CONCEPTUALIZATION TECHNIQUES OF

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

Concepts and philosophies

CONCEPTS
 Functional Concepts
 Environmental concepts
 Structural concepts
 Cultural concepts
 Thematic concepts
 Time-based concepts

FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
 Traditional definition of good architecture: Vitruvius’s Utilitas, Firmitas,
Venustas

 Architecture is a product of programming

Existing State Future State

The setting Mission

Culutral, social, political, historical, economic
Physical Conditions/Site Goals
Data
Geography, Climate Performance
Archaeology, Geology Requirements
Clienr/User profile
Demography Concepts
Organizations, Needs
Behavior
Constraints
Legal, Financial
Technical, Market

 Durand:
There are only two problems in architecture:
1.) In private buildings, how to provide the optimum accomodation for the
smallest sum of money
2.) In public building, how to provide the maximum accomodation for a given
sum

 Ornament had nothing to do with architectural beauty, since a building was

only beautiful when it satisfied a need
 “Whether we consult our reason, or examine ancient monuments, it is
evident that the primary purpose of architecture has never been to please,
nor has architectonic decoration been its object”
 Public and private usefulness, and the happiness and preservation of
mankind, are the aims of architecture
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS

 Light and color as a modifying element of space; artificial or natural light can
be manipulated by design to identify places and to give places particular
character

 Temperature, ventilation, sound, smell, texture

 Using and modifying things that are already there

 Stratification and climate responsiveness

 Passive cooling
 Le Corbusier
“Architecture is the masterly correct and magnificent play of masses brought
together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light.
Thus, cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary
forms which light reveals to advantage; they are not only beautiful forms,
but the most beautiful forms”

 Rococo: multiplication of real effects of parallax which is the apparent

displacement of objects caused by an actual change in the point of
observation.
Ex. Use of mirrors
STRUCTURAL CONCEPTS

 ARCHES

 FRAMES
 TUBE CONSTRUCTION

 MUSHROOM CONSTRUCTION

 SUSPENDED SYTEMS
 PREFABRICATION

 STRETCHED MEMBRANE

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS

 STRATIFICATION

 EVOLUTIONARY ARCHITECTURE
o Architecture can create as nature creates
o A building can be seen as a living organism with functional processes
CULTURAL CONCEPTS

 ETHNOCENTRISM
o Habitual disposition to judge foreign people or groups by the standards
and practices of one’s own culture or ethnic groups

 CRITICAL REGIONALISM
o Factoring in cultural variations and contextual realities

 Ledoux: the plan of an edifice was not something resulting from its function
but was deliberately designed to express its function by association of ideas

THEMATIC CONCEPTS
TIME-BASED CONCEPTS

ARCHITECTURAL PHILOSOPHIES
ARCHITECTURE-ENVIRONMENT
 MAN OVER ENVIRONMENT
o The Ten Books of Architecture by Vitruvius
 “ The man of learning...can fearlessly look down upon the
troublesome accidents of fortune. But he who thinks himself
entrenched in defenses not of learning but of luck, moves in
slippery paths, struggling though life unsteadily and insecurely.”

 ENVIRONMENT OVER MAN

o The Poetry of Architecture by John Ruskin
 “Everything about it should be natural, and should appear as if the
influences and forces which were in operation around it had been
too strong to be resisted, and had rendered all efforts of art to
check their power, or conceal the evidence of their action,
entirely unavailing..itcan never lie too submissively into the
hollows of the hills; it should bseem to be asking the storm for
mercy, and the mountain for protection, and should appear to
owe weakness, rather than strength, that it is neither
overwhelmed by the one, nor crushed by the other. ”
o Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism by Rudolf Wittkower
 Explores Renaissance use of ideal geometric figures and ratios in
their designs. Also discusses why they believed that such figures
and ratios were powerful. Bases are the relationship of the human
body with nature.

ARCHITECTURAL FORM
 Le Corbusier: “The plan proceeds from within to without; the exterior is the
result of the interior”

ORNAMENTS

 The New Architecture and the Bauhaus by Walter Gropius

o “The ultimate goal of the new architecture was the composite but
inseparable work of art in which the old dividing line between
monumental and decorative elements will have disappeared forever”
o Bauhaus: Aim was to unite art and technology under a purified
aesthetic that removed all ornament and articulation from form and
stressed the beauty of expressed function.
o Ornament was considered a bourgeois decadence, if not an actual
crime-Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Josef Albers
o “Less is more”- Mies Van der Rohe

o “Less is bore”- Robert Venturi

CONTRADICTIONS

 “An Architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation

toward the whole- its truth must be in its totality or implications of totality”
 It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of
inclusion

DE STIJL

 De Stijl: pursuit of social renewal through ideal abstraction;

 Close relationship between architecture and the fine arts; pristine, geometric
but more decorative than the Bauhaus;
 Painter Piet Mondrian, Design Critic Theo Van Doesburg, Architects J.J.P.
Oud, Gerrit Rietveld and Mart Stam

INTERNATIONAL STYLE
 “The house is a machine to live in”
 The program for building a house should be set out with the same precision
as that for building a machine;
 Structural frame should be separately identified from the space-enclosing
walls;
 House should be lifted on pilotrises so the garden may spread under it;
 Roofs should be flat, capable of being used as a garden
 Interior accommodation should be freely planned

TECTONICS
 Tectonics is the art and science of shaping, ornamenting or assembling
materials in building construction
ROMANTICISM
 REVOLUTIONARY ARCHITECTURE (1800s)
o Eclecticism or Indiffirentism- designing without considering that any
matter of principle was involved
o The new tendency to plan buildings geometrically or symbolically
wihtout close reference to functional requirements
 HISTORIOGRAPHY
o Historicism and Exoticism: Notion of evolution and chronology
o Passion for Archaeology
 INFLUENCE OF THE PICTURESQUE
o Sculptural and Picturesque
o The villa concept- multiplicity, relatively modest dimensions,
unrestricted sites, assymetry, irregularity of plan, fenestration and
silfouette
o Intricacy defined as the disposition of objects which by a partial and
uncertain concealment, excites and nourishes curiosity

REVIVALISM

 AWARENESS OF STYLE
o STYLE: the fashion which each generation promptly recognize as its
own; what ties together the aesthetic achievements of the creative
individuals of one age;
o the expression of a prevailing, dominant, or authentically
contemporary view of the world by those artists who have most
successfully intuited the quality of human experience peculiar to their
day, and who are able to phrase this experience in forms deeply
congenial to the thought or matter expressed

 PRIMITIVISM AND PROGRESS

o Issues of birth, growth and decay were tackled. The value of historical
study was that it showed by what gradual steps the transition has been
made from the first simple efforts on uncultivated bature to a state of
thing which was ‘so wonderfully artificial and cultivated’
o Glorification of the ‘noble savage’

 ECLECTICISM (1830s)
o A composite system of thought nade up of views selected from various
other systems
o Eclectics claim that no one should accept blindly from the past the
legacy of a single philosophical system to the exclusion of all others but
each should decide rationally and independently what philosophical
facts used in the past were appropriate to the present and then
recognize and respect them in whatever context they might appear
 ROMAN REVIVAL
o Influences of the Romas monumental compositional forms
o The new tendency to fit public buildings into antique temples
o The tendency to incoporate the compositional forms of Antique
temples into public building
o Importance of ruins and archaeological studies

 GREEK REVIVAL
o Acknowledgement of the idea of the Parthernon as the most perfect
building ever constructed; its qualities have been interpreted to justify
every change in architectural fashion
o From the servile duplication of its composition and deatails to the most
individualistic creations in reinforced concrete and steel

o Traditional use of plumb lines, squares and levels

o Regard for public buildings as objects in space rather than objects
enclosing space
o Making pediments correspond to the strcutural reality of the pitched
roof
 RENAISSANCE REVIVAL
o The renaissance revival allowed an architect to select and even to
invent for himself such compositional and decorative forms as might be
considered suitable for the occasion
o Introduced common sense into architectural design
o Picturesque and lacked order and symmetry of classical architecture

o Skill of architects not be found in archaeological accuracy of facades but in

the orderly sequences of accommodationon awkward sites, skillful
combination of different and new materials

 GOTHIC NATIONALISM
o Buildings with pseudo-medieval details
o Ideals with which to justify Gothic revival were immensely varied and
often diametrically opposed
o Neglect of practical comforts and functional planning; spaces were
planned more with an eye to their scenic effect than to their workability
 POLYCHROMY
o Introduction of variegations into the exterior design of facades
o Exteriors should display colors of various hues
o Structural Coloration: architectural form was necessarily stuctural
form, and hence, effects pf color should result from the structural
materials by which an edifice was actually built

FUNCTIONALISM

Symbols of Function
 Biological Analogy
 Mechanical Analogy
 Gastronomic Analogy
 Linguistic Analogy

Biological Analogy
 Architecture based on anatomy
 Concept of Organic Architecture
 Parts of a whole
 Morphology – science of form
 Form follows function
 Influence of the environment

Mechanical analogy
 Scientific evolution and artistic evolution follow the same laws
 Movement and function
 Collaboration in the progressive accumulation of technical knowledge
 Precise destination and expression of potentialities
Gastronomic Analogy
 Demands the combination of materials of strength, ideal sequence or plan,
analysis and testing of efficacies
 Goes beyond scientific analysis, requires intuition, imagination, enthusiasm,
immense amount of organizational skill

Linguistic Analogy
 Eloquence and expression
 Emotions and experiencing emotions
 Vocabulary and composition

Influence of Engineers
 Importance of mathematical studies in constructional design
 Straightforward, unadorned building unless needs of decorum demanded
ornament
 Classical proportions were modified in accordance with new materials
 Architecture of iron

Influence of the Allied Arts

 Decorations and ornaments
 Abstract patterns on space layout
 Furniture design on Architectural composition

HOUSING AND URBAN PLANNING CONCEPTS

Ekistics
 Doxiadis:
“A human settlement is made up of five ekistic elements, which are
interactive and interdependent with each other. These are man,
nature, shells, networks and society.”

URBAN DESIGN CONCEPTS

 Linear and Nodal City – Le Corbusier
 Broadacre City – Frank Lloyd Wright
 Chandigarh – Le Corbusier
 The Freestanding Building/Functionalism – Sigfried Giedion (Space, Time and
Architecture)
 The Ideal City – Ludwig Hilberseimer
 City of Setback Skyscrapers – Louis Sullivan
 Garden City – Ebenezer Howard

MODERNISM
 A series of discontonuous movements in the 19th and 20th centuries;
 Opposes both the Zeitgeist and the Single Strand theories that propose
continuous evolution of styles
 Modernism is characterized by multi-valence or by the presence of multi-
valued levels of meaning
 ISSUES:
o Relativity
o Evolutionary
o Diversity

 COMMON NOTIONS:
o Soulless container
o Absence of relationship with environement
o Arrogant
o Unarticulated
o Monstrous
o Speculative
o Mass-produced

 ASSOCIATED TERMS:
o Functional
o Industrial
o Innovative/Novel
o Technology
o Revolutionary and Opposing
 Modernism is marked by the ff.:
o Renunciation of the old world
o Addressed mass housing
o Explored potentials of material and new forms
o Technological determinism and structural rationalism
o Aesthetic self-expression
o Belief in the power of form to transform the world
o Sleek machined surfaces
o Mass production and cost reduction
o Skyscrapers capitalism
o Grand urban projects
 Van Doesburg: “Every machine is a spiritualization of an organism...the
machine is par excellence, a phenomenon of spiritual disciplines... The new
spiritual artistic sensibility of the 20th century has not only felt the beauty of
the machine but also taken cognizance of the unlimited expressive
possibilities for the arts ”
 The Metaphysical School of Architecture- the quasi –mystical spirit of ”what
the building wants to be”
 Les Corbusier: “The frame of a building or buildings is like the laws that
govern society. Without these laws there is anarchy and without the frame
there is visual anarchy”
 Thomas Ava Edison: experimented with Portland concrete and subsequent
mass production of prefabricated houses made of concrete. Then came the
technology of casting with the use of scaffolding that allowed for variation
and alteration.
POST-MODERNISM
 A diverse and unstable concept that started in the United States after 1965
then spread to the rest of the industrialized world
 Post modernists focused on the differences and brought to fore that which
had been marginalized by dominant cultures. In other fields, the movement
is characterized by a rejection of a unitary world view.
 Architecture came with cartoon-like trivialization and packaging

 Urban planning under post-modernism celebrated heterogeneity in place of

central, grand statues

 Venturi: “An architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special

obligation toward the whole-its truth must be in its totality or implications
of totality. It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the
easy unity of inclusion ”
 Venturi and Scott Brown: “the architect’s task was to express menaing to
the general public whether in the design of a house or a civic building;
people became mobile bearers of meaning.”

DECONSTRUCTION
 Jacques Derrida
The founding father of Deconstruction

“Something has been deconstructed, a philosophical system, a tradition, a

culture, and along comes a deconstructor (who) destroys its stone by stone,
analyzes the structure and dissolves it… One looks as systems… and
examines how it was built, which keystone, which angle… supports the
building; one shifts them and thereby frees oneself from the authority of the
system.”

STRUCTURALISM & POST-STRUCTURALISM

 Structuralism
study of relationships between say, words in a language, etc.

 Post-structuralism
Was concerned with questions of meaning and how individuals order
the world. In architecture, PS focused on meaning rather than process.
FORDISM AND POST-FORDISM
 Fordism
Refers to the state-regulated system of mass production and mass
consumption which, undergirded by welfare and security, dominated
advanced capitalist societies in the west, roughly from the Depression
to the crisis of the 70s
 Post-Fordism
Characterized by:
o Flexible communication
o Niche market consumption
o Flexible machinery equipment that can be adapted to different tasks
relatively quickly
o Flexible accumulation of goods in order to respond quickly to demand
o More temporary and part-time labor
o Geographical clustering of information, transnational cultural and
population flows
o Information superhighways
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS
Elements of Climate needed in Design
 Dry-bulb temperature (DBT)
This is the measurement of the temperature of the air and as far as
possible excludes any radiant temperature.
 Relative Humidity (RH)
The amount of water in the air
 Precipitation
This is mainly rainfall but could also be dew
 Sky
Cloud cover
 Wind
The direction, frequency and force of the wind throughout the year
Comfort Zone
 The range of conditions under which most people feel comfortable;
 It is a function of many variables, among which is the annual mean
temperature
Characteristics of Tropical Climate
 Warm humid : high temperature; high RH; heavy rains esp. during monsoon
 Hot Dry : Very high DBT; low humidity; low precipitation; little or no cloud;
sparse/bare ground
 Composite : mixture of warm, humid and hot/dry
 Macro and Micro : region and site