Online teaching \ Humanities

What is the purpose of studying the humanities; those soft subjects that take up so much time in discussion yet never solve anything? This is a question that is asked frequently outside of science or engineering labs when students realize they have to take a Humanities elective to graduate. Those soft subjects just do not make much sense to people trying to understand chemical reactions or reaction forces.

What these science students, along with a large proportion of the general population, do not under stand is that the study of the Humanities is the study of humanity. It is the study of what people do, how they do it, and why. And, interestingly enough, science is part and parcel of what people do. So frequently the study of science and the study of the humanities overlap.

A case in point is architecture. To design a building an architect must be aware of and understand engineering. The design of a building requires an understanding of stress and the strength of materials, of mass and density, of motion and acceleration; all in the purview of science. Buildings must be designed with an understanding of technology, how to move people, air, water and waste, how materials go together and resist decay, and the requirements of plumbing, power, and communication. But, an architect that designs buildings only thinking about these quantitative arts will never get a building built today, because a building is for people and architecture is for humanity. The architect must understand how people perceive the building, and how they will interact with the building and each other in and around the building.

A good example of this is the massive public housing projects built in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The high-rise steel, concrete and glass buildings that were built in many urban areas were structurally sound buildings built with little regard to the humanity that would be required to live in them. These high-rise ghettos quickly became the worst sort of urban blight, dangerous and degrading to the inhabitants, breeding grounds for drugs and violence, and places to be avoided by anyone that could. And, of course, these problems just aggravated the underlying causes, making the situation spiral further towards total chaos.

Today those monuments to unfeeling architecture are being torn down. Public housing is being rebuilt, redesigned. The attempt is being made to restore a habitat for humanity, to make public housing a place of dignity and a way station on the road to a better life. No longer are the poor and disadvantaged to be warehoused, but rather temporarily housed while they are given an opportunity to improve their lives. They won’t be isolated in government designated ghettos, but given assistance to live in mixed income housing so they can gain the self assurance necessary to grow into the middle class.

This is the type of design, both technologically advanced and humanitarian in its outlook is once again making the architect the hero of humanity; providing the disadvantaged in society the tools and environment to improve their own situation.