Architecture and Behavior

(WHY?)

Architecture contains social activities and human behaviors. However, architecture is usually shaped by the function it serves, by the need of city, or by interests of architects instead of by the behavior of people. So I’m wondering if there is any possibility that we could design from the point of social life or human behavior, and set up better relationship between physical environment and perception or experience of people. Behavior contains a large domain, like individual act (the frequency of using some part of the house of a certain person), common behavior (the route that people will choose in a public plaza), custom behavior (costal residents would gather things left over by the sea when tide is ebbing), ritual behavior (Tibetan Ritual of worship during the way to the Potala Palace) and extreme behavior (the Fishing Island has been visited frequently by ships in recent years). All these happen within certain spaces or urban environment. We can say these behaviors affected by certain spaces or spaces somehow shaped by the phenomenon. So I would like research into the relationship and interaction between architecture and behavior.

(WHAT?)

As I have mentioned above, there is a large domain under the name of behavior. So here I raise some specific points in order to cut into the topic. For example, 1) Sense of privacy in relation to the access of sound. Listening, as the second largest sensor of human being, plays an indispensable role in our living quality in relation to the sense of privacy, no matter during working, resting or playing. Can we improve the sound quality of a living unit, a lecture hall or even a city square? Can we design a space which needs some level of privacy (like restaurant or office building) according to the isolation of sound instead of sight? Can we control the decibel of certain noise in urban environment or even bring sound from place A to place B so that we could bring this issue to a social or urban level? 2) Level of Density and Sense of Crowding. Hong Kong as one of the high-density city in the world actually is not crowded everywhere. So I would like to take the opportunity to study the relationship between the frequency of traffic, level of density and sense of crowding. 3) Reviving custom or ritual behavior through new methodology. Special behavior usually shapes unique form. And we can take in that memory and unfold the history in a way which could be better perceived by people.

(HOW?)

01 Phenomenon—>02 Extract—>03 Abstract—>04 Logic—>05 Design

Research always comes as the first place of my methodology. I would like to see Phenomenon, Extract, Abstract, Logic, all these stages as part of the research. And there would be a lot of ways (and funs) to investigate and record people behavior. With all these information, we could extract some factors as variables and then build an abstract model to describe the phenomenon. And that’s where our logic and design come from. During design stage, I always like to integrate structure into the idea instead of leaving it along till it becomes a problem. And I like to use detail drawings to show big concept.