The social origin of the architectural program

All architectural work has as its origin and purpose to respond to the needs and aspirations of society's space, identifying this fact with architectural habitability; which depends on the culture, the place and the historical moment in which it manifests itself. To be able to recognize the content of the habitability, it is necessary to carry out a preparatory research that identifies the destination of the spaces, their location and their economy.

Some comments are presented on how to interpret the architectural program, noting that at this stage it is sought to define the intentions of architectural works rather than preparing a list of requirements, counting for this purpose on the research tools of the Psychology.

In this PsychologyOnline article, we will discuss The social origin of the architectural program.

Index

1. Objectives and Theoretical Framework
2. The purpose and cause of the architectural program
3. Identification of architectural habitability
4. Fate and the chronotopic law
5. Subjectivity and objectivity, the problem and the program
6. The economics of architectural work
7. Final comments
8. Contributions.

This document arises from the reading of the Architect José Villagrán García, mainly from the texts entitled "The Theoretical Structure of the Architectural Program" and "The morphology of the shape". It is intended to recapitulate his ideas and point out the contributions that Social Sciences in general and Psychology in particular can make to the subject. For many professionals and architecture teachers, José Villagrán is an author out of time.

For professionals, during their practice, there is not much time to reflect on the approaches put forward by Villagrán or any other, reflection seems somewhat useless. On the other hand, some teachers confuse the theory with current style currents, without observing that one thing is the way of giving expressive form to architectural works and another is the way of explain them.

Given these circumstances, I wish to return to the sense of theory with an academic purpose, understanding it as a comprehensive synthesis of the knowledge that a science has obtained in the study of a certain order of facts. Observing that knowledge is not fashions, it is reasoning that is demonstrated with facts and arguments that, while no facts or arguments are found to deny or modify them, they continue to be valid regardless of their epoch.

It is for this reason that I interpret Villagrán, because his arguments are efficient, even when there are new contributions that complement him, as will be explained below.

The analyze the architectural program has relevance due to the lack of bibliography and agreement on what it is and contains. In addition to being of fundamental importance, since it represents the first stage of conception of the architectural work, the one that guides, establishes the criteria of the project and the parameters to evaluate the efficiency or not of the results of the same.

It should be noted that when analyzing the architectural program from Villagrán's perspective, it does not represent a design method, it raises the tools theoretical concepts of a research method to identify the goals to be followed by the architectural composition, represents the conceptual process initial identification and conception of the requirements that the work must meet to fully satisfy the habitability needs of the humanity.

Of course the approach and development of these ideas imply a definition of the architecture and the conception process that can be widely discussed. The present work does not pretend a finished position, it only seeks to participate in the reflection that the subject requires.

To understand what the architectural program is, it is important to locate its origin and its purpose, that is, to identify not only the causes in a mechanical way, but also to expose the logic to which it responds. Only from these clarifications will it be possible to understand the content of making architecture, its teleology.

The purpose and cause of architecture is to build habitable spaces, that is, spaces in which man and society can satisfy their space needs in an integrated and full way. For this reason its origin It is man and society, that is obvious, however it is important to explain how buildings and environments should satisfy spatial needs in an integral way? In what way can the natural space and the cultural space be transformed, to obtain buildings and cities in which man inhabits?

Habitability must be the goal of any architectural program, because when it ceases to be, the forms built are not architecture, even if they respond to other purposes that, such as habitability, may be essential.

The habitability does not refer only to the interior and closed built spaces, but to all the spaces that in the broad connotation architecture encompasses the delimited as the delimiting (the walls and the space they contain), both built and natural or landscaping.

HABITABILITY IS THE ESSENTIAL CATEGORY OF THE ARCHITECTURAL PROGRAM.

To achieve this end it is necessary understand culture and use this knowledge for the elaboration of architectural spaces. Different factors intervene in this process, which will be explained below:

What every architect needs to do to start his work is to know what he wants to build, this fact seems simple, however, it is It is necessary for the architect to define for what purpose it is intended to build, the destination that a work will have, which depends on the place and the historical moment in which it is find.

A common fact is simplify this work through prototypes, as if automatically using a model would achieve success. Experience shows its failure through the rejection of society.

Enrique del Moral in his work "El Hombre y la Arquitectura" published by the UNAM points out that when the architect imposes his criteria, he generates sterile works, lacking social meaning. Thus, the first step that the architect must take is to understand the spatial need of the inhabitant, which he can only be achieved when the architect himself has knowledge of the way a culture lives and manifests its personality. Observing that understanding the spatial problem goes beyond culture, since if this end is not achieved the inconveniences are manifested economically when the spaces, by not responding to the expectations of the inhabitants, lose value or, when the constructions, by not responding to the demands of society, become a conflict political.

To begin the explanation of how to respond to the demands of space and define the content of architectural works, his destiny, Villagrán invites us to consider what he calls the Chronotopic Law. In it he explains that all cultures are unique and even when they come to share times or spaces that identify them, the development of each of them is different.

It should be noted that the problem of cultural diversity is also experienced by each individual; the architect himself lives this process and gives his personal style to his work in such a way that even he himself must get to know himself.

In order for an architect to be able to carry out his work, he needs to understand what they are the beliefs, and spatial behaviors of the inhabitants, Why do they act in a certain way, how do they judge the facts and locate the objectives of their daily life, without knowing this, they would act blindly. Even when he knows that he has a specific commission, his imagination will not be able to operate knowing only the idea of ​​the building, destiny alone does not solve in its the whole problem.The construction will be different according to the place where it is located, not only because of the climate, but also the soil and the culture of the place. will affect.

The inhabitant and even the architect react differently depending on the historical moment they live and the place in which meet, for this same reason the destination acquires different profiles according to its spatial location and temporary.

It is very important to observe that all culture occurs in time and space, in such a way that by varying any of these coordinates varies the whole culture, changing in a progressive or regressive sense but changing finally. From these changes it is possible to observe how identity and cultural evolution or imposition and cultural confrontation are manifested.

When posing a problem to any architect, it is unavoidable to intuit a form. If, for example, you are asked to build a house, the first thing that occurs to you is to formulate a personal idea that it is a "house". If he developed his work only from that archetype, he would fall into the aforementioned errors, so, from this idea, of this archetype, it is necessary to ask oneself all the particularities in order to get out of it and penetrate into the concretion of what is particular.

Ask for example:

• What is this house going to be used for? ¿
• What kind of house do they want?
• What capacity will it have?
• What way of living will the people who inhabit them have?

The awareness of what the space needs to contain to satisfy the needs of the inhabitant, identifying the spatial demands is not easy or immediate to consciousness. It is a more practical than rational fact.

Answering the previous questions is not enough to give a full meaning to the demands of the space, it is necessary to ask other elementary questions next to What for? It is also essential to know the where? The place where a space is to be built is not a fundamental element to define the purpose, as the basic principle of the Demand is found in man and society, however, it will not be possible to give a full answer to it without understanding the place where the inhabitant is located. Its climate, topography and geology. These aspects determine the various manifestations of culture and the various constructive forms that solve the difficulties that the environment offers to achieve a more habitable space for being human.

The problem of the architect is to become aware of what the inhabitant lives, for which he has to carry out an investigation.

Specifically, Villagrán points out that the law of chronotopes applied to the program, that is, TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SPACE REQUIREMENTS THAT A WORK TO PROJECT MUST SATISFY, is expressed by saying that: to each historical time and to each geographical space, there corresponds a Program and vice versa: every Program is determined by its location, both in space and in weather. In other words, each Program is structured according to its chronotopic location and, consequently, no program can belong to a time other than its own or a space different from their own, regardless of whether, at a given moment, the cultures of two different geographical spaces coincide and their physical determinants also coincide by same. The variations are subject to human vital attitudes to the culture that animates them.

It should be noted that the chronotopic location It provokes various relationships between the subjectivity of the architect and the objective conditions in which the problem of space that demands an architectural intervention arises.

The objective of the determinate space-time is filtered by the subjective of the inhabitant and at the same time by the subjectivity of the architect. These determinants are learned by him and are projected onto the program, making a "diagnosis". a first image of knowledge, a principle of creation, the result of the idea that the architect of the problem makes, and for the same reason loaded with subjectivity and relative objectivity, since the diagnosis is based on the origin determinants posed by the his problem.

The subjectivity and objectivity are categories of the architectural program, noting that it is determined by the problem, both remain correlated but independent of each other, the problem is apprehended by the architect and the program is the result of this apprehension (an analysis is carried out and a synthesis is reached, the parties are identified and later a judgment is made).

There are three elements that are presented in this process of identifying habitability: the objective problem (in which the subjectivity of the culture and the objectivity of the environment in which it is located is present) the architect as subject (which he also subjectively filters, according to his training and personality of the objective problem) and finally the program which thus acquires a subjective and objective character simultaneously.

The architect filters the ideas of the problem in two media, one that of the culture in which he moves and the other in his personality.

The reigning culture establishes circumstantial purposes based on the ways of living and building, and then goes through these same circumstances through the personality of the architect. This provokes styles, marks epochs, identifies cultures and makes architecture as diverse as humanity itself.

"These simple reflections show that the problem lies outside the architect and that only his apprehension is up to.(not only intellectual, also emotional)and its projection in the program itself, from this first step of creation to continue towards the other two times of this transcendent process":

• Experience
• Identification of the expressive demands of society (Diagnosis)
• Idea formation

The objective character of the problem places the architect in front of it and not within it. It is the problem itself, mediated by the generic client and the consultants who work in their approach, which provides the architect with the picture in front of which he formulates the questionnaire that his preparation and talent inspire him, with the idea of ​​capturing in the best way all the determinants who has said problem, through personal evidence of it, investigates it, ventures into it and in the end elaborates his first creative step which is the Program.

This research process is what we call architectural propaedeutics due to the similarity that this study has with the pre-operative medical and surgical procedures; since both tend to obtain symptomatic data through which the doctor and the surgeon establish their diagnosis and from there propose the treatment that should be followed with the patient.

The architect proceeds in a similar manner. From his experience he arrives at the composition. It is necessary to take care to imagine the architect as the source of solution to any problem that arises, it is essential to know the problem before attempting a proposal.

Every program, in its general aspect, apparently refers to a series of determinants and essential purposes that come from habitat and culture; in such a way that the architect of all times has learned these determinants in the geographical-physical and in the geographical-cultural area; but it should not lose sight of the fact that in all cases, the same culture stands in front of these two massifs. as a guide and structuring nerve or soul, of the apprehension of it and, importantly, of its self-contemplation.

Among the aspects that the architect must investigate, knowing What resources are available to do the work? know the amount of financial resources available to carry out the work. Only by having the complete answer to these three points will the necessary elements be available to being able to conceive an idea, in imagination first, on paper later and finally in construction herself.

Villagrán states that a program is: " the set of requirements that a work to be designed must satisfy"Understanding that set of demands is vitally important.

From the above it can be understood that the demands represent what the architect identifies as spatial demand, after knowing the needs and spatial aspirations of the inhabitant, the place where he thinks to locate the space with which he seeks to satisfy his spatial demand and the resources with which account.

Villagrán criticizes the elaboration of an economic or functional list of what the building needs to have because this causes that the architectural program loses its content and becomes a barely eloquent set of data without meaning and without analysis. Villagrán is interested in the program identifying what culturally, symbolically, the space needs acquire as content, that this identification motivates and guides the process of composition and construction of the construction site.

It is obvious that the economic and functional must be present, but it is essential that the architect feels the purposes and desires that the inhabitant wishes to achieve with the space.

The simple and fundamental questions about That? For what? Where? With what ? They must be resolved by the architect to clearly determine the habitability requirements that will guide the entire architectural process.

Perhaps the problem is in the word program, understanding with it a way of ordering activities, such as an announcement or exhibition of what is planned to be done. Perhaps it is more convenient to speak of Architectural Intentions. That is a point that should be analyzed in the academy and that for now only remains as a comment.

Another important aspect to highlight is the approach of solve human needs in an "integral" way By exposing, he expresses his concern that man find satisfaction in his physical, biological, social, psychological, and aesthetic condition. Only by satisfying all the requirements would a complete habitability and a total conception of the needs be achieved.

Identifying these different dimensions habitability is not an easy task, especially the psychosocial and aesthetic elements, in which culture manifests the way of thinking and judge, to the degree that they modify the judgment of the physical and biological depending on the social formation in which a way of think. It is necessary to make a few more observations on these aspects.

The way to value a built space, does not depend on unique and universal criteria, when observing in different times, diverse manifestations of being and living, different ways of give content and expression to architectural works, in such a way that the way to evaluate them does not depend on what a critic personally thinks, it depends on the correct location in time and space of the work and the correspondence between the needs and aspirations of society with the spaces that built.

For the architect to define his professional intentionss or the evaluation criteria of a built space, it is essential that you recognize what the inhabitant of the space needs or wants and what content they give it.

This is not an easy task and from Villagrán's perspective it depends on the artistic sensibility of the artist. professional as these aspirations and needs are of a spiritual nature, with a content of diversity infinite. And indeed they are, but it is appropriate to resort to what Psychology can contribute to identify them.

There are various tools that allow us to recognize the way in which the inhabitants perceive their space and the way in which they evaluate it, which may be useful to the architect, depending on the proper use of the themselves.

Cognitive maps, semantic networks, simulation of environments, behavioral observation, attitude scales, are some of them.

These psychometric techniques, formulated by a discipline in training such as Environmental Psychology, has not yet found its place in the professional field of Architecture due to the lack of of orientation of the objectives of one and the other, while for psychology the problem is to identify their categories of analysis (overcrowding or satisfaction for example) or in the best of cases it explains the interaction of man and his space in a general way, for architecture his fundamental problem is the conception of the content that space requires to have, also analyzes the relationship of man with space but in a very particular way in the works architectural. However, the need to link one and the other is raised in the discourse of architecture itself and its articulation is unavoidable.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to The social origin of the architectural program, we recommend that you enter our category of Social psychology.