How Many Times Is Enough? Rationalizing Program and Optimizing Performance Through [Repeated] Human-Building Interaction

Abstract

Performance in architecture today supersedes the simple characterization of “devising a set of practical solutions to a set of largely practical problems” (Kolarevic, 2004), to now place emphasis on what the building does across numerous dimensions -- notably how it affects and how it transforms -- based on quantifiable, qualifiable and intangibilities of the architectural ‘object’. On the other side, we question how buildings are interpreted, which is contingent on the idea of interactivity – the interaction between buildings and their users, or the container and the contained. In this discourse, however, too much emphasis has been placed on the purely spatial aspects of experiencing architecture at the expense of other understandings – one of which is, vitally, the concept of time.

The goal of this paper, therefore, is to explore how (the frequency of) human-building interaction can constitute the basis for decisions surrounding programming and design optimization. This research, considering space + time in concert, deploys meta-analysis of literature, coupled with case studies and logical argumentation, to shape a provocation and proposition.