Bill Hiller Architecture Architectural Article

Bill Hiller Architecture

Architectural Article Review

Hillier, Bill. "What Architecture adds to Building?" From Space Is The Machine: A Configurational History of Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

In his article, "What Architecture adds to Building? " Bill Hillier attempts to make an argument for what could be called a new "epistemology" of architecture, or an ideological thought process behind how buildings are constructed. How humans think about and instinctively approach space, Hillier suggests, must be integrated into how architects construct those dwelling and working spaces. Thinking about how a dweller instinctually perceives his or her bodily space, how the eye sees building spaces in a topographical fashion, and the human relationships towards the interior of a structure, is essential for a good architect. Understanding the human cognitive, physical eye is as essential as understanding the more technical aspects of construction for a good architect of the future places where humans will live and work.

What architecture can add to building, Hillier argues, is a more thoughtful and critical way for human beings to relate to the spaces of buildings in a positive fashion, given the nature of human cognition and spatial concepts. The language of spatial configuration is key to Hillier's theory. Spatial configuration relates to the relationship between the occupier of the structure and its interior, perceived set of relations. What will a dweller see when he or she walks into a building at his or her eye line, asks Hillier, as opposed to what constitutes a perfectly constructed structure.

Relationships are key concept in Hillier, as Hillier states that all spaces are really not enclosed, but a series of spatial and optical relationships that must take into account of other relations within the structure of a complex, from the walls, to the ceiling, to the configuration of the mind, as well as the body of the building's occupier. This is the cornerstone, the expanded idea of architectural relationships, that critically relates to Hillier's analytic theory in which understanding of and design are one. Hiller aims to deepen the understanding of architectural knowledge by focusing on internal structures and entities and relationships within structures, and to eliminate unproductive or potentially alienating relationships between the dweller of the structure and the building, based on human psychology.

Hiller states that there is a need for more scientific research about mathematics and human psychology within architecture. Architecture must cease to be as enclosed a discipline as it has become, and one can use such knowledge in architectural practice. Hiller points out that an architect must have an idea of what the building's potential dweller or occupier will 'know' about a space when he or she enters the structure. Often the knowledge of the space comes through the different, sucessive visibility fields he or she encoungers when navigating the interior space.