Architecture Design Philosophy

Introduction

Architecture is a unique endeavor: It is an art, a discipline and a profession. Together these three aspects define its nature as a field, its basic premises, its mode of thought and operation, and its practice. As an art, architecture explores and embodies meaning in physical form. Yet, as an art, architecture is an art all its own. It differs from the other arts in that it engages directly the reality of our daily, personal and communal life by shaping the places and environments where we live, work, play, celebrate and represent ourselves. Thus, more than mere shelter, architecture provides a fundamental, physical and symbolic structure—a sense of place and identity—for our existence and well-being, our activities, interactions and aspirations. As such, architecture encompasses and explores the totality of our being—body, mind and spirit—as well as the larger orders that constitute our world—nature, technology, society and culture.

As a discipline, architecture is defined by the cumulative body of values, thought, knowledge and technical expertise. These are intrinsic to its nature as an art, its responsibilities to society, and its obligations as a profession. This knowledge base is derived from centuries of history and tradition. In addition, because of its diverse and complex subject matter, architecture also draws upon the findings and ideas of other fields (the other arts, philosophy, humanities, sciences and engineering). It is, thus, inherently generalist and cross disciplinary. Yet, architecture is more than the amalgam of other fields, it is a unique and idiosyncratic discipline (one of the oldest), with its own epistemology and methodology. The complex task of planning and designing meaningful human environments requires a mode of thinking and reasoning that transcends the mere assimilation and synthesis of diverse sources of knowledge. It requires a creative and heuristic process aimed at meaning rather than truth. Embodying this meaning in space and form, it fuses imagination with logic and creative exploration with systematic inquiry.

As a profession, architecture has a responsibility to serve society and contribute to its advancement and well-being by providing understanding, knowledge and technical expertise to help solve environmental problems and realize aspirations for a better future. Since architecture is a public art, serving both the individual and the community, it is also accountable to certain moral and ethical obligations. It is the architect’s responsibility to seek and to find a constructive balance in the discourse of competing forces:

• between private interests and the public good;
• between nature, technology and humanity;
• between the past, the present and the future.

The Nature of Design Thinking

Architectural Design is its own mode of thought.

Architecture is a very complex undertaking, covering the whole range of human experience and existence. Because of this range and complexity, architectural design requires a way of thinking and reasoning that is different from commonly used thought processes.

Design cannot be explained through problem-solving techniques even though it involves aspects of problem-solving. Because of its indeterminacy and open-endedness it is stochastic and heuristic in nature—requires aspects of conjecture, trial and error. It demands the fusion of cognitive thought, imagination and creativity.

Design as a Procedure

Design is an evolutionary, discursive process, not the assembly and composition of a product. It is about uncovering, engaging and exploring questions rather than focusing on answers. It is about evolving a coherent body of thought and ideas—a conceptual logic and argument—in active correspondence with a physical order and form. Design, ultimately, is a learning process—a continuous process of uncovering, understanding, defining and redefining.

Therefore, architectural solutions cannot be chosen or assigned—they must evolve. Progressive iterations are essential in this process. This requires an ability to interpret, respond and project forward from the emerging physical form. You must have a discerning eye and inspiring imagination. You must also have the cognitive ability to intellectually understand what is only beginning to evolve as a potential logic and direction. Two major factors are indispensable in this process:

• the synergistic interplay between the cognitive, intellectual faculty of the mind and its creative, artistic counterpart
• the dynamic, discursive dialogue between the mind of the designer and the evolving artifact

Differentiating a Graduate from an Undergraduate Education in Architecture

A graduate education should attempt to expose and illuminate the discipline that underlies attitudes toward architectural issues, values, and constructs. Making these constructs as explicit as possible helps facilitate discussion of the ideas that identify architecture as a mode of thought as well as those that serve our professional practice.

Such discussion characterizes a graduate versus an undergraduate architectural education. The reasons for any approach to architectural design are explicitly opened for examination. In this discussion students are able to develop a vision of the why of design as well as the how and what.

Cultivating an Architectural Intellect

The design studio represents the laboratory of the architect. It is here that we engage in what the architect does—artfully apply critical thinking to ill-structured problems in order to produce a plan for construction. This is where we build our confidence to deal with the risks of contradiction and conflict. This is where we learn to build ideas (design) in a very broad-based, fuzzily-structured discipline.

How we do this is a more difficult question. The nature of design thinking originates in the nature of design problems (the device through which investigation is promoted). “The Project” or exercise is a hypothetical situation designed to bring forward the issues and objectives of this curriculum. These projects are, by nature, impure: they do not fall easily in singular categories of human thought or experience. Also, these projects will evolve through application in the studio.

Rigorous Formal Thought

Constructs underlay architecture. Design, defined only as a series of solutions to specific building problems, ignores a level of architectural thought common to all design problems. It is the construction of these conceptual categories (constructs) that adds a certain precision to the problem of designing. Designating opposites is one way of setting up a construct. Myths of creation are typically stated in terms of oppositions: heaven/earth; darkness/light. Opposites pave the way by defining factors and encapsulating limits (motion/rest; man/woman, public/private) that are clearly related in both categories.

Although we can see a relationship between “material” and “conceptual,” they seem to establish extremes differently than by oppositions. They are related, and may even seem to be about the same thing, yet, there is not only a plausible connection one to another, they help to define each other. They challenge the assumptions of each other. In the 1987 film The Belly of an Architect by Peter Greenaway, we are immediately drawn into a tension. This tension between conceptual categories (belly/stomach) produces a shift in our involvement with the film resulting in both anxiety and arousal.

It becomes a matter of design to inspire, illuminate and elaborate this connection in a symmetry of the construct. So, when there is no natural symmetry or specificity inherent in these constructs, it becomes the designer’s aim to establish both the proposition and the nature of relationships in creating this symmetry. This is not to say that we must look for a static balance or fixed meaning. It may be more desirable to find a dynamic or conceptual tension that produces the symmetry.

Challenge everything! But always from a considered stance. Use the posing of symmetries to help clarify design assertions. Even word-play can provide insights. Try to find the relationship between “construction” and “construing”—words of similar origin.

Construction: This is where we apply our knowledge of building systems and structures to the production of a building. However, choosing appropriate materials and systems is seldom as simple as it may sound. It is necessary that we understand the general rules and fixed knowledge about making buildings, but this alone is insufficient. There is also appropriateness. This is where things get fuzzy again. We can solve the problem but it may have been the wrong problem to solve.

Construing: Understanding appropriateness is a process of inquiry–it is reasoning. The progress we make toward a design product is compelled by/ imbedded in the quality of the questions we ask. The problem is then, how do we get at the questions that will serve us best? We can rely on our innate creativity—what William James called the “blooming, buzzing confusion” —or we can consider creativity “a bringing of order.” Or both. We may be able to indulge the confusion if we have order in our understanding of creativity.

The following list is a reminder that creating problems in order to solve them is not design! There are many more fascinating ways to create conceptual systems.

• Resolution / unity / fusion
  • Reconciliation or coexistence? (local/global)
  • Apposition, adjacency
  • Separating/ uniting? (entities such as the front porch)
  • Formal aspects of work fused with material aspects
• Antithesis / contradiction / opposition
  • Contrast, conflict, irony, paradox,
  • Absolutes are always extreme: every absolute has an opposite
• Metaphors / metonymies
  • Constructs that have no literal meaning.
  • Unities consisting of discrete and, at times, disparate elements that interact and relate to each other within a larger whole

Persistent Design Issues

Questions about function

The Person

How is the human being central to the production of meaningful place? Consider the human body as a physical manifestation of our being. Through its position, orientation and movement in and through space, it is the center of our activities and our interaction with others. As such, the body, as locus of our being, is a central referencing element for the creation and experience of architecture in general, and a sense of place in particular.

The Material

How is material presence central to the production of meaningful place? Whether phenomenal or conceptual, it is the absence or presence of material in relation to light that we experience. However, it is our ability to see something ‘more than the sum of the parts’ that gives significance to this experience. Spaces, large and small, must be able to configure together in support of each other. Constructs such as the ‘cellular wall,’ ‘phenomenal transparency,’ or ‘interpenetrating space’ must find themselves within a coherent logic of material construction.

The Program

What does it mean ‘to function’ or ‘to work’ as a response to the needs of the project? All forms of habitation have certain fundamental needs in common. It is through the meaningful articulation of these basic programmatic requirements—entry, passage, place, orientation and hierarchy—that building materials become architectural—attain significance.

• ENTRY—Entry is about a threshold that makes aware that you have entered into a place. It marks the change from place to place. Consider metaphors related to entry: “she was at the threshold of...,” “they stood at the gateway of...,” “he opened the door to new opportunities” It is not simply ‘how you get in.’
• PASSAGE—Passage draws us, compels us to move toward another space/ another state of mind—either physically or mentally. How is this movement made into meaningful experience?
• PLACE—Place is that space within which we can dwell/ reside/ come in to settle—a place that beckons our arrival. Place gives concrete shape and meaning to the abstract dimension of time and space. How is space shaped and articulated to transform as a place of belonging?
• ORIENTATION—How do we orient ourselves within the structure? How do we understand where we are within a place? In nature we orient to the horizon, to light and to notable artifacts. Explore issues of focus, enclosure, opening and light.
• HIERARCHY—Some places are more important than others, some more private/ more public or more formal/more casual. What is imbedded in the material, the space or form that brings an understanding of relative importance to a place?

Questions concerning representation

It is through the process of design—our methods and procedures—that a work of architecture comes into being. This process is by definition indeterminate and open-ended. It is a unique process that involves a particular way of thinking and reasoning and has a logic all its own. Since architecture is an art rather than a science—in search of meaning instead of truth or a correct solution—the process requires the development of a discerning eye, imagination, versatility, critical thinking and judgment, in addition to the acquisition of knowledge, technical expertise and skills. Difficulties arise because this requires a wide array of modes and techniques of representation—no single mode or technique is capable of representing the complexity of reality in its totality. These difficulties are compounded because each form of representation “filters” or privileges the perception of reality thereby affecting its content, character and meaning.

We will explore various modes, media and techniques of design, representation and assembly useful as analytical and generative tools in the study and creation of a work of architecture, the critical issues they raise relative to their potential and limitations, and their impact on thought, design process and product.

Questions concerning methodology

We have tried to appropriate methods from other disciplines—useful methods are essential—yet ours must be different from science, sociology, or philosophy. This is a heated debate that has raised many questions of the role of representation in architectural design and the role of technology in material assemblies. Most current theories on design methods in architecture are focused on either methods of phenomenology or of formalism. It is our position that understanding these major processes of design is essential to developing confident design skills. A matrix of method and media may help to structure your investigations in relation to these methods.

by Gunter Dittmar, Associate Professor, Emeritus