Performing Their Version of the House: an interpretation of an architectural response to autism

Abstract

In conceiving the built environment, architects instigate a material setting for people's life. Given the diversity of the society in which a design will end up, it will always be a designers’ challenge to anticipate the interpretation of future users. To avert 'normalised' considerations, the paper gives account of the unique experiences of particular people, putting into perspective the interpretations of designers themselves. This research particularly considers the point of view of people with autism spectrum conditions. Due to their peculiar cognitive style, those people view, and engage with, the environment in a characteristic way. In a study of a collective housing facility, specifically designed with an eye to occupants diagnosed with autism, we explore how the notion of autism took shape in the design of this environment and to what extent the realised design takes effect in the everyday use of the house. Interviews with actors involved in the design and an analysis of the resulting housing facility reveal how the story of the building opens up in different directions. While the material world of the house is enveloped in different interpretations, we try to unravel how people with different relationships to the building qualify this built environment in a personal way. Qualifications of the building by different people reveal that the material world of the house only acquires its full meaning in the real action of dwelling. Through mutual adjustments, the house (as the final result of the design process) and the occupants (shaped by their own experiences) continuously evolve. Concurrently, each occupant, routed by personal interactions with the house, seems to have an own conception of this built environment. Regardless of the purposeful efforts during the design, in the worlds of different people an own version of the designed environment exists, which develops in a personal way.status: publishe