CHAPTER 4

TOWARDS AN ARCHITECTURE FOR

WHOLESOME HABITATION

Our deepest engagement with places usually develops when we are able
to inhabit them over a period of time. The process of inhabiting—of
making oneself at home in a place—is complex, even difficult.
Sometimes, in private spaces, the sheer force of long occupation helps
overcome the usual difficulties of developing an engagement with them. 99
In public spaces, which we occupy only ephemerally, the difficulties of
achieving such an engagement are greater. One may pass through the
same railway station, the same street, for years and never experience the
tiniest pull of feeling for either. In this context, artplaces have the
opportunity to be truly engaging because the experiences they offer are
potentially more uplifting and of deeper significance. By virtue of this,
they already have a greater potential for a vibrant engagement with
people.
But, like other public spaces, artplaces too have to overcome the
fact that people visit them occasionally and can occupy them only fleet-
ingly. Apart from this, a large majority of people have yet to develop a
lasting engagement with the art practices they present. This sense of
unfamiliarity with what is presented in artplaces is another obstruction
to the development of an engagement with them. This engagement has
thus to be consciously constructed, with some effort, and through
appropriate architectural and institutional design.

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 We have seen earlier that the problem with architectural design in
general, and with that of artplaces in particular, is related to the para-
digm within which design works. This paradigm does not regard
place–person engagement as the goal of design, and devalues the process
of habitation. Thus it is obvious that we need to develop a systematic
approach to architecture that is centred on place–person engagement.
In the course of this chapter, I shall try to build the armature of such an
approach. I shall first indicate some foundational concerns related to
the process of habitation from which the approach to space must
evolve. I shall then present a class of concepts which can help us devel-
op clear and consistent descriptions of the habitational qualities of a
space that affect place–person engagement. Such orienting devices for
description are important because creative and critical practitioners
tend to focus largely on the phenomena that descriptions and analyses
attend to. If we have descriptions, or systems of description, which
focus our reflective gaze upon habitational qualities of environments, it
is more likely that we will be able to develop practices of criticism and
100
design that are centrally concerned with habitational realities.
I shall begin by sketching an account of the phenomenon of habi-
tation which is meant, specifically, to prepare the ground for a frame-
work of ideas that can organize one among many habitational
approaches to architecture.

HABITATION
From the perspective of the canonical mainstream of architecture, habi-
tation is a very messy phenomenon. People move into the most exciting
architectural spaces and immediately act upon them in the most unex-
pected ways, apparently oblivious of their ‘architectural’ qualities. Many
a modern architect has felt done in by the lines of washing that break
out on his building (like a fungus, we hear Le Corbusier’s ghost mutter)
as soon as people move in. The sleek lines of low walls are disturbed by
intrepid sitters, even as finger marks and shoe signs on walls indicate
that people have been leaning against them. The most beautiful build-

HIMANSHU BURTE
 ings, it sometimes seems, suffer the greatest desecration from being
inhabited.
Most of the characteristics of the high modernist model of the
space–person relationship are diametrically opposite to what actually
happens in habitation. The fundamental difference lies in the fact that
habitation is not possible in real life if the inhabitant has to maintain a
distance from the habitat. Habitation inevitably locks an inhabitant and
a space into a relationship of significant mutual influence. Most impor-
tantly, the inhabitant is a completely active agent in the process of habi-
tation, not merely a spectator with a narrow mental space of action
open to him/her as in the modernist model.
As the driver of the process, the inhabitant is focused on the effort
of inhabiting, and not on passively contemplating the architectural
qualities of the habitat. Thus it is natural that people attend to the habi-
tat in a state of distraction that is punctuated occasionally by special
moments of clear attention to its beauty or other special qualities. The
habitat can also emerge in the awareness of the inhabitant for the
101
obstruction and challenges it offers to habitation. When certain quali-
ties of a space make it difficult for people to live and work in it, it can
be said to be resisting appropriation by its inhabitants.

APPROPRIATION
The appropriation of space by inhabitants is central to habitation.
Spaces that resist such appropriation resist habitation. Appropriation
and habitation thus appear to be two sides of the same coin. After all,
making yourself at home in a space effectively means making the space
yours for the period of dwelling.
The term appropriation refers to the idea of ownership, which is fun-
damentally about control. Thus a space that allows inhabitants to feel in
control of their life in it is one that has allowed them to appropriate it to
some extent. Control can be understood as a sort of minimal condition
in which inhabitants are able to conduct their life within a space in a rea-
sonably efficient manner and without obstruction. This would be aligned

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 with the dry functionalism we have discussed earlier. On the other hand,
one can think of the idea of control in a more positive manner, even
extending it beyond the idea of ‘empoweredness’.
There are spaces that actually make living and working in them a
real joy. Not only do they allow control in the narrow sense but they
also do much more—they engage many of our unformulated spatial
capacities and desires and allow us to live and work in them in the way
we would unconsciously like to. It is almost as if every space is a texture
of opportunities and limits corresponding to a range of human habita-
tional actions and inclinations. This range has infinite variety within it
and only a small part of it is ever acknowledged in the everyday lan-
guage describing our actions in space. We have words that describe the
acts of sitting, opening a door and finding our way through a building.
And yet we can never completely describe the significance of little dif-
ferences in, say, each ascent over a staircase for our relationship to par-
ticular spaces.
Whether we like it or not, our needs, capacities and desires are
102
always closely entangled with the texture of corresponding limits and
possibilities offered by every space. This fact lies at the root of our inter-
actions with any environment, and helps us deepen the notion of control
through its connection to the idea of ‘use’, which can also be under-
stood in a manner that goes beyond the transactional sense.
Quite simply put, it is through use that we actually achieve control
over a space and are able to appropriate it (Plate 40). It is also through
use that we get under the skin of a space for it, in turn, to lay claim on
our affections. It should be remembered that, in modern architectural
discourse, the word ‘use’ has tended to suggest an impersonal and
instrumental relationship between the user and the used object.1 In real- 1 For a discussion of the evolution of the
term ‘user’, see Forty (2000: 312–15).
ity, a completely impersonal and instrumental relationship with our
environment is probably impossible. ‘Use’ can thus be understood as an
active entanglement between an inhabitant and a space in the process of
habitation. Such a characterization allows us to look beyond the spelt-out
goals of space-making—‘functions’—at the smaller actions and interac-
tions that actually decide the texture of a habitational experience.

HIMANSHU BURTE
PLATE 40

Outside Begumpuri Masjid, New Delhi—’ . . . It is through use

that we actually achieve control over a space and are able to
control it.’ Photograph courtesy Smita Dalvi.

PLATE 41

Koothambalam at the Vadakkanathan Temple, Thrissur. The

body tires in the sun, and needs a resting place and some
shade. This traditional artspace is not above providing both.
 ‘Use’ entangles the entire body and being of the inhabitant in a
space in the effort of achieving different objectives. This entanglement
is the matrix for much, if not all, of the habitational engagement
between spaces and people. As is to be expected, this matrix involves a
variety of bodily, mental and social modes of interacting with the envi-
ronment as well as a variety of stated and implicit objectives and expec-
tations that inhabitants have with regard to spaces.2 2 In the best instances, ‘use’ offers an
experience rich in the sense of engage-
ment with the used object. An example of
THE INHABITING BODY AND BEING the appeal of this richness is the popularity
of the ‘used’ look in the everyday aesthet-
In using a space as inhabitants, we experience it in various modes of
ics of clothing or wall paint which can be
being and action. For one, habitation is to a significant extent a bodily understood as an attraction for the evi-
experience (Plate 41). The sheer physicality of the human body, its dence of a use-related engagement
between user and object.
processes, capacities and limits are significant determinants of the
nature of inhabited space and are, in turn, subject to its influence. The
psychologization of modern life has led architecture to ignore the cen-
trality of the body to the process of habitation. The emphasis on men-
tal experience in canonical architectural discourse has removed the body
104
from the centre of the field of forces generating the design of the habi-
tat. This neglect goes unnoticed mainly because, in most modern envi-
ronments, a minimal responsiveness to the body is built into the design
methods and rules in the form of basic ergonomic standards. The sci-
ence of ergonomics, however, delineates only the shadow of our general
bodily interaction with space. This shadow continues to be confused
even today with the real thing.
The real stuff of our bodily interaction with space lies in the experi-
ence of ‘use’. Use involves human effort, of which bodily action is an
important aspect. If, for the purposes of thinking about architecture, we
accept that the inhabitant ought to be considered the active principle in
the process of habitation, then we must focus on the relationship between
bodily action and inhabited space. Henri Lefebvre’s suggestion that gesture
plays a pivotal role in the production of lived spaces indicates the breadth
of an imaginable enquiry into bodily action in the context of inhabited
space (1991: 216). Lefebvre notes the difficulty of knowing for certain

HIMANSHU BURTE
 the reasons behind the diverse ways in which gesture and habitat are
interrelated in different societies. For instance, many Eastern societies—
like in India or Japan—have tended to live close to the ground, whether
by using low furniture or by sitting directly on it, while the West has
developed higher furniture that implies a different range of posture and
method of physical contact with the ground. The respective systems (or
protocols) of body and space relationships are important for the larger cul-
tural life and identity of each society (Plate 42).
At the same time, the space of the habitat directly and indirectly
acts upon the inhabiting body, irrespective of cultural differences. Our
bodies have to walk the length of rooms, climb steps, fit into furniture,
open doors and windows. They are affected by the ambient tempera-
ture, by noise levels and by the amount of available light, and are dif-
ferently challenged and accommodated by different spaces in the course
of everyday life. This subtle tension between challenge and accommo-
dation affects the pleasure and comfort we derive from our habitat. It
also affects our sense of control, making us feel either supremely confi-
105
dent or completely frustrated in the attempt to operate effectively with-
in a space.
It may appear that I am belabouring an obvious point regarding the
impact of space upon the body. However, we routinely inhabit spaces in
which it is uncomfortable to walk, climb, read, open and close doors
and hear others speak. Architectural research and discourse has been
rich in the description and analysis of expressive and constructional
matters, while developing poorly in its attention towards the impact of
different spatial conditions upon the human body. This general attitude
of neglect (along with the dominance of the profession at any given
time by healthy male practitioners) towards the body’s encounter with
space may partly explain why architectural discourse has been so lag-
gardly in responding to bodily difference, whether associated with age,
gender or conditions of disability. This is particularly true of India
where barrier-free environments, for example, are still not common-
place in public space.

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 The neglect of bodily realities is part of a larger blindness to what
I can only call the beingly realities of habitation. The cerebrally weighted
modern approach to architecture has led the profession to be blind to
other dimensions of a complete human interaction with the habitat.
The narrow concern with the fate of the object has also reinforced the
neglect of the multidimensionality of the ‘being’ who inhabits it.
Two instances of the impoverishment suffered by the current view of
architecture are worth noting. One, this approach is largely mono-sensory
and, being based on the visual, fails to acknowledge the activity of the
other senses in the process of habitation; and two (as mentioned in the
earlier chapter), interested only in a psychologized encounter between a
space and its solitary inhabitant, hopes to wish away the fact that the
presence of other people (or even a sign of such a presence) inevitably
mediates that relationship.
The critique of the reign of visuality in modernity and the politics
associated with it is, of course, already in place. We know that the visual
is the mode through which we can achieve a great amount of control
106
over our environment.3 The visible is also more easily, though often mis- 3 See the discussion about Jeremy
Bentham’s Panopticon in Markus (1993:
takenly, believed to be the real. At the same time, the rise of the visual has
123–7). In Ways of Seeing (1972: 83–108),
been accompanied by the growth of a particular culture of display John Berger illuminates the relationship
which turns everything that is looked at into an ‘object’ that is, by def- between seeing and possessing in his dis-
cussion of the tradition of oil painting.
inition, separated from the viewing subject by an existential distance.
This distance, as we have seen, is the basis for the modernist tendency
to view habitable space as an artwork.
The way we interact with the environment through our other senses
involves possible contradictions with the action of the visual sense. The
sense of touch, for instance, is about intimacy and local (but direct)
control. Sight reveals at a glance the layout of a space and helps us plot
our way through it. But it is the grip of the handrail that keeps us steady
on a staircase. The experience of that grip, as well as of the slipperiness
of the floor we will later walk upon, traps us in the texture of opportu-
nities, threats, limits and possibilities that a space embodies for the
activity of habitation.

HIMANSHU BURTE
 PLATE 42

Barna, Rajasthan. The body is addressed

in much traditional architecture through
the fit between gesture and space.
Photograph courtesy Smita Dalvi.

PLATE 43

Tourist guide at the Srirangam Temple,

Tiruchirapalli. Touch allows no distance
and quickly implies possession. Thus our
discomfort with this image of the double
contamination of a sacred sculpture:
once, because it is part of a temple and
again, because it is part of a shared
heritage.
 Touch allows no distance; it is the mode through which we achieve
intimacy with spaces as with people (Plate 43) and it does not allow
experience to be processed as an abstraction as easily as does sight. In all
of these respects it is thus opposed to the logic of sight. Moreover, its
much closer mooring in the body is revealed in its tendency to mark the
object that has been touched. Given that the modern art object survives
only within a museumized realm beyond the reach of time, the mark
left by touch is much feared; it is the one thing that injects the full con-
tingency of everyday reality into the empty eternity of the frame around
the artwork. Where the wall is discoloured near the telephone—by peo-
ple repeatedly leaning against it—architecture is no more something to
be looked at but a space already lived in. In that transition, the ‘owner-
ship’ of the space has definitively passed to the dweller.
The question of appropriation is also central to the modernist fiction
(which persists) of a direct psychological encounter between the architec-
tural object and the viewer which is not mediated by the presence of other
people and of society in general. Sometimes I wonder whether architec-
108
ture after modernism is afraid of crowds or, even worse, of groups of peo-
ple. After all, rare is the critically acclaimed contemporary building which
makes the groups of people milling around it look (or feel) good.
Internationally, at least, the spirit of the bleak expanse of the Capitol
Complex, Chandigarh, has survived the upheavals in expressive systems
that architecture has experienced over the last three decades (Plates 44 and
45; also see Plate 37, Chapter 3). The culture of a solitary encounter with
architecture is not compatible with the fact that our relationship with
inhabited space is always mediated by the social life around us. Everyday
experience tells us that the presence or absence of others and the details of
such company we keep in a space affect our dwelling within it. For
instance, our response on entering a streetside restaurant varies depending
upon whether it is found entirely empty or comfortably full. The experi-
ence of a space as a place is inevitably bound up with its people-content.
In fact, it could even be argued that, in the matter of our engagement with
places, the kind of people we share the space with is more important than

HIMANSHU BURTE
 the nature of that space. But the opposite is also equally true—the nature
of a space can impact our relationship with our fellow dwellers.
The enforced protocol of silence and isolation in an art gallery (as in
the open-plan office) indirectly acknowledges the fact that people in a
space tend to connect more with each other than with other objects
(and objectives) or with the space itself. Put another way: when we con-
nect with each other in a space, we can only pay distracted attention to
the space itself. A group with some internal cohesion makes a space its
own much quicker than individuals (and any long-distance train ride
with a bunch of college students singing late into the night provides evi-
dence of this fact). Groups—by ignoring the reality around them to
some extent and by pushing ahead with the force of their together-
ness—can ‘take over’ an alien space much quicker than the solitary vis-
itor. Thus, in the phenomenon of the crowd, an attitude of distraction
towards a space or its objects converges with a strong capacity for quicker
appropriation of the space. The important thing to acknowledge is that
our relationships with other people are part of the process and outcome
109
of habitation. This fact alone is enough to indicate the complexity of
the relationship between a space and the process through which it is
inhabited.

HABITATION AND ENGAGEMENT

The fact that, in the process of habitation, every aspect of our entire
being is inevitably inserted into the invisible texture of potentials (and
implications) that constitutes a space makes it possible to understand
how our larger engagement with places is affected by our concrete expe-
rience of inhabiting them. In memory, this interaction is captured as an
engagement with the place. The engagement need not always be enjoy-
able; indifference and dislike are part of the repertoire of relationships
we can develop with places. The nature of the relationship depends
upon the manner in which a place accommodates and challenges our
needs, expectations and capacities with regard to everyday habitational
actions. This brings us back to the process of use.

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 Use, which provides the occasion for habitation, is directly involved
in the place–person engagement. It implies an immersion in place and
it helps the dweller take control over the place from within. This is of
great importance to dwellers of institutional and public spaces. It is in
the nature of institutions to want to control the practices of users. This
institutional urge is coded into the design of institutional spaces, into
the very site of a place, in a variety of ways (Markus 1993) and is bol-
stered by a protocol that sets operational rules for user behaviour. Such
control is necessary for the survival of an institution’s basic integrity and
order, but it can also alienate dwellers and, sometimes, even defeat the
very purpose of that institution. In an artplace, for instance, the exces-
sive presence of guards, the relentless spatial discouragement to gregar-
iousness or the impossibility of finding a restorative cup of tea, even if
unintentionally enforced, can easily defeat the enthusiasm of the visitor.
The artplace may remain more secure, quieter and cleaner but at the
cost of a claim on the visitor’s imagination.
The possibility of control from the outside is the stuff of instru-
110
mentality. Thankfully, however, rare is the place where the avenue of use
does not allow the dweller and visitor to respond by achieving some
form of return control over the place simply through the enactment of
habitation. The practices comprising use create their own elbow room
within the structures of site and protocol. For instance, the entrance steps
and ramp at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, though not expressly
designed to be the favoured rendezvous and resting spot of the locality,
have been turned into exactly that through spontaneous use by people
who may never step into the gallery (Plate 46). Apart from being sup-
ported unintentionally by the design of the site (the steps and the
ramp), this practice has been tolerated by the management long enough
to have become part of its implicit protocol. This is one instance of the
primacy of basic habitational actions in the process of use. Such
actions—sitting on steps, pulling up chairs, entering a space confidently,
finding shade—also actively construct the place–person engagement
that ultimately builds up through the process of habitation.

HIMANSHU BURTE
 PLATE 44

Legislative Assembly, Chandigarh,

designed by Le Corbusier.

PLATE 45

Institut del Teatre, Barcelona.

PLATE 46

Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. The

steps at the streetside edge of the
building are a favoured perch and
rendezvous spot.
 The focus on the inhabitant’s actions is natural to a habitational
view of architecture. However, the everyday work of decision-making
about spatial arrangements by designers, clients and critics always
requires a stable object of attention. We need concepts pointing us to
those attributes of the built object that attract our creative or critical
attention. The transactional and symbolic approaches are ubiquitous,
partly because they have built up loose systems of usable concepts
which refer to specific qualities of the built object. The concern with
functional efficiency, for example, has led us to devise the concept of
‘circulation’ which helps focus attention on the efficiency of movement
patterns, path-shape and footprint. Other concepts like ‘balance’ and
‘accent’, though very fuzzy indeed, do help take forward the decision-
making process by directing attention to aesthetic qualities of the phys-
ical environment that need to be manipulated through design. These
concepts are firmly tied to the respective ends that these approaches
hold dear. Similarly, a habitational approach to architecture as proposed
here would need its own frameworks of concepts that can be deployed
112
in the practice of design or criticism. While such concepts would be
important for the creative or critical practice of a habitational approach,
they would, I think, also be necessary for building realistic descriptions
of the dynamics of places as a whole.

HABITATIONAL CONCEPTS
The reasonable belief that an inhabitant plays the most active role in
the process of habitation is at the root of a greater concern with human
action in the habitational approach to architecture. Such action could
be voluntary or involuntary; it could be bodily or could involve more
aspects of being; it could also be seen as enacted within a dynamic
matrix of ‘rituals’ or ‘habits’ that condition the way we go about inhab-
iting space. This matrix is likely to be multidimensional and it proba-
bly varies significantly across different situations and people. While its
cultural and personal specificity must be assumed to be a foundational
condition, it is also quite possible that the basic human actions of habi-

HIMANSHU BURTE
 tation that structure it are common across human situations, given the
considerable bodily and ‘beingly’ similarities that persist across human
differences. Thus the concepts that we are looking for, which we hope
will orient creative and critical practice towards the realities of habita-
tion, would necessarily have to refer to these actions.
The nature of the concepts that are required is already implicit in
the focus on human habitational actions. The fundamental requirement
is that these concepts should refer to such actions substantively. At the
same time, they also need to describe qualities of the built object that
have implications for these actions. This is important because one of the
fundamental responsibilities of architectural discourse is to develop
concepts describing important aspects of the architectural object. The
problem today is that the attention of both the practitioner and the critic
are focused on the expressive or technical aspects of the objects—the only
aspects that are systematically described. The habitational concerns are
more or less entirely neglected as expressive and technical values domi-
nate the force-field of pressures shaping design. This effacement of the
113
human presence from a technical discourse like architecture points to a
breakdown in the continuity between the larger value systems that sup-
posedly guide democratic societies and the specialist value systems (of
architecture, as of medicine or law) that actually produce and maintain
the fabric of everyday life. This realization grants a sense of urgency to
the search for concepts that accurately reflect the dynamic matrix of
habitational rituals and habits in the description of the architectural
object.

4 While this may or may not be a complete AFFORDANCES

bridge across the larger subject–object One concept that is centred on human action or experience, while
problem in design thought, it does sug-
gest that an entirely object-based design
describing an attribute of the habitat, is affordance. In the context of this
process may actually take the subject on investigation, affordance can be understood as the potential that an envi-
board by viewing its affordances as central
ronment has for supporting human action. We look for a drawbridge of
characteristics of the environmental
‘object’ (or product). For a fascinating dis- sorts within this notion that can help connect the architectural object to
cussion of the subject–object problem in the inhabiting subject in our hitherto fractured model of the habitat.4
architecture, see Gelernter (1995).

T O WA R D S A N A R C H I T E C T U R E F O R W H O L E S O M E H A B I TAT I O N
 PLATE 47

Government Museum, Chennai. Affordances

may not be intended; they are often discov-
ered and improvised upon. The engagement
we build up with a place is founded upon the
weave of affordances it embodies. Photograph
courtesy Durganand Balsavar.
 The concept of affordance, as mentioned earlier, was formulated by
perceptual psychologist Gibson while describing the promise offered by
the environment to support the physical, psychological or other expec-
tations that an animal may have of it (1977: 67–82). Thus, for humans,
a roof affords shelter, a chair the act of sitting and a handle the act of
gripping (Plate 47). Equally, fire affords burns, and rough stone, abra-
sions. An affordance, thus, is the implication that the environment has
for some aspect of our existence and can be understood, in the context
of this discussion, as a weave of constraint and allowance that defines a
clear space of freedom and opportunity for action. The chair offers the
greatest support to the act of sitting while discouraging its use as, say, a
vehicle. Of course, an umbrella may also be used with limited effective-
ness as a weapon of self-defence, which only suggests that the full range
of an object’s affordances may not be completely knowable or program-
mable. This fact is also borne out by the example of the Jehangir Art
Gallery’s entrance steps mentioned earlier. Affordance, therefore, may
not be a rationally definable attribute, but one that we recognize intu-
5 In fact, it is likely that the primary mean- 115
ing that an environment holds for us is
itively and with a great degree of precision in an object or environment.
about the different things it directly affords. How this happens and what the limits to the precision of our intuition
Style and other symbolic overlays are prob-
of affordance are is something that is beyond the scope of this explo-
ably second-level sites of the meaning of
space. Thus the promise of the door is ration to address.5
probably more basic than whether the door
is built in the Palladian or the Kerala style.
This also means that, at a very basic level, AFFORDANCES : VALUES OR DIMENSIONS ?
style has less to do with the capacity of a Affordance may well be the concept that binds the inhabitant and the
space to engage our imagination. Thus, in
architectural object in a relation of complementarity. However, in the
spite of its essentially transcendental tone,
modernism has often given us works and actual practice of design or criticism, what role should this concept (or
traditions that engage with habitational the various affordances we may decide as being important in any situa-
realities to a significant extent. In fact, the
tion) take on? One possibility is that we think of a certain range of affor-
modifications to modernism enacted after
Independence in India have tended to make dances as being valuable in general. Thus we could say, for instance, that
architecture more habitationally sensitive. all spaces should make themselves easily understood—that is, they
However, it should also be noted that the
question of style, or form in general, is rel-
should afford quick decipherment. Or that all public spaces should have
evant to the ease with which a person is ample provision for seating. Should this last proposal be turned into a
able to relate, emotionally and semantically,
fixed value? Can we say that the affordance for sitting is an absolute
with an environment.
necessity across all environmental situations, irrespective of the general

T O WA R D S A N A R C H I T E C T U R E F O R W H O L E S O M E H A B I TAT I O N
 purpose of a space? If so, how do we then specify what kind of seating
and how much of it would be appropriate and where? How can we say,
further, that such-and-such a seating system will be perceived by every-
body as supportive of sitting? Differences among human beings, after
all, are sometimes greater than similarities, and an arrangement that
invites one person to sit may not be attractive to another.
It is clear that, taken to its logical end, the attempt to think of
affordances as fixed values alone brings in the bogey of quantification.
It is next to impossible to measure these values in any generally valid
way, and even more difficult to develop a system for the relative valua-
tion of each affordance for the purpose of determining engagement.
This therefore means that we cannot get very far by conceiving of affor-
dances as values with any degree of closure. This nudges us towards a
more open conception of the idea of affordances.
The pioneering urban-design theorist Kevin Lynch, when faced
with a similar struggle in attempting to talk about ‘good city form’,
writes, ‘. . . it would be foolish to set performance standards for cities
116
. . . Situations and values differ. What we might hope to generalize
about are performance dimensions, that is, certain identifiable character-
istics of the performance of cities which are due primarily to their spa-
tial qualities and which are measurable scales, along which different
groups will prefer to achieve different positions’ (1984: 111).
Lynch’s choice of the idea of the dimension is extremely significant.
It can be made even more apt by relieving it of the burden of measura-
bility. Dimensions of the material world need not only be calibrated
scales; it may be more useful to think of dimensions as axes around
which descriptions may gather. Measurement, in any case, is one kind of
description. Thinking of dimensions as axes automatically makes space
for a number of descriptions of the same environment. Moreover, by
doing away with strict measurability as a central feature, we also deprive
the discourse of any final and definite judgements of an objective
nature. Both these implications, in principle, appear to do away with
any basis of knowing for certain and taking a decision. If there is no

HIMANSHU BURTE
 objective basis for a decision, how then do we choose between different
descriptions?
In response, one could point to the ‘normal’ design and critical
practice that has flourished, despite the absence of any such certainties,
regarding the outcome of the human–environment interaction. The
simple fact is that a strong extra-logical process lies at the core of all
decisions related to design—creative or critical. Knowledge of varying
certitude definitely helps the process of decision-making, but the process
is finally closed on the basis of some ‘arbitrary’ act of judgement about
the priority of competing issues and implications involved. Whether we
rely on intuition to come to a decision or consensus, we rarely have cer-
tain knowledge about the outcome of a choice between competing
assessments and possibilities. We therefore make a judgement, not a sci-
6 See the proposal of the extra-logical entific determination.6
process of decision-making with Thomas
Dimensions, as concepts, are conceived as aids to judgement, lead-
Kuhn’s suggestion that, finally, theories in
science are accepted not necessarily on ing to a decision, not as formulae or measures to determine it by linear
the basis of scientific validity alone but for logic. Their first task is to bring up each affordance for consideration in
their ability to solve a problem with an old 117
the assessment of a proposed or existing habitable environment.
theory that is obstructing normal science
(1996). Kuhn suggests that a theory’s Implicit in such a formulation is the recognition that the role of the
acceptance has a strong social component affordances involved is contributory, not determinant.
within the community of scientists, and
involves minimal consensus among differ-
That a decision is finally a matter to be decided extra-logically, on the
ent experts about its probable ability to basis of available descriptions of the situation, offers some important
facilitate normal science after some crisis implications. A formulation of the concept of affordances as important
of knowledge seems to prevent its contin-
uance.
dimensions of an environment’s habitational performance does two
things. On the one hand, by focusing on specific environmental poten-
tials, it orients the designer or critic towards the act of habitation as the
central concern of architecture. This is a corrective reorienting of the
critical gaze, which has tended to remain trapped in symbolic and instru-
mental issues. On the other hand, this formulation reveals the entire
structure of assumptions and design action as fundamentally indetermi-
nate. The only way in which some general legitimacy may be achieved
in decision-making is by widening the range of descriptions and analy-
ses that it takes into account. It thus becomes clear that we need to

T O WA R D S A N A R C H I T E C T U R E F O R W H O L E S O M E H A B I TAT I O N
 enable a large variety of descriptions, from different subject-positions
and ideological perspectives, which together inform the moment of
judgement. The richer the variety, the more complex the climate of con-
siderations that finally conditions the decision.
It will become clearer that thinking of affordances as basic dimen-
sions of a wholesome habitability allows such a range of readings to
emerge. At the same time, it focuses all readings within a conceptual
space defined by a number of affordances, thereby providing a common
anchor to divergent readings. The allowance for such readings makes it
possible for a range of value positions along each dimension to be pro-
posed in correspondence to varied subject-positions. Thus different
readings make possible different attitudes and preferences regarding, for
instance, the nature and extent of social interaction that an artplace
environment should allow. In such a situation, it is impossible to suggest
any one reading as inherently right. While enabling a range of different
readings to emerge, the formulation also privileges the decision-maker’s
interpretive role. If there is no objective basis on which to assemble a
118
decision out of many divergent insights, then the interpretive role of the
decision-maker naturally assumes centre stage. The decision-maker here
may be a critic or a designer and the decision may be about the outcome
of a particular environmental decision or the causes of particular experi-
ences in an environment. In either case, the decision-maker bears the
responsibility of arriving at an appropriate judgement. But since the
affordances have already been identified as important dimensions of the
habitat, they ensure that the perspective of habitation is attended to.
Any more closure would be difficult to sustain and would seriously
compromise the agency of the interpreter.
It should be clear by now that a double life is proposed for each of
the affordances. In the most general form, for orienting description, the
affordances are considered as dimensions of the physical environment.
In the particular form, as we shall later encounter in the case studies,
they can be considered as values concretized by a particular reading
within those dimensions. Such a structure also rules out definite a
priori judgements, and supports the belief that judgements about envi-

HIMANSHU BURTE
 ronmental performance can be made only in the context of particular
7 It is important to keep in mind, especially cases and by particular persons.7 In general, then, the dimensional
in the reading of the elaboration of each framework is a map for the space of description and debate within
dimension, that I shall be more definitive
in discussing the implications of different
which different value-positions can be located and their implications
environmental conditions. The definitive clearly discussed. One such value-position would be mine. Accordingly,
tone is a mere convenience for economy
even as I map out the neutral space of each affordance as a dimension
of expression. In actual fact, every state-
ment, however solidly supported by refer- of the habitat, I shall also present my particular preferences regarding
ences to scholarly works, is again one each affordance and its importance to our habitat.
among many possible proposals regarding
the implications of specific environmental
conditions for human perception and DIMENSIONAL FRAMEWORK OF AFFORDANCES
behaviour. At best, some of these ideas
I have suggested that viewing the various affordances of an environment
could themselves be considered as delin-
eating specific sub-dimensions rather than as dimensions of its habitability makes it easier to use the concept of
as conclusions about them. affordance within the system of critical and creative decision-making. At
the same time, it is also clear that an infinite variety of affordances are
involved in the texture of an environment’s habitability. How distant
and imposing a building is from the street, how much encouragement a
space offers for pause and rest, how easily it reveals its internal working
119
and structure—these are among the various conditions and affordances
that impact the habitability of an environment. The critical question
then is: is there a grid of a few general and basic affordances that under-
lies this infinite variety?
Most habitable environments are designed to enable certain defined
complexes of activities (or functions), like the production process of a
factory or the operational routine of a home. This capacity of an envi-
ronment to enable a broad ‘function’ is constructed by weaving together
affordances for very basic human habitational actions. Both factory and
home have to make it possible for people to move easily and appropri-
ately within them. Both need to make it possible for dwellers to rest and
to interact with each other in appropriate ways. The details of these
requirements and of the answering designs may vary across factories and
homes, but the dimensions of human movement and social contact
would be constants that must necessarily be addressed in each case, even
if the ways of doing so vary.

T O WA R D S A N A R C H I T E C T U R E F O R W H O L E S O M E H A B I TAT I O N
 The example of the Jehangir Art Gallery’s steps also shows us that
basic habitational actions have a significant role to play in establishing
an engagement between person and place. The general public has
‘appropriated’ these entrance steps by continuing to sit on them. The
enactment of this basic habitational gesture has been the mode through
which an engagement of sorts has emerged between the canopied space
of these steps and the large pool of people who regularly use the public
space around it.
Apart from signalling the importance of a set of basic habitational
actions to the place–person engagement, this example also points
towards classes of habitational actions that are fundamental and com-
mon across most environments. If there is a basic ritual structure to the
process of habitation then it is probably constructed of such gestures,
whether of entering a space or lingering and chatting with others in it.
Even less visibly performed actions of perceiving a space and making
sense of it, as of actively personalizing its arrangement for our needs,
could well be the basic forces organizing the process of habitation.
120
I propose for consideration five basic and universally significant
classes of habitational actions that are related to a coherent framework
of affordances: pause, transition, cognition, social interaction and the
‘trading of control’ with a place. The respective environmental affor-
dances are termed occupiability, penetrability, legibility, sociability and
possessability.
Pause refers to a reasonably straightforward class of actions: sitting,
lingering, resting in a space. An environment that supports pause can
be considered to support the act of occupation. When we sit, stand in
the shade or pause to read the notices on the board, we occupy a space
for a certain time. Occupation already contains within itself important
connotations of a right to dwelling, even to ownership. When an envi-
ronment facilitates occupation, it takes the first step towards yielding
some sense of ownership to the user. Its occupiability, thus, is a primary
habitational concern. Similarly, the notion of ‘transition’ can be under-
stood to refer to the act of penetrating boundaries and domains. This

HIMANSHU BURTE
 penetration is involved in more than the entrance experience, as we
shall see later. Since boundaries and domains are significant events in
the experience of environments, the penetration by the human being
through and across them is an important act. The penetrability of an
environment thus becomes a crucial habitational dimension. An envi-
ronment needs to be understood cognitively as well; the architectural
assembly of objects and spaces needs to be recognized for what it is, and
its physical characteristics correctly understood. Comprehension of the
environment also involves understanding its layout and other aspects
necessary for effective dwelling within it. Thus, the legibility of an envi-
ronment is a crucial affordance for the dweller’s attempt at making sense
of it.
These three actions and related affordances refer to an individual’s
actions related to the environment. Public places also witness social
contact and interaction between individuals. An environment’s facilita-
tion of social contact is involved in its affordance for sociability. And
finally, there is possessability—the affordance for a trading of control
121
between place and person—which allows the person a sense of control
over the environment while enabling the place to stake a claim on
his/her imagination.
All five affordances, in my opinion, are active in the phenomenon
of the Jehangir Art Gallery’s porch. The space encourages occupation by
providing shade and perch. The absence of a compound wall or lock-
able gate (as at the Prince of Wales Museum Annexe next door) enables
immediate penetration of the boundary adjacent to the street. The van-
tage point and the position by the entrance path leading into the gallery
provide opportunity for planned or unplanned social contact with visi-
tors or passers-by, while the clear noticeability of the space from many
directions makes it hard to miss or comprehend. Finally, the repeatable
use of the space as a rendezvous as well as a ringside view it offers of the
drama of the street allow the temporary dwellers to experience a sense of
‘ownership’ as well as a surrender to the charms of the space (Plate 48).

T O WA R D S A N A R C H I T E C T U R E F O R W H O L E S O M E H A B I TAT I O N
 This sketch of the manner in which the five types of affordances
construct the habitability of a particular space is merely indicative. Each
class of affordances or each habitational dimension involves many more
specific constitutive affordances. Moreover, many patterns of mutual
influence organize the interaction between people and their physical
environment within the context of each dimension. It is, therefore,
important to explore the realities of each of these dimensions in greater
detail. Accordingly, in the five chapters to follow, each affordance will
be discussed as a dimension of the environment that relates to a class of
habitational actions.
The affordance called occupiability is thus a dimension of the phys-
ical environment while pause is a dimension of habitational action. The
occupiability of an environment affects the ways in which we may pause
and linger in it. In general, however, I shall focus on affordances as we
are looking for concepts that describe environmental qualities.
From the architectural perspective, an affordance is best under-
stood in the context of the various environmental conditions associated
122
with it. Thus, it is important to know what conditions encourage or dis-
courage pause. Apart from equipping us with information useful for
design or critical action, a range of such insights also flesh out the ‘juris- 8 In describing the ways in which various

diction’ of each dimension. We are, therefore, likely to understand affordances organize our environmental
experience, I will often refer to the theo-
which environmental qualities have significance for penetrability, for ries and conclusions presented in a few
instance, and which others are involved with the sociability of a space. important works—especially Alexander et
al. (1977), Rapoport (1977) and Whyte
Accordingly, the major thrust of each of the following five chapters will
(1980)—each of which has a different
be on elucidating this ‘jurisdiction’. As I have mentioned, the definitive approach to the realities and possibilities
tone in this discussion is adopted more for its convenience than any- of humane environments. As will be clear,
there is a lot of overlap in the broad con-
thing else. I don’t think it is possible to make valid generalizations about
clusions of these different researchers.
the way specific environmental qualities affect our actions and respons- However, this overlap, even when rigor-
es, because of the large variety of variables involved.8 However, it is pos- ously organized, cannot be taken as
‘proof’ of the veracity of any one
sible and useful to identify the dimensions of this interaction, and much researcher’s insights. In the same way, my
of the results of research into our relationship with our environment own proposals in the following chapters

must be approached in this manner. are just that—proposals, to be subjected

to further debate and investigation.

HIMANSHU BURTE
PLATE 48

Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. The entrance zone offers

shade, (possibly unintended) space to sit, direct connec-
tion with the life of the street and the possibility of social
contact with people who enter the gallery. Photograph
courtesy Smita Dalvi.
 The general insights gathered in the course of the elucidation of
each of the five habitational dimensions will subsequently be used in
the analysis of the architecture of three different artplaces. The case
studies are intended to illuminate the manner in which our understand-
ing of the dimensions of habitations can be deployed in critical practice.

124

HIMANSHU BURTE

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