Lessons in Architectural Improvisation

Abstract

Looking at the majority of constructed environment in our cities (i.e. Tirana and Athens), questions arise concerning on one hand customary relations between architects and their end-product recipients, and on the other hand usual means that define these relations. Is architectural design advanced enough to provide handling of contingency due to users‟ unforeseen dispositions and actions? Are users adequately prompted and properly activated to contribute and participate in the formation of their own space? A traditional perception in theorising the profession of architect, and consequently in teaching architec tural design, recognises architects as absolute masters in the formal process of space determining and building planning. Exclusive authority and responsibility, based on their expertise, are imposed and affect how composition principles and practices correspond to actual functions and, hence, how initial definitions relate to future developments. In general, end-product users either unconditionally accept architects‟ ingenuity or they ignore it, managing and completing space formation in further ways. To face this binary misconception and subsequent problems it may cause, architectural composition should facilitate improvisatory actions as a way to render collaborative space formation an available and beneficial option. It is believed that the concept of architectural improvisation should come into composition processes, not as the architect‟s privilege to spontaneously create, but as the user‟s right to immediately participate. In order to become viable, such an attempt entails a thorough study of the associations between roles and means in space formation processes, as well as a multi-layered examination with regard to interactions between composition and improvisation. A concise analysis of these associations and interactions, as appear in music, offers an additional tool to comprehensively define architectural improvisation.