Use – What is it used for?
Atmosphere – How does it make us feel?
Tectonics – How is it built?

The Three Questions of Architecture

Architecture affects how we inhabit space and allows us to perceive the reasons for its building. What is it used for? How should it make us feel? How was it built? Architecture that answers these three questions leads us to a more thorough grasp of our actions in life.

Use
What is this building used for? This is the first question of architecture. All else grows out of the answer to this question. The use of a thing is the broadest of all questions. Asking the use of a thing is to ask its relationship to our lives. As such, use is the meaning of building. Why do we build buildings? In order to use them. Use includes the intended purposes of a building as well as the incidental ways in which people use spaces beyond their intents. Use includes individual activity, as well as the larger utilities of social, cultural, economic, and political ends. Use includes both physical and mental needs; buildings aid us in our thinking and in our doing. As a designer, thinking should be spread laterally in search of every possible use of a building. Condense these uses to get at heart of the most important uses for a building. Try to understand the overarching truths of these uses, for the use of a building is its meaning to exist.

The next two questions focus on how to carry over a thorough understanding of use to a building’s inhabitants.

Atmosphere
How should we feel while inhabiting this building? What should our attitude be while partaking in the uses within? Atmosphere is the feeling of a space. Atmosphere is influenced by every single one of our senses. Atmosphere includes the way light affects a space, the ambient sounds of a space, and the textural qualities of things. Atmosphere is affected by color, geometry, materiality, and the activity of people (or the lack thereof). The question of atmosphere is of vital importance, for if atmosphere is misaligned with use, the use will change, potentially towards undesirable outcomes. Public plazas of barren or hostile atmosphere bring about barren or hostile inhabitation. Likewise, intimately scaled parks adorned with lively plantings bring about intimate interactions and lively human activity. The atmosphere of a space plays an important role in helping inhabitants grasp the various meanings of the uses in which they are participating by giving them an accompanying feeling. How should I feel about this moment in my life? What is the significance of this use to my life and to the lives of others? When a person perceives the meanings of use, they become able to use a space more fully. They will also find a deeper appreciation of that use within their lives. As a designer, take a building’s uses and pair them poetically with ideal atmospheres. Discover how we should feel in a space, for the atmosphere of a space is our attitude towards its use.

The last question focuses on how to carry over use and atmosphere into physical building.

Tectonics
How can a building be built for its use? How can its tectonics create the right atmospheres? Tectonics is how we manifest a vision. It is how we realize an intended use and atmosphere. Tectonics determines both the positives and negatives of form. It is the design of spaces and their adjacencies as well as the design of solids and how the many parts of a building come together. Tectonics determines how people move through space and experience it, and it also determines how air, water, and light are experienced or suppressed. Tectonics is the part to whole relationship of the building, and it contains the reality of a building’s construction. Tectonics, properly worked out, holds a building together, both physically and conceptually. Tectonics is the last stage of the architectural design process, and it is the force of synthesis and manifestation into the physical world. As a designer, transform thoughts of use and atmosphere into physicality by employing methods that are primarily physical. In determining how a building is built, tectonics expresses human ingenuity against the forces of the world beyond.

Through inhabitation, we find a full and intuitive understanding of our actions, our feelings, and our humanity. Architecture helps us to realize our meanings of life, our attitudes towards living, and the ways in which we exist within the world.