Tuomas Toivonen is an architect and musician. He is the founder of NOW for Architecture and Urbanism, a spatial practice based in Helsinki. In the tradition of architectural writing, See, think, do is a series of texts attempting to articulate the relevant elements in the work of an architect today. The series explores both the context and the content of the work as well as related design processes and changes in the profession and working life as a whole.
Spatial interpretation on the South Bank in London. Photo by Kaarle Hurtig.
What does an architect do?
1) Constructs a point of view by gathering a base of relevant knowledge through observation and analysis.
2) Accumulates and articulates a body of thought through research, experiment, discussion, teaching and writing.
3) Makes a contribution to reality by designing, planning, proposing and building.
The task of the architect can thus be summed up as: see, think, do.
1. Activity
Space itself is neutral, but it is always in context, and can be moulded to any use, mood or situation. Here could be a forest, or a highway, a home, a prison, a factory, a school, a marketplace. Thus space is modulated, refined, defined and condensed by architecture. Becoming thicker and thicker with context, it becomes urban and populated. Space invites us all to define it, to become its co-producers. As a platform for common activity, it also creates shared value: a sense of community. This is the public condition. All space contains this potential, when in the context of human activity and architecture.
While modernist principles described the building as a rational spatial derivative of its purpose, or function, late 20th century architecture sought to do more by manipulating program, its malleable stepchild. Program has an ulterior motive, a built-in code of behaviour, rendering people in spaces subject to its logic. If the scope of architecture is reframed to comprise activity, space becomes open again ― open for interpretation, part of the extended context, inviting the possibility of the unprogrammed, the participation of both the individual and the public. Society and city are thus both made of people and by people.
Architecture, being both the object and subject of human activity, is the key to unlock the potential of the public condition. With participation as a resource, what new open processes can be choreographed for buildings, spaces, objects? How are present hierarchies, policies and processes adopting these new open resources? What kind of liberties and limitations can be created, allocated and distributed to empower, motivate and guide those involved? How can architecture create this freedom and define these responsibilities?
NEWLY DRAWN is a publication on emerging Finnish architects. Photo by Paavo Lehtonen.
Toivonen’s statements will also be published as part of NEWLY DRAWN, a joint project by nine emerging Finnish architecture practices offering an easy access to architecture to the general public through publications, exhibitions and workshops around the world. Moreover, the series of writings creates a foundation for Tuomas’ next music release, Subtitles.