Put Things Together

 "When designing a building, which is the most important, the intended use for the building or its intended appearance?"

 This question posted itself the reason you need an architect to design a building that basically fits for its intended use and its intended appearance. 

 While most laymen do not know, the appearance of a building is part of the environment, can affect the environment that people are living in, and it can influence a certain behavior of people in the environment (and I don’t mean taking up a smartphone to take a picture, although that is pretty obvious of how one of these ideas works). 

 If you begin to weigh the importance of both aspects (intended use and intended appearance), it is either you want to build on internal function only, or the external function (beauty can be a function too!) only, either way, the solution is said to be far from achieving aesthetic (not just beauty but unity). 

 A building that takes up space in the environment can be said to have its role in constructing part of the atmosphere that we are living in (whether spatially, visually, or psychologically). 

 Unless a building design is nonsensible, there is no point for it to work in one aspect, and work less well in the other. 

 Buildings are part of us (our space), they are not a machine (at least, the one that you do not need to show it to the others while you can). 

 You can design your own ugly looking (non-intended appearance) motorcycle and it will still be running (if a motorcycle that runs is your intended function ONLY). 

 But for most building design (except your own house in a no-mans land that you don’t care), you can’t hide it from the public. 

 Would you buy a book that is ten times the size of an ordinary book (2m x 1.5m x 0.3m thick, 7kg weight) just because you are intended to just read the book? In an indirect way, the book is now having more than one intended purposes to achieve. 

 Since both aspects are intended, it is either the design work, or it doesn’t. And an architect’s job is to put these two aspects to work.