Virtues of interior and exterior built environments
By Amrita Singh Bhandal

Abstract

The paper has been written with a view to personify built environments of all sorts; to bring about the idea that reading and experiencing built surroundings is as much a psychological investigation as it is an aesthetic one; to bring about the realization that each designed environment that one experiences carries an emotional content.
It is an attempt to encourage all readers of design and societies more generally, to pay more attention to the psychological consequences of built surroundings; That if one closely examines and analyzes carefully designed conditions, the psychological, biological, and historical idioms that enable boxes of wood, stone, brick, and mortar to come alive and address our deepest spiritual concerns shall come to mind.
It is a prompt to all users of design to trust their senses and personal experience.

Introduction

If one examines the literal meaning of the term virtue, it is deemed as a trait to be morally good and an indication of good character. High moral standards are indicative of a virtuous behaviour.
Virtue is considered to be an intrinsic value. In his book, Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton, lists down five virtues of buildings, namely, Order, Balance, Elegance, Coherence and self knowledge.
According to Botton, each building possesses at least these five virtues and any user who pays attention shall be acquainted with these once he enters and experiences buildings.
When we talk of interiors, we’d think that if the term architecture applies to the exteriors of a building, its form and how the structure appears from the outside, interior design would automatically imply design that is inside. It is a very broad subject with a very long history. Most of our lives are spent inside. Little discussion happens over the idea that the term architecture in fact applies to the entire built environment that surrounds us and the interior environment, though a very crucial part of architecture, is never studied or considered individually important. Although, without it and the character that it possesses, all the literature that forms architecture history books would not have much volume. The beautiful and romantic description of the surreal interiors of grand palaces of Europe and South Asian subcontinent, along with the role that light and shadow play over the luxurious surfaces of ornate churches on the inside, individually weigh as much in uniqueness, grandiose and character as the grandeur of the architectural elements used on the outside.
Indeed interior design predates architecture for humans lived in shelters long before structures were built or architecture developed. Caves were used by Palaeolithic people to live in. This means that not only the basic needs and functions like sleeping and eating, but also more complex tasks in which the images outline on the walls played their role, took place on the insides.
Built environment design embraces most of the design areas such as furniture, ceramics, industrial, graphic and environmental design and numerous people such as architects, engineers, builders, plasterers, joiners, textile designers, fine artists have played a job in the development of specific interiors. Perchance this is one reason why it is one of the least developed themes within the young discipline of design critique, for it relates to so many different areas.
It is but understood that a person’s personality would be shaped by his or her surroundings. In short, the character that his surroundings represent would resonate in his own personality. Thus proving that designed and built form has a personality, a character of its own and possesses certain virtues.
The idea that any space contained within a building or built form that one inhabits has an innate character of its own has been brought about.

Discussion
Creative flair is similar to a vivid firework which races across a dark sky, inspiring wonder among spectators but destroys itself in a fraction of time, and leaving nothing but longing and darkness behind.
When designers, design spaces, they intend to create buildings, environments and products that speak; enunciate on topics which can be understood and figured out readily. They may speak of humility or arrogance; of welcome or threat; of aristocracy or democracy.
Onlookers, spectators and students of design are always alert to the smallest details in design. For example, notice how certain objects like cutlery, chairs, lamps – strike us sometimes as strangely human in personality, even if they are not human in shape and form. This anthropomorphic view extends from the smallest object placed inside a space to the largest interior edifice to even a scaled up architectural element.
Personal spaces and their virtues
An interior environment is a repository of memory for its users; even if it be a momentary participation. It is a place of hope and possibility, a reservoir of flawed reality and imagined perfection. Take the example of a personal space (our home or a room) - it niches what we value and compensates for what might be missing from our lives.
The notion that the moods embodied by domestic spaces must always be sweet or homespun is an idea that must be left behind. Such spaces can speak to us readily of the gentler aspects of life as they can of the sombre. There shouldn’t be any obligatory connection between the abstraction of home and prettiness. One may feel more at home in a place which is very un-homely – such as a restaurant or a roadside cafe with others, similarly distanced from society and lost in thought as one may be at home.
The very lack of domesticity, the flashing lighting scheme or the anonymity in furniture can be a relief from what may be considered as the false comforts of a so-called home. Home might merely be considered as a place that succeeds in making the important truths more consistently available to us.
The work home may be associated intimately with the realizations of relief and sanctuary. However, it is also confused with a remarkable number of incoherencies and paradoxes. Starting from the very beginning, generally, home is aplace that we don’t always appreciate when we are there. It is always present (omnipresent) and that is what makes it invisible to us. We always end up approaching new places with humility and never carry in the box ideas of what shall be considered interesting. To this, if we add the thought that vulnerability and lack of identity is what arouses our need for a home, then the sensitivity of our surroundings may be traced back to a disturbing feature of human psychology, i.e. we harbour so many different selves within us.
Feelings evoked by the general spaces and environments that we experience everyday
When one travels, one questions locals as one stands on traffic islands of cities or in the narrow streets trying to admire architectural details that they admire. One doesn’t mind taking the risk of getting run over just because one is fascinated by the shingled roof of a local building or a relief such as an inscription on a wall. We shall be intrigued by a supermarket or even a hairdresser’s shop! We would ponder over an elaborate menu layout or the colthes on the mannequin of a store. We are so aware of the layers of culture and history that the built and occupied environment presents to us that we take literal and mental notes and photographs. Such is the power of built surroundings. It has the ability to control our daily actions and thoughts and movements.
The designer’s personality in his work
Design is a dialect and language. The choices designers make inarguably say something to the viewer. That message may be indistinct or bold, dull or arousing.
An architect’s morals and character is reflected in his or her work just as much as any technical skills or other virtuous attributes. Humanity is present in buildings and built environments; just as it is in fashion, cooking and music.
Again, in his book, de Botton concludes, “Bad architecture is as much a failure of psychology as of design.” [1]
Further, he states in an interview that part of being a good architect is somewhere being a kind person at heart. This is very rare...
The opposing notion that users may too define the use and character of space.
D. Morris explores the notion of a body centric lived space to distinguish three types of spaces in the book Sense of Space. The first kind he describes is lived space itself, the second is a dwelling space and the third is a habitual space. [2]
Lived space according to him is created through the act of a body moving though a space; dwelling space is created through the act of a body dwelling in it for an amount of time and habitual space is a space which is created through the act of a body dwelling habitually in it and returning to the same postures and movements again and again over a long period of time. Deeper complicities between moving bodies and space emerge and the connection cannot be ignored. It gives the idea of a body defining the character of the space rather than the opposite that has been discussed above.
Character of spaces influence the character of users
In Aliento (Breath) (1996 – 2002), first shown at the Bienal de la Habana in 1997, the artist presented several round concave mirrors, made of polished steel, which were mounted on the wall. The spectator was invited to breathe on the surface of the mirrors, and the condensation on the surface allowed the emergence of a serigraph archive image of a disappeared person. When the condensation was absorbed by the ambient air, the image vanished, and the
disappeared person disappeared once more leaving the mirrors clean and shiny.64 In this way disappearance is treated as a phenomenon as mysterious and utterly inexplicable as that of air – its presence is not and cannot ever be the phenomenon itself, only a refracted image of it, like looking at a scene through a prism. [3]
The example above shows how the merest of spaces, an installation that creates an environment and surrounding within itself puts the user into realization of the phenomenon of disappearance which is in itself an intangible aspect. Thus proving that other intangible phenomenon and emotions can well be generated by the spaces and environments that designers create. Those in turn, shall influence the character of the person.

Conclusion
The church of Notre Dame du Raincy is the most common example one would give that uses concrete for decorative and structural uses. The domes ans vaults of ancient Roman baths, the glass and iron structures of exhibition halls and shopping galleries are perfect examples where structural expertise was fully exploited to provide sufficient space and the properties of the available materials was what largely determined the shape and character of the interior and exterior built form.
All the materials mentioned above, seem to be hard, unapologetic and authoritative in their use. Thus, bringing about similar character to these grand structures that served similar function to serve the city and citizens. Their innate character speaks of themselves, of the city and its citizens alike.

References
[1] Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton
[2] Sense of Space - David Morris
[3] Intangible Architecture by Ainslie Murray