another statement iteration

The modernists, Le Corbusier in particular, believed in creating the perfect, white, pristine building; they announce it is only in its ideal state directly after completion and before inhabitation. In contemporary design and construction, little attention seems to be paid to how a building ages and adapts over time. However, given a building’s permanence in the built environment, perhaps incorporating and controlling the effects of weathering as a vital contribution to its surroundings should be considered. Why dwell upon the solutions to avoid the effects of weathering and need to adapt when they will forever be inevitable? Full deterioration is eventually going to occur, so why not condense the time to force leftover traces more rapidly but resist utter ruination? What if architecture can still define space for inhabitation, and simultaneously embrace environmental processes?

Weathered spaces provide knowledge of the history of the space; an integrity becomes apparent. All materials are impressionable; materials involved in the space preserve their own experiences of phenomena that have occurred over time through this ability. These phenomena are of the environmental elements and humans; all inscriptions in materials create weathering. It is the discovery of prior inhabitants and occurrences in the space that create intrigue and desire for interaction.

Impressionability becomes evident by direct human interaction of repetition and degree of impact over time. Surfaces contribute to the experience and intention of the space, defining it through particular orientations layered with particular materials. The responsive nature of the materials enables activities to be traced. It is this quality of direct response to its environment that creates a space that is alive and trodden; inviting curiosity and interactive play. To capture and exaggerate traces, surfaces anticipate how people move and force a sometimes improbable physical interaction.

Human wear is determined and controlled by the texture, patterning, rhythm and adaptations of materials through time. All wear are factors of orientation, porosity of material, degree of impact, and overall climatic location which are critical in causing particular kinds of weathering. Different levels of porosity, therefore, determine the preserving of more or less evidence on a material, while different degrees of repetitive impact determine more or less physical depressions.