
Apartheid changed the priorities of building aesthetics within the black community. Yes, Zulu huts had great details, but during apartheid, this creativity was silenced. For a period of nearly 350 years, the average black woman, man, and child lived in conditions where “the last thing” they worried about was whether or not their wall was slightly crooked. I was surprised at myself for expecting 24 years of “freedom” of expression would have undone 345 years of oppression.
As a designer, I learned something new here: to contextualize the design and understand the local building types is not enough; it’s equally important to study the local building execution methods and quality standards. At the same time, it was humbling to come to the realization that the builders were not lazy or incapable. To them, my detail-driven vision of Vitruvian beauty was something they’ve always considered as an expensive luxury for the wealthy, whereas a poorer/ lower-income family just wants something that functions and serves their needs. However, if beauty and functionality worked well together in Zulu huts, surely they can work together again, here and now.
Functionality, strength and beauty: three sisters, one mum
Since all the builders cared about was functionality—seeing beauty as an extra luxury for the rich—I decided to change my approach: I started explaining to the contractors the benefits of adding certain structural details that would help the building to be stronger, last longer, and therefore be of a higher quality. Things like: if the wall is straight, it will last longer; if the overhang is done right, it will protect the house from weather elements and for a longer period of time, etc. Instead fighting “for beauty,” I tried explaining beauty based on what they know — functionality.
This approach finally helped us go from arguing over our “perspectives of aesthetics” to building a home you see in the pictures below: strong, functional and beautiful.
Architecture reflects the opulence (or lack thereof) of a particular family, neighborhood, or community. That is a fact. Beautiful architecture and good design (or lack thereof), however, does not have to be contingent on the financial status of the family, neighborhood, or community. I love seeing this being proved by our work with Ubuntu Design Group. Because beauty is for everyone—that’s the beauty of it.
Learn more about Wandile’s work at www.ubuntudesigngroup.com
