Pantheon of Wonder
Essay
Strategy: Know What Your Occupants Perceive When They Look Around
by Maria Lorena Lehman
Image Strategies
Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:
As you design your architecture, notice not only the common vantage points, where your occupants look straight ahead as they travel through your building, but also vantage points like when they look upward. While occupants don’t often look upward while walking through your building — you may want to reward them for being just curious enough to look in other directions: upward, left, right, and downward. Remember your occupants aren’t looking straight ahead all of the time. Design key moments where it would make sense for your occupants to look — an invitation to explore your design, making it more than just a building they go through, but turning it instead to a building that “heightens” their experience.
To Apply This Strategy, Ask Yourself:
As you’re designing, ask yourself about those key milestone moments within your design that will speak to your occupants as they journey through. After all, you are in a sense writing an architectural story, where you guide your occupants to look, hear, touch, smell, and so forth. Also, remember that with well-designed milestone moments within your design, you can change occupant speed, as occupants typically slow down to look upward, or speed up if they see something ahead that they want to explore more closely. Understand that you are guiding occupants with your design, through their perception. And knowing this can help you to design a more powerful architecture that speaks to them on more exciting and engaging levels.
Image Caption: Walt Disney Concert Hall
Image Credit: © gtall1 | Flickr
Maria Lorena Lehman has received the following awards and has been seen in the following publications: