Architecture Design

PREAMBLE

As we enter the twenty-first century, it has
become fashionable to consider architecture
through a veil of literature. Such was not
always the case; indeed, it could be argued
that the practice of architecture has rarely
been underpinned by a close correspondence
with theory, and that designers have been
drawn more to precedent, to seminal buildings
and projects rather than to texts for a creative
springboard to their fertile imaginations. This
is merely an observation and not an argument
against fledgling building designers adopting
even the simplest of theoretical positions; nor
does it deny the profound influence of a small
number of seminal texts upon the development
of twentieth-century architecture, for there has
been a close correspondence between some of
those texts and icons which emerged as the
built outcome.
But even the most basic theoretical stance
must be supported in turn by a few fundamental
maxims which can point the inexperienced designer in the right direction towards prosecuting
an acceptable architectural solution.
This book, then, attempts to offer that support
by not only offering some accepted maxims or
design orthodoxies, but also by suggesting
how they can inform crucial decisions which
face the architect engaged in the act of designing.
The text is non-theoretical and therefore
makes no attempt to add to the ample literature
surrounding architectural theory; rather it
aims to provide students engaged in building
design with a framework of accepted ways of
looking at things which will support and inform
their experiment and exploration during the so called
‘design process’.
The plethora of literature concerned with the
‘design process’ or ‘design methodology’ is a
fairly recent phenomenon which gained
momentum during the late 1950s. In these
early explorations design was promulgated
as a straightforward linear process from analysis
via synthesis to evaluation as if conforming to some universal sequence of decision making.
Moreover, design theorists urged
designers to delay as long as possible the creative
leap into ‘form-making’ until every aspect
of the architectural problem was thought to be
clearly understood. But every practicing architect
knew that this restrictive linear model of the
design process flew in the face of all shared
experience; the reality of designing did not
conform to a predetermined sequence at all
but demanded that the designer should skip
between various aspects of the problem in
any order or at any time, should consider several
aspects simultaneously or, indeed, should
revisit some aspects in a cyclical process as the
problem became more clearly defined.
Furthermore, the experience of most architects
was that a powerful visual image of their
embryonic solution had already been formed
early on in the design process, suggesting that
fundamental aspects of ‘form-making’ such as
how the building would look, or how its three dimensional organisation would be configured
in plan and section, represented in reality
an early, if tentative, creative response to any
architectural problem.
The act of designing clearly embraces at its
extremes logical analysis on the one hand and
profound creative thought on the other, both of
which contribute crucially to that central
ground of ‘form-making’. It is axiomatic that
all good buildings depend upon sound and
imaginative decisions on the part of the
designer at these early stages and how such
decision-making informs that creative ‘leap’
towards establishing an appropriate three dimensional
outcome.
These initial forays into ‘form-making’
remain the most problematic for the novice
and the experienced architect alike; what follows
are a few signposts towards easing a
fledgling designer’s passage through these
potentially rough pastures.