Abstract
Bill Wurster, dean of architecture at M.1.T. and U.C. Berkeley, often described the designer's challenge by saying that "The building is not the 'picture', but only the 'frame' for the picture. The 'picture' in the frame is human life." That is, a building should not merely function as an art object, but as a means of facilitating and enhancing the life of the people who use it. This being so, the validity of evaluating the designer's ability by means of artistic photographs of unpopulated buildings (as in the architectural magazines) is seen as meaningless. Instead of pictures of empty stage-sets, we need critical evaluations of the plays that take place on the stage. This is the function of "post-construction evaluation", and of continuous environmental management. Design competence does not depend on the judgement of one's professional peers, but must be evaluated in terms of the ongoing experiences of the building's users. From this it follows that there is an important need to identify the various groups of people who will use the new building, and to profile their varied characteristics, capabilities, and needs and goals. Without such an awareness there is no basis for humanistic design. Architects by training are very different from "most people", and for them to rely on themselves as the "measure" is the ultimate act of arrogance. Given these identities and profiles we are then in position to prepare the experiential programs for each category of user. These are the performance specifications for the building, and the architect's humanistic "brief". They are based on the behavior circuit, as individual time-based sequences of required and optional or alternative activities relating space, facilities, equipment and human interactions in each of the many on-site activity programs. Ideally they are prepared in consultation with a representative sample of the several groups of users to be involved with the building. With this understanding of what the building is to afford for the many different personalities concerned in many different ways, the designer's challenge then can be seen to provide the spatial arrangements which will implement the programs while enhancing the experiential qualities of those participating in these programs: as determined and evaluated by those users themselves; and no others. In our emerging global circumstances of pluralistic and egalitarian societies, how adequately are our schools preparing the new design professionals for these unprecedented competencies?
