Orthodox Western architecture has long been framed as solid and static objects, and thus as a means to stabilise society and represent permanence. It emphasises the completed building as a finished project for a particular user and location. However, it overtly reduces buildings to an explicit set of specifications, and excessively subjects space to usage. Alongside the mainstream discourse, there has been a growing awareness of architecture as a dynamic equilibrium of everyday process. The notion of adaptability introduces time and the unknown causes of change to architecture. Given the instability of contemporary society and the diversity of urban lifestyles, the imperative is even more pressing today than when adaptability was first introduced, in the 1950s, as a general architectural principle of resistance and extension of functionalism.
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