Part III:

The investigation here is one of contextual specificity; using the site’s region to inform the design and performing ability of an actively inhabited structure is an ideal, diluted in recent periods. The stresses of cost-effective efficiency by polarization of building types and materials have seduced many in the realms of accessible architecture. This is not due to disinterest in multifaceted and variously scaled design, but a neglect of investigation and lack of rigor when considering even the most commonly used private spaces. The paradigm needs to shift toward a responsive architecture which does not simply apply the ideals of the organic architecture movement cosmetically, but employs the attributes of its surrounding landscapes on a functional level.

The technology of weatherproofing has not evolved incrementally, but exponentially; the challenge is to decipher which of these elements have developed blindly. There is a balance which has existed, then out of necessity for lack of technology, but which has now been lost due to an overzealous technological drive to battle what we once accepted; we now have the means to reintroduce hardscape and softscape. We do not need to become depended on this same technology to encapsulate ourselves in hermetically sealed boxes, but we must become aware of our voluntary negligence and transform our technological feats into a means of blurring the line of what is traditionally thought of as exclusively interior and exterior.