ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

By Om Bharti

B.Arch First year

Dr. Madhuri Agarwal
Gautam Buddha University
Greater Noida, U.P
10th Nov 2019
 Architecture And Technology
Technology opens the door to the future. It is one of the main essences that shape
and change the way society behaves, as well as transcends the surrounding to suit
the way society lives. Nowadays, the effect of technology has reached almost every
level of the society, and one of them is modern building technology. It has great im-
plication in the creation of space in both architecture and interior design. Since the
early days, architecture is one of the most important needs of man. It provides space
to live and works, an environment for interaction and provoking emotions, as well as
a realm where experiences and memories are created. Feelings and emotions are
evoked by the form and shape, the arrangement of forms and by relationships that
space draws with the surroundings. It affects every part of human senses. As tech-
nology developed, the meaning of architecture started to adapt accordingly.

Formerly, with conventional building construction technology such as wood-framed,

stone-stacking and mud bricks structures, the shape and form of architecture that
could be achieved was only a simple and pure form. It led to a trend of homoge-
neous building, which made architecture looks similar with its surroundings. Because
of this limitation, architects and designers became more sensitive and focused on
crafting experiences in a space. These experiences then become memories that will
be remembered by the visitor and elements that differentiate one building from an-
other. As this continues, because of the limitation on the materials, building’s visual
aesthetic is slowly decreasing. Currently, with the creation and development of new
building materials and technologies, the inventions of cutting-edge and futuristic
looking forms and shapes are possible. New materials and structures are evolved
and manufactured everywhere. These advancements have made architects trying to
work out and explore the possibility of how these new materials can be used to elab-
orate and create new structures for buildings. Unintentionally, these advancements
has also made them became so attached to visual appearance. Meaning that majori-
ty of them concentrate on using technology in order to discover new forms and
shapes for architecture in order to reflect the idea for which it was designed. The de-
sign of the building that focused on visual aesthetics has led to a trend of creating a
form that looks good rather than a space that feels good.

With this trend continuing, it seems that the role of visual sense has being privileged
when compared to other human senses. The impact of this trend causes the design
of the current architecture being reduced and restricted into visual senses. With the
absence of other senses, the strength of interaction between our bodies and a space
is being diminished. This is because human experience space and environment
through all of their senses, not only through the visual. The trend also indicates that
the tendency in architecture of image rather than architecture of experience is in-
creasing. The products of architecture of image will only offer visual consumption
which won’t create lasting impressions that all the architects strive for. It will only be-
come a nice looking postcard of visually striking building.

Hence, the essay aims to prove that the current use of technology in architecture is
only being used to achieve visual aesthetics and has decreased the value of archi-
tecture. The essay will also argue that technology to achieve powerful or aesthetical-
ly pleasing form to the sight has to be able to grow hand in hand with other human
senses, in order to create valuable experience and memory in a space. Only then,
the value of architecture can be pushed to a full potential.