Questions: A Design phenomenon

By Rhonda C Daugherty

Design is an ambiguous term that allows people to investigate structural or conceptual possibilities that will result in a building. But where is the connection to the human condition? Often designers search for meaning in a literal symbolic notion that directly or indirectly rips off the form of the SYMBOLIC element. Why? Why is it that the conceptual element of flight sometimes appeals to look like a bird or rings stretching out for example? When did designers become so literal?

Another architectural design phenomenon that has gain popularity over the recent years is material. Many students have recently crowded around a table and decided to investigate material as a building investigation of skin. Skin breaths, grows, and protects the internal organs of the body. When someone defines the building exterior surface to be a skin, I began to wonder how by which definition can it be called a skin. Skin…