How Do Human Needs Affect Architecture?
Imagine there is a link between your sex drive and the size of your bedroom. How many times in your life would you have to adapt the room? How would your house look if its shape could respond to your needs? During my Master studies at TU Delft, I joined The Why Factory Studio - A Research Institute led by Winy Maas - founding partner of MVRDV. In the studio “Biodegradable City” i collaboration with Josef Odvarka and Daniele Tanzi we were asked to analyse the basic survival needs of a human being, yet we quickly realized, this is just a tip of the iceberg of our needs to live comfortably.
How Do Comfort Needs Change As We Age?
We have analysed the comfort needs of a human, focusing on the ones that had potential to be translated into spatial configurations. The needs are deeply related to the events in life that an average human being experiences. The list includes events such as maturation period, moving out from the family house, getting married, having a child or getting retired. These events are grouped in main categories which can be then translated into specific rooms. For example, research says that the peak of our social life happens in our late twenties, to later on decrease with the decision to get married and start a family. This could theoretically have impact on the size of the common spaces in the house. The biggest changes can be seen in the moment when we move out from a family house or start living with someone else.
House As A Group Of Individual Elements
We took into consideration the main house rooms such as bedroom, livingroom, kitchen, bathroom, office. Then, a few rooms, that respond mostly to the social and sport needs were added. For example: entertainment room, children room or guestroom. Each room was then linked with the comfort need and tracked throughout the years to see its development. This diagramme can serve as a tool to compare the rooms and to be able to look at the problem of housing as a sum of separate elements.
Reflecting Human Needs On The Room Size
When following human needs, specific rooms of a house change their size few times in a lifespan of one man. The analysis show that most of them should be the biggest between being 40-50 years old. The guest room could be added when the children move out. Other rooms such as the entertainment room could be demolished around the age of 60 years old, when our need for entertainment rapidly decreases.
