Architecture
From MetaforasWiki
| Foundations | Structure | Metafora | Inflection | Return to Metaforas.org |
Everything designed has an architecture, from a building to a teapot to a web site. From the moment we wake up in the morning everything we interact with is designed, whether by professional or amateur hands, or even through natural evolution. Architecture defines the shape, movement, usability, experience and, ultimately, the humanity of our interactions. It creates human intercourse by giving us our places to live and to form community. The complexity of our species is reflected in the cities we have built. Consciously or unconsciously, their architecture reflects the best and the worst of what it means to be human.
The World Trade Center in New York City reminds us that architecture can do more than communicate. It is life itself. It was the design of the stairways and safety exits of the World Trade Center that permitted its evacuation and saved thousands of lives, although some say engineering flaws hastened its collapse. A fire chief once remarked that fire safety codes were holy books: each rule had been bought at the cost of human life. Today, the issues revolving around the site—what, how, and why something new should be built contains in it all the struggles of our humanity.
