QUANTIFIABLE ARCHITECTURE

Let’s establish Quantifiable Architecture.  Architecture should be quantified.  Architecture can be quantified.  That is to say, metrics can be established which give numerical values to aspects and features of our buildings.  And we establish these metrics not by measuring the building, but by measuring the people.

We build buildings for people.  Architecture is for people.  People inhabit and work in the buildings that we design.  We don’t typically do architecture for, say, sheep.  So if we want to have a metric for what good architecture is, we need to start measuring the biometrics of the people who are inside our buildings.  See Ignorance Of Architecture for a previous page.

Our profession has begun to develop various metrics which quantify buildings.  The Building Code, for example, provides quantifiable minimum targets for some aspects of building performance;  it specifies minimum thermal performance, minimum lighting levels. etc.   LEED has given us a metric to use to measure whole building energy performance.  There are many websites that discuss the rationale for and how to measure the, typically, energy performance of a building.  For example, the USGBC makes the assertion that human cognition is higher when the indoor air quality is better.  All well and good, yet these focus solely on quantifying the building.

Here is another study that I found which tries to quantify changes in human physiological responses for an old office workspace compared with renovated office workspace.  This study links the physical work environment to the stress response. And as you would expect, the more comfortable and supportive the interior environment, the lower the human stress.  The more windows, the better the light, the less mechanical noise, all contribute, as we know, to a lower human stress response.  Again, all well and good.

But we are not measuring, with any sort of rigor, the holistic impact on the human as a result of living, working, recreating, etc., in our buildings.  We absolutely need to start developing a new language and new quanta for what these effects are.  We need to start to develop agreed upon units that quantify the building’s impact on humans.  Again, humans are ultimately impacted by our designs.  The only purpose of buildings is to shelter humans from the exterior environment so they can live and work in relative comfort.  Yet we can’t quantify these impacts with any sort of holistic understanding.  We hear all the time that the energy efficiency of our buildings have a significant impact on our nation’s energy use, which effects things like air quality, landfills, etc.  Yet where are the metrics that quantify how buildings change and impact our lives?  What could be more important than quantifying human performance / emotion in our buildings?  How can we call ourselves designers if we can’t provide any sort of quantifiable human metrics for what we do?  How can we permit the cultural costs of a mediocre, unresponsive and under performing built environment to continue to accrue?  What are the societal costs of buildings that are mediocre and therefore induce stress, depression, dissatisfaction, etc. to the occupants?

You are telling me that while we call ourselves professionals, that we are so complacent that we do not have any sorts of quanta or data which objectively quantify the effects of our buildings on the humans that occupy them?  How can we be so remiss?  How can we be so complacent?  How can we be content simply with the pretty Photoshopped pictures of our buildings as if it is the only recording of our buildings that matters?

These quanta would then become a tool with which we can both predict the human’s biometric responses during design and then measure their responses in the resultant building.  Take light, as an example.  We know that it has to be bright enough for people to do their work.  It can’t be too bright or they won’t be able to see their computer screens.  There can’t be glare.  Nor can there be shadows.  But what we need are objective, measurable, units which quantify the effect of light on humans.  This new definition of light would be established with biometric measurements across the variables of light transmittance of the glass, the range of light that is brought in a window over the course of a year, the light modifying performance of any window shades, etc.  Eskimos have 50 different words for snow, all of which control for humidity, temperature, depth, wind, freeze/thaw, crunch, fluff, etc.   Architects should have 50 different values, or terms, that can be applied to light inside our buildings.

You say, how ridiculous, how can this be quantified?  Over the past, say, 30 years, there have been previously unimagined new human understandings.  Consider that not too long ago, second hand cigarette smoke in the environment was not considered dangerous.  I’m sure at the time, it was said, well, you can’t measure that;  what about variability in each human, what about variability in each environment?  Another example: we have HSI studies which measure human performance in complex environments.  Another example:  we have studies which track human cognition across variables such as extreme heat, humidity, etc.  All of these are a start.

But we need for this to be unified.  We need a holistic, scientifically derived set of quanta that tracks human biometric responses.  Experiments need to be designed.  Funding need to be sourced. Biometric readings need to be taken with wearable tech.  We need a unified, objective, quantifiable parametric which allows us to bring architecture into a new age of understanding.  In this manner, costs can be offset with physiological and biometric positives.  In this manner, there is greater societal agreement regarding the benefits of various design elements.  In this manner, the costs to society can be understood for both bad design, which is the norm, and good design.  Can you imagine that with these metrics, we would no longer permit the construction of mediocre tract houses, in the same way that we no longer permit the transmission of second hand cigarette smoke, both because the societal costs are too great?

This is a new field of study.  With these metrics, the designer is given, for the first time, objective direction on what to design for.  The user will be able to forecast the effects of increased human satisfaction, which might include lower turnover, greater efficiency, increased happiness, greater positive energy, etc.  There is no limit to the societal benefits that this field of study will yield.

Architecture is for humans!  We need Quantifiable Architecture!

A note of thanks to my daughter and wife, both architects, who facilitated the definition of Quantifiable Architecture during a long and intense after dinner discussion on our screen porch a few nights ago.  Why they put up with me I have no idea