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What if windows had emotions?
An unusual question that made me see things differently
A couple of years ago, I was invited to speak at a graduation hangout of final year university students of architecture at the University of Lagos. In the breast pockets of my jacket, I had a small sheet of paper on which I had written the key points of speech — that no one was omniscient, and that as they kick off their careers in architecture they should focus more on collaboration than isolation. One of my co-speakers, an architect everyone referred to as Papa spoke to the excited bunch of emerging professionals about feelings. He admonished them to connect with not just their feelings as an architect but the feelings of the spaces, materials and concepts they worked with. Then he asked everyone a question:
What if windows had emotions?
How would they want to be treated? How would you make them happy?
As he spoke, I couldn’t help but reflect on his question. It was the first time that someone was helping me to see that dimension of thought — one where inanimate objects had feelings that ought to be respected. Yet, I debated the logic of it, even though I…
