Architecture is a public art, a vernacular art, and a background art: it is created by a huge range of people, and experienced involuntarily by an even wider one. This means that we need architectural styles that are as accessible as possible, to the full range of people who live with what we build, and to the full range of builders who create it.
We enjoy creating things we can inhabit. We build blanket forts as soon as we can crawl. Later, we graduate to making treehouses and stick tepees in the summer and igloos in the winter. Failing that, we build things we imagine we could inhabit: Lego towers, sand castles, doll houses, vast Minecraft fortresses…
Once we reach adulthood, architecture—building structures—becomes inaccessible to all but the select few that have chosen it as a profession.
I’ve spent this summer building a small greenhouse in my backyard. It has been immensely satisfying to simply open its door and watch the way sunlight plays over its interior. To cheer it on as it withstands heavy wind gusts. To shelter under its roof during rainstorms. To know how to repair it because I put in all of the screws to begin with.
But my little greenhouse is also totally prohibited! I didn’t obtain a permit from my city before I started construction. At any time my local building department could mandate that I take it all apart and then fine me for the trouble. Of course, building codes and permitting serves a valuable function. Nonetheless, we need an outlet for amateur architecture because the desire to build doesn’t die after childhood.