The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

PART THREE | INNER RESOURCES
safe functioning, is to satisfy needs that are less easily expressed,
such as comfort and an emotional sense of belonging–perhaps even
the capacity to inspire hope and creativity. It seems natural to bring
our bodies’ innate capacity to create and express to the design
process because it is the body, with its extraordinary sense and
range of touch, that we are actually seeking to contact and satisfy.
Embedded in the way society now lives is a set of beliefs that
strongly impacts architectural design, a set of beliefs that overvalues
thinking and underestimates the potential of the body to
invoke imagination, arouse decision making, and guide the creative
process. Modern life involves us in machine-like living. Our
dependence on pervasive mechanical and automated systems turns
all natural systems, including our bodies, into a liability. Unlike
machines, however, our bodies will not always perform according
to our wishes or keep up with all that we hope to accomplish.
Instead of rejecting what our bodies are trying to tell us because
they are prone to fatigue, sickness, and bouts of unreliability, we
need to become conscious of our vulnerabilities so they can be
included in the world. Precisely because our bodies are imperfect,
they offer a unique perspective for understanding the relationship
between the built world and ourselves.
In fact, our bodies provide places that our emotions and souls
can call home, and the range of feelings that we experience through
the body not only civilizes, but ultimately and fundamentally
humanizes, the way we live, work, and think.
Psychologically speaking, the body is associated with the
unconscious because in our daily lives we are simply not conscious
of its functioning or its wisdom. The way my eyes actually process
visual data, the way my spleen regulates sugar levels, the way my
digestive system processes food–these complex operations take
place below the threshold of awareness. Our sense of sight does not
require conscious involvement. I have never been involved in
supervising the functioning of my glandular system or the electrical
pulsations that become thoughts or movements. There is an innate,
instinctive intelligence at work on our behalf. We usually only
notice the body when it has a complaint; otherwise, we are happy
to not center ourselves there because to do so would compromise
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