TV show report: The Secret Life of Buildings
Monday, 1 August 2011 12:39 PM
The Secret Life of Buildings, an architecture-based TV series presented by Tom Dyckhoff, starts tonight (Monday August 1st).
Being screened on Channel 4, the three-part series examines the role that buildings play in our lives. According to architecture critic Tom Dyckhoff, we spend 85 per cent of our lives indoors but we rarely stop to think about how our surroundings are affecting us – despite the fact that architecture and design can influence our identity, self-esteem, relationships, academic success and even our health.
In The Secret Life of Buildings, Dyckhoff explores buildings' role at home, work and play by going into real, functioning spaces and immersing himself in the lives of those that use them. He also uncovers the ways in which businesses manipulate our desires through design, exploring his theories through experiments and drawing upon the expertise of psychologists, behaviourists, philosophers and neurologists to prove the point.
The result? Dyckhoff brings architects together with the people who actually live and work in their creations in an attempt to persuade the architects that psychological consequences are far more important than ego, art and economics.
In tonight's episode – which is the first of three – Dyckhoff looks at the architecture of the home, questioning why we accept having the smallest room sizes in Europe, and what we can do to change that.
The Secret Life of Buildings starts tonight (Monday August 1st) on Channel 4 at 8pm.
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