Architecture, Technology, and Environment

Abstract

When design and technology are too widely separated in the architectural curriculum, the informing knowledge of technology is not engaged as a design issue. As an outcast to the creative design process, architectural technology itself becomes outmoded: It is not thought about and developed as a partner to the expression of architecture. Design becomes disengaged from the means of making architecture and disconnected from the world and its informing environmental insights.Lack of knowledge of technology and environment is evident in the negative and in some cases disastrous impact of buildings—some held up as design exemplars—on both the natural and human environment. To bridge the gaps that exist in the architectural curriculum, educators must establish sustaining linkages between design inspiration and technological and environmental knowledge. Technology here does not mean the mechanistic icons and artifacts of current construction techniques. It is best defined as knowledge gained in the making, the accumulated insights into architecture learned from the experience of its processes and its place. If there is agreement on this conception, only modest changes are needed to integrate design, technology, and environment throughout the curriculum.