m to embed new meaning in their structure. While there are those who question this theory and its efficacy, this essay will argue that more than a theory of Semiotics or Post-Modernism, Deconstructionism provide fertile ground for experimentation in architecture and the creation of new forms that are responsive to the ways in which humans live and interact now.
A key theorist in the nexus between philosophy and architecture is Tim Dant, who focuses in much of his writing on the application of post-modern theory to this field and the ways in which architecture and building contribute to a definition of the contemporary experience. Tim Dant , in a chapter titled "Building and Dwelling," describes a house as a social location, a physical shelter for loved ones and familiar objects, a locus for material culture, and a meeting point for people and things in which social and material relationships are bound together in the routine practices of daily lives.[v] As the largest, most expensive and important artifact that most individuals will possess and perhaps buy or build, it is the place where much of one's life passes and where many of the major events, emotions, and relationships of human lives will be focused. There are many material properties of buildings that shape the forms of action of those who live in them.
Dant quotes Heidegger as stating that "dwelling" establishes a particular form of relationship between human being and material form that is fixed in space and enduring in time. [vi] A dwelling as distinct from a building is filled with psycho-social and psycho-emotional connotations. Buildings are merely containers for dwellings that have, as man gave up a nomadic lifestyle, took on rectangular rather than round or triangular shapes. As rectangular dwellings have become more complex and multifunctional, the cultures that have produced them have acquired specialist building knowledge and systematic planning.
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