Affordances of Architectural Typology is a design and drawing-based research activity that seeks to explore and further define strategies that target resilient buildings that are nonetheless thoroughly architectural in nature. Borrowing the key term of James J. Gibson’s ecological psychology: “affordance is equally a fact of the environment and behaviour. It is both physical and psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and the observer." In Architecture, we understand Affordances as the composition and layout of a building that directly impacts what it can afford. The correlation of Architectural Typologies with Affordances is thus an index of longevity, as it illustrates how a building adapts to or enables different uses and habitation over time.
The central thesis (and architectural ambition) of the course is thus to show that the degree of typological spatial determination of a building is directly related to its degree of affordances and, therefore, of resilience.
- Trainer/in: Jörg Gleiter
- Trainer/in: Tran Ngoc Anh Hoffmann