McCullough- Discussion

For me, personally, the McCullough essay articulated two important issues. The first has to do with using our hand and sensory experience to learn and gain a deeper understanding of volume, numbers, and space. I was reminded of “numbers day” in elementary school, when each student was assigned a number from 0 to 100, and was required to bring in that select number of select objects, such as pennies, jelly beans, or buttons. The act of touching and holding these objects really solidified my conceptual understanding of counting and grouping.

The second issue that I think needed more emphasis during discussion was the key importance of understanding how places are made. This includes materially, construction process, structural expression, and overall aesthetic composition of architecture. When a visitor to a place can identify a certain function of a structural or architectural element, or identify its creation or construction history, for example the saw marks on a timber, or the imprint of wood grain formwork left on concrete, the easier it is for that visitor to relate to the place. This type of comprehension, I think, appeals to our human curiosity and desire to personalize and emphasize the uniqueness of different places. Understanding how another man’s hand worked to shape the places we inhabit is a natural instinct, and one that gets lost amid the rush of anonymous materials production and dishonest material and construction expression in architecture.