The famous British architect Ralph Erskine argues that "the purpose of building is to improve human relations: architecture should make them easier, not harder.

Although many very common definitions (including the DEX) regard architecture as the science and art of building in a certain way and according to certain rules, we are working with a definition that starts from the phenomenon, which encompasses the sum of the processes that precede and generate the modeled space, together with those that define its existence, as well as those that ultimately succeed it and are determined by it. We have opted for modeled space instead of construction, because architecture has multiple fields of manifestation, in urban planning, landscape design, restoration, including spatial writing and virtual modeling. All of these disciplines included in architecture go beyond the built environment, but all of them are about modeling space in some way. In this broader sense, the phenomenon of architecture encompasses the science of building, the processes of design and planning, building works, use and transformation, the evolution of the object, its repurposing, conversion, etc.

The satisfaction of human needs, however, is a reactive approach, based on the analysis of needs, and therefore oriented towards experiences already had, while architecture, as a process that includes the finished architectural object, is projected into the future. This contradiction can be reconciled by shifting the focus from needs to capabilities as defined by Amarthya Sen. The Indian philosopher differentiates capabilities from "accomplished functionings". Thus, while the latter refer to well-being, the former refer to the individual's freedom to achieve well-being. An architecture that merely fulfills a client's needs creates well-being for the client, while fulfilling capabilities provides freedom. The added value thus lies in the potential to transform the good into an action that contributes to the personal fulfillment of the beneficiary. Constantin Noica distinguishes between sleep as need and laziness as desire, between sleeping and sleeping. A dwelling should be a place where you can sleep, because you can sleep anywhere if you are tired enough. Concerned with ensuring individual freedoms through the built environment, by reconciling the positive freedom of the client (desire) with the negative freedom of the architect (regulations), architecture relates to the city and the environment in the zone of equity. However, throughout history and even today, great monuments have nothing to do with equity: the pyramids of Giza, the palace of Versailles, the cathedrals refer directly to the freedom to fulfill an aspiration, and not at all to the ideas of justice and impartiality presupposed by equity, which is manifested in relation to architecture only at the level of sustainability and neighborhood and not at the societal level (at the level of Gesselschaft).

Any shelter is designed to satisfy human needs for rest and security. If the shelter, by providing a room and a bed, succeeds in offering something extra in terms of aesthetics, function and comfort of use, then it becomes architecture. The added value can also be reflected in a special relationship with the environment into which the construction is inserted. An architectural space is one that adds value to the simple satisfaction of a need. We thus conceive architecture as a discipline designed to deliver more than what is expected of it.

Housing, as a manifestation of architecture, must satisfy needs on all levels of Maslow's pyramid of needs: sleep, security, family, privacy, self-esteem, creativity. Geoff Mulgan, director of the Young Foundation, reduces the number of human needs for a good life to five, just like Noica: the need for family; the need for community; the need for material goods to sustain life, adornment and play; the need to live in a healthy environment; the need for spiritual fulfillment. A good life, says Mulgan, must be "fulfilling and ethical".

Capability fulfillment is an open-ended, forward-looking phenomenon that ensures that needs are met by adding necessary extensions. Just as the need for logos can be satiated by going to school to learn socotitis (an approach solved by liberalism through equal opportunities), capability in this context can mean becoming a famous mathematician. The need for shelter, as a basic need, can be satisfied through shelter. Indwelling is the capability of personal fulfillment through shelter, growth, representation, identification, etc.

That's why, now,we think architecture as the phenomenon of shaping space to fulfill the capabilities of its beneficiaries. Revisiting Turner through the prism of this definition, "what a house is" is the satisfaction of needs at a given point in time; "what a house does" refers to capabilities, to the transformation of the good into action.

Aesthetics

I have not included aesthetics in the definition of architecture as it is entirely context-dependent. For example, architecture can be beautiful in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. pleasing and denoting harmony, and this is evident when contemplating a Greek temple. From the 19th century onwards, however, aesthetic categories began to undergo more and more frequent mutations, and from the postmodern period onwards they ceased to be subject to an axiology, a valorization. Charles Moore's Italian piazza of Charles Moore could easily be considered ugly by comparison with an Italian Renaissance piazza, if we were not sensitive to irony. Lastly, there are buildings that are neither beautiful nor ugly, which meet strictly functional requirements. Fortresses, for example, without any aesthetic pursuits, are unquestionably architecture, and a successful fortress was one that added value to the satisfaction of defensive requirements. In the same way, we can imagine an auditorium built inside a huge cube, completely inexpressive, but whose extraordinary acoustics excite the auditory sense to such an extent that everything else disappears. The added value of the acoustic transforms it into architecture, that is to say "solidified music", as Goethe put it.

The value that architecture adds to function is often another function. For example, a bridge, which successfully accomplishes the purpose of crossing a river or precipice, is in itself an engineering object if all it proposes and offers is the safe crossing of the water or ravine. If, apart from that, it is enriched with an aesthetic function (the Millennium Bridge, London), a symbolic function (statuary, the Charles Bridge, Prague), or becomes a public space (the Artists' Bridge, Paris), it becomes architecture. We therefore consider that Beautiful architecture is architecture that makes life beautiful.Lorin Niculae, excerpt from the doctoral thesis Arhipera_arhitectura socială participativă, Bucharest, 2013. The role of the architectThe role of the architect is to act responsibly, within existing regulations (legislative framework, general and local urban regulations), ethically and sustainably, adaptable to the future, without depleting resources and without compromising the access of future generations to them. There is a dialectic between human needs on the one hand and sustainability (including ethics and responsibility) on the other hand, which is designed to ensure that architecture is balanced and sustainable. Architecture stands the test of time not only through its robustness (firmitasIt is the capacity of architecture to remain unchanged over time, to be imperishable), but also the capacity of the architectural response to adapt to the future, to be sustainable, to develop, regenerate, renew. Responsibility and sustainability are included in the value that architecture brings. In other words, we cannot talk about added value in the absence of sustainability, with its components of ethics and responsibility, since this value produces its effects after the building is put into use, and the only one who has thought about it and communicated it proactively has been the architect.Lorin Niculae, excerpt from the doctoral thesis Arhipera_arhitectura socială participativă, Bucharest, 2013.