Architecture is Not Subjective
Brickyard Creek has a clear identity, put in place by the developers and furthered by many of its residents, committees, and board of directors. It also has an Architectural Control Committee that uses the property’s guidelines to help ensure that there is no disruption in the overall character of the community.
Specific to Brickyard Creek, clear examples include:
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- Areas around a house or cottage are kept natural and free of debris or lawn art.
- Wood storage buildings are hidden from view or blend into the surroundings.
- Stain colors that blend into the forest are approved and maintained.
- Exterior lighting is not too bright and does not shine out toward other units, roads, or hiking trails.
- No signage is allowed other than fire numbers or approved for sale signs.
A well-charged and engaged Architectural Control Committee protects value, identity, and architectural integrity while simultaneously ensuring a sense of place, the comfort of surroundings, and the overall health of the community it serves.
Less apparent is the need for architectural integrity. Some like to think that architecture is subjective and, therefore, not manageable, or controllable. Nothing could be further from reality. How we see is a learned response that has taken us from the Neolithic age 12,000 years ago to the present. Patterns, colors, and scales elicit consistent human emotions—blue hues are cool, red shades are warm, and horizontal lines are more relaxing than vertical or diagonal lines. Unbalanced shapes beg to be completed, similar to dissonant chords in music that a consonant chord must follow to bring the musical piece to a satisfactory conclusion.
Every day we see examples of architecture that are pleasing to look at and other details that are clunky and seemingly out of place. Unless trained in architecture, most people find it hard to articulate why a design works or doesn’t work in their minds, but that doesn’t mean that architecture is not a science based on human emotion, scale, and proportion. Leonardo De Vinci’s drawing of Vitruvian Man best demonstrates how much humans understand architecture.
The sketch is based on the teachings of Rome’s Vitruvius, who taught us that architecture imitates nature and that nature’s designs are derived from universal laws of proportion and symmetry. He also wisely brought up the concept that buildings must be beautiful, stable, and functional.