Architectural context: A Peircean frame', Interpretants of Charles Pierce and his work
(2002) Architectural context: A Peircean frame', Interpretants of Charles Pierce and his work.
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Abstract
ABSTRACT. Examples of the built environment are often discussed in terms of a building — that which is drawn up and represented through documentation and realised as a structure such as a house, a restaurant, hospital or high-rise office block. I propose, however, as an alternative to considering the thing we design as a building or a cluster of buildings surrounded by landscape, that the conception of the environmental situation has great benefits. Why is the environmental situation a more appropriate way to understand the built environment or 'the thing' that a designer designs? The built environment exists in the world simultaneously as an interpretation and as a tangible entity which influences the processes of interpretation. These dimensions come together as the architectural experience. In order to address the 'everydayness' of built environments, the complexity of the environmental situation, and architectural experience, a multi-dimensional framework is required. A methodological rationale was developed by the integration of existing approaches to investigating and describing the person environment relationship, with the philosophy of inquiry espoused by C.S. Peirce (Smith,2001). The use of an open approach to inquiry and analysis incorporating Narrative Inquiry and Grounded Theory, also served to capture the built environment as experience and as interwoven relationships, rather than through the traditional discourses of form and function. A 'Peircean approach' also potentiates a new discourse which allows disparate theoretical stances to be amalgamated including the works of Wittgenstein, Schulz, Peirce, Eco and others. It thereby merges and potentiates new ways of discussing the built environment, as well as, differing relationships with people and the process of interpretation. As a consequence, the context of our design decisions may be challenged and extended by framing our approach with this knowledge. This paper is an introduction to some of the issues involved in adopting a Peircean framework to the studies of the built environment.
| Item Type: | Other |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Keywords: | Peirce, architecture, design, interpretation, semiotics, semiosis |
| Subjects: | 310000 Architecture, Urban Environment and Building > 310100 Architecture and Urban Environment 310000 Architecture, Urban Environment and Building > 319900 Other Architecture, Urban Environment and Building > 319999 Other Architecture, Urban Environment and Building 310000 Architecture, Urban Environment and Building > 310100 Architecture and Urban Environment > 310106 Interior and Environmental Design |
| ID Code: | 7791 |
| Deposited By: | Smith, Dr Dianne J |
| Deposited On: | 18 May 2007 |
| Alternative Locations: | http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/smith/context.html, http://www.cspeirce.com/ |
| Copyright Owner: | Copyright 2002 Dianne Smith |