Drama, a new book by David Rockwell with Bruce Mau, edited by Sam Lubell (Phaidon Press, May 2021), is an exploration of Rockwell Group’s empathy-driven system of ideas and methods in action. This site expands on the creative principles in Drama, with new films, conversations, essays, and more.
IMPERMANENCE: When I studied at the School of Architecture at Syracuse University in upstate New York, I began to notice how spaces adapt to the people inside them. How they respond to their users. I became intrigued by what happens if you clarify that response with a story. I was always interested in the “why” of it. It gave spaces more depth. More heart. In my second year, I had to design a townhouse with two very different entry sequences. I wrote a narrative about who lived there and why they lived there. Why they had made their choices. My approach was no less rigorous than those of the others in the class, but I got in trouble for it! Narrative wasn’t something many architects were interested in.
When I moved to New York City I realized early on that its buildings weren’t just buildings. They were collections of many different lives; every element represented something or someone and it was their ground floors that gave the city its life. There was a humanity to this grouping of constructions. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t just interested in structures and spaces. I was interested in people and how they were impacted by structures and spaces.
15 июн 2023
