Rebecca Medeiros_What is Architecture?

The responsibility of an architect is to observe, listen, and respond to the needs of people within a society, culture, or region. Each group of people has a variety of characteristics, traditions, behaviors, values, and beliefs that make them unique and specific to that place. It is through the eyes of the architect to become one with the rural or cityscape including its history, traditions, people, social activities, and behavioral conditions. What is a need within a neighborhood or community? What are the conditions of a space and why? What are routines and traditions of everyday people that could be improved or highlighted? A variety of questions can be created in terms of discovering the essence and nation of a people in a specific place. A piece of architecture, whether new, old, or a combination of the two, needs to respond to the people, the user and audience of the intervention.