Making Architecture: a mediation approach to rethinking design-use relations in architectural design

Making architecture: the agency of designers, users and artefacts in architectural design 

It has long been recognized that our ways of living and being are closely linked with the built environment. Humans make buildings and spaces – through design and through use. And in turn buildings and spaces make us: they co-shape our experiences and practices. Although architects are generally well aware of architectural design as a socially significant activity, there is little guidance for architects (both theoretical and practical) to anticipate how buildings and spaces actually become part of and co-shape our everyday lives.

Contemporary approaches in the philosophy of technology increasingly focus on the influence and role of concrete technological artefacts (e.g., buildings and spaces) in the relation between people and reality. These approaches illuminate aspects of what is called ‘technological mediation’. The central premise of this study is that knowledge of technological mediation offers a basis to better understand the complex interplay between architects, users and the built environment itself, through which form and meaning of spaces and buildings are negotiated (over time). Accordingly, the goal of this study is to link knowledge of technological mediation and knowledge of architectural design practice to develop a conceptual framework that can guide architects to anticipate the role of the buildings- and spaces-in-design in human experiences and practices.