26 Principles in Architecture
Yiting Li
Content 1 | Space 2 | Concept 3 | Representation 4 | Context 5 | Structure 6 | Mass 7 | Grids 8 | Surface 9 | Material 10 | Color 11 | Fabrication 12 | Movement 13 | Scale
14 | Geometry 15 | Datum 16 | Order 17 | Light and Shadow 18 | Solid and Void 19 | Part to Whole 20 | Dialogue 21 | Tropes 22 | Transformation 23 | Hierarchy 24 | Symmetry 25 | Circulation 26 | Presentation
Map of Rome, Giambattista Nolli, 1748
1| Space Space is nothing but nothing is not in space. Space encompasses the stage for human activity and the volume of a structure, the parts of a building that people move through and experience. In arts, space can be positive or negative, open or closed, shallow or deep, and two-dimensional or three-dimensional. Architectural design can be interpreted as the process of carving space out of space, creating space out of space, and designing spaces by dividing space using various techniques which are the concepts the book is going to talk about. “The manipulation of space is the principal defining characteristic of architecture and what distinguishes it from the other arts, such as sculpture.” — August Schmarzow
2| Concept The formation of architectural space starts with concepts. A concept is the backbone and foundation of a design process. It gives a direction, suggests a possible results, and excludes potential detours. Concepts should be flexible and roomy enough to permit inevitable adjustments as a design evolves.
3| Representation The works that architects do are representations of their ideas and architectural concepts. Representation can be in many different forms: drawings or models, manual or digital. For example, drawings of plans, sections, and elevations are the most basic representations of a building, revealing the relationship of surfaces and volumes in space.
“The final architectural work inevitably bears the traces of its representational origins.� —Andrea Simitch & Val Warke
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Francesco Borromini, Rome Italy, 1682
Plan
Elevation
Section
4| Context Space that surrounds a specific building is the context in which the building is situated. Buildings are always closely related to their contexts. Natural and artificial elements of a context may affect the scale, material, and structure of a building. At the same time, the building itself is a part of the context to another building.
Glass House, Lina Bo Bardi, SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil 1951
5| Structure If architecture is a body, structure is the bones that support the body. The basic elements of a structural system are also the primary elements in the production of architectural space: columns, walls, beams, slabs, and their various combinations.
Charcoal drawing
6| Mass Mass is one of the bases of architectural form. It is both a literal volume of stacked building material in the space and a symbolic representative of what the designer wants to convey. The sense of mass in the images here is exaggerated by the additive blocks and the process conveys the action of expending.
Rietveld-SchrĂśder House, Utrecht, Gerrit Rietveld, 1924.
"The g rid announces and insists on architectural autonomy and authority, and yet is infinitely productive of difference and otherness. The grid is pure relationship, perhaps the degree zero of architectural thought." —K. Michael Hays
7| Grids A sense of boundary is necessary to form a architectural space. Grid provides a boundary or, in other words, marks a site for designers to operate in the boundless space. Grid can be two dimensional or three dimensional and it can be derived from the proportions of the human body or simply from the requirement of a program.
8| Surface The surfaces of a building serves as a boundary between exterior space and interior space. Different materials, shapes, and colors of surfaces gives the building different personalities. “Just as a first impression is often drawn from the expressiveness of a face, the vertical surfaces of a building are usually the first, most communicative aspect of a structure’s design.” ——Andrea Simitch & Val Warke
Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Los Angeles, 1922
Rietveld-Schrรถder House, Utrecht, Gerrit Rietveld, 1924.
Temple of Kukulcรกn, Yucatรกn, Mexico, Late Classic
Light Diagram
“Materials carr y meanings through embodying traditional materials, methodologies, and rituals of construction as well as through the less tangible aspects of the uniqueness of place, program, and culture.” ——Andrea Simitch & Val Warke
9| Material Materials reflects how a space is perceived and how a surface performs. It is an important to tool for architects to present their ideas. It can not only affect a building itself, but people’s perceptual experience of the building. The choice of material always closely associated with the building’s context. Take Lina Bo Bardi’s Glass House as an example, the choice of using glass as walls minimizes the distance between the outside nature and the inside living space and allows sufficient natural light to come in at the same time.
Glass House, Lina Bo Bardi, São Paulo, Brazil 1951
10| Color As a sensory perception, color has overwhelming effect on the way a building is perceived by people. It is one of the most important determinants of a building’s style. Color can be symbolic, functional, and emotional. It can lend a building’s surface a sense of relative depths, or of layers of information. The choice of color can make a building blend in with its landscape, developing an affinity for its neighboring buildings, or it can make the architecture contrast with its surroundings, making the building stand out.
Collage of Temple of Kukulcรกna and Hollyhock House
11| Fabrication Fabrication is the intermediary between architect’s ideas and finished works. It is the process that brings materials together based on designed structures. Techniques of fabrication reflects characteristics of the architecture, physically and culturally.
12| Movement Movement gives the static space and building life. Movement includes the natural changes of environment and human activities. It is those constant movement creates unique stories of human, nature, and architecture.
Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier, Poissy, France, 1928–31
13| Scale Unlike size, scale is relative to its context. A building can have multiple scales based on how the range of its context being defined in the infinite space. “When it comes to scale, buildings are eternal chameleons— shifty characters, they thrive on belonging simultaneously to multiple and interlocking scales.” ——Andrea Simitch & Val Warke
14| Geometry Geometry lies at the core of the architectural design process. Descriptive geometries not only represent three-dimensional forms in a two-dimensional way, but also serve as a essential aspect to identify and quantify a space, for calculating the actual surface areas and volumes being described. Over the years, the development of materials, representational techniques, and fabrication skills all lead to more elaborate geometries in architecture.
Section, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Francesco Borromini, Rome Italy, 1682
15| Datum Datum is a point of reference which ties together all other elements of the architectural design. It allows similar or dissimilar elements to come together, becoming one whole which can be measured, located, or given dimension or scale. Datum can be in many different forms: a surface, grid, axis, horizon line, mass, and so on. For example, the flat ground serves as a datum for the floor of the Glass House above the slanted hill.
Elevation, Glass House, Lina Bo Bardi, SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil 1951
16| Order The dictionar y defines order as “A condition of logical or comprehensible arrangement among the separate elements of a group.” During each architectural design process, designers always face the questions of how individual space might be defined, how each elements might be identified, and how the separate spaces might be arranged together. The decisions of those issues reflects a design’s intended uses, and the designer’s attitudes and priorities.
Plan, Glass House, Lina Bo Bardi, São Paulo, Brazil 1951
17| Light and Shadow
Light is an impor tant medium for the visual sense to function. The relationship between architecture and light is complementary. Light and the shadow it casts create a sense of space while architecture captures light and uses it to create infinite possibilities in the space. Light and shadow can be used to create spatial hierarchy, to generate different atmosphere , and to adjust the sense of spatial scale.
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“Architecture which enters into a symbiosis with light does not merely create form in light, by day and at night, but allow light to become form.” —Ricardo Legorreta
18| Solid and Void Solid is a matter of presence, and void is absence of it. Combination of the solid and void endows space with complexity and creates staggered spaces. The relationship of solid to void also contributes to the perception of density and gravity.
New Church, Massimiliano & Doriana Fuksas, Foligno, Italy, 2009
19| Part to Whole Part to Whole is space defined by the whole came from the repetition of parts. It can also be interpreted as a process a design technique, and a construction method.
Collage of Temple of Kukulcána and Hollyhock House
“It is through dialogue that everyone becomes an architect.” ——Andrea Simitch & Val Warke
20| Dialogue It is dialogue that maintains a work consistently engaging with its audiences, other buildings, and the whole world, even after the author and the original audience are no longer present. Being dialogical, a building allows everyone to assign it with different values and meanings based each one’s unique understanding of it. Forms of dialogue include contrast, enrichment, redirection, and addition.
Temple of Kukulcán, Yucatán, Mexico, Late Classic
Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Los Angeles, 1922
21| Tropes Tropes are devices for familiarization through the process of defamilizarization. Architects may use tropes to instigate fresh understandings of something that has become conventional or to express their unique point of view of something. Types of tropes include metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, irony, and personification.
John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York
22| Transformation Architectural design can be viewed as a process of transforming static materials to highly dynamic ones with immense possibilities. “Architecture has the capacity to transform from minute to minute, day to day, year to year.” ——Andrea Simitch & Val Warke
23| Hierarchy Hierarchy in architecture describes the components of a structure by how noticeable they are. It allows designers to convey their ideas by emphasizing certain components of a building and it provides a sense of depth by creating a primary and secondary relationship in composition.
Collage of the Hollyhock House
Elevation Decomposition
24| Symmetry Symmetry is achieved when elements are arranged in the same way on both sides of an axis. It helps bind various elements of a structure together into a single, unified whole.
Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Los Angeles, 1922
25| Circulation Circulation in architecture refers to the movement of people through a building, and how people interact with the physical space around them. The design of circulation reflects what spatial experience the architect wants people to have in his building.
Glass House, Lina Bo Bardi, SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil 1951
Plan and Ciculation Diagram
26| Presentation Presentation is an important media for an architects to communicate with his audiences. It embodies the architect’s ideas and serves to reinforce the architectural concept. Presentation can be in forms of drawings, models, video animations and so on. It is the channel opened by designers for people to understand the space they create.