architect - a manifesto

The Lateral Thinker

You do not solve a problem like that of an engineer.  The engineer moves from A to B in the most logical and efficient manner as possible.  This is not belittling to the engineer as this is often a desired attribute in the creation of many things.  What this does however, is eliminate the human element.  You should solve the problem as a person and not as a machine.  Mathematics, physics, music, and astronomy are all tools for your disposal.  They are not to dictate your design, but rather you should orchestrate these tools to inform what your product will become.  By doing this, you may find that there is not one clear solution to a problem.  A simple object can be used as an example.  Mathematics may tell you to make a sphere, while physics tells you to make a heavy sphere, and all the while astronomy is informing you of the sphere’s orientation.  As it may seem, this can lead to an exact answer.  Now introduce the human element and you will begin to have questions.  What emotion does my sphere evoke?  How does my sphere effect what it surrounds or are the surroundings effecting the sphere?  These questions should lead to a humanization of the design and it will set your design apart from the engineered product.  You should also ask in the end, does this product solve the problem?  Maybe it does, but it is not necessarily directed toward Point B from Point A.  It may be found that you have diverted from the path slightly to make the product more meaningful.  It may also be the case that you have questioned the meaning of the solution and found that the solution itself is not appropriate, and in turn created Point C in which better responds to humanity.

Experience in Arriving to a Solution

It is impossible in the time and space we occupy to not engage any one of our senses when experiencing an object or space.  You may walk blind, but your feet will hear for you.  You may not eat, but your nose will taste for you.  When you are creating, it should be for the intention that it will in one way or another be experienced by people.  The products which are not intended for people can be the engineered products as I mentioned before.  Keep in mind the experience of a solution.  These are things that if ignored, fail to effectively engage the user.   

Multiple Paths for a Solution

There will always be new ways of exploring an idea.  You may find that your design is excellent in every way possible.  You have explored every aspect of the experience of your design and followed through accordingly.  Your follow up may find that your design satisfies every need of the user.  The fact is, however, that your flawless design is not the ONLY flawless design.  Your emotions, life experiences, attitudes, and ideals were all mixed into the design whether you were conscience of this or not.  Therefore a person of opposite ideals and comparatively radical lifestyles may find a solution equally effective in every way possible and yet have no feasible similarity to your design.

What Does an Architect Create?

To effectively answer this question I have laid out before me, I shall say “an architect should” instead of “an architect does.”  The following will be what I believe a true architect should be creating, because there are many architects in the profession who do not trend in the manor of my following statements. 

To put it in the broadest of terms, an architect should create everything.  Now, I am not saying that an architect should be standing next to a car designer critiquing on his every stroke, nor am I saying that he should be there to suggest design to any other creation made.  The architect should design what is around him in a way that expresses who he/she is as a person. 

The first thing that you might go to in your mind is the clothing an architect wears.  Too often I see architects wearing typical office attire, the suit and tie.  This either suggests conformity to a social norm or the lack of real design integrity by the architect.  I will not make a suggestion of a certain style, but I would say an architect needs to compose himself like a building.  Each piece needs to work in harmony with each other while making a statement or having purpose. 

Take an example of an article of my daily attire, a black metal watch.  The watch itself is a statement on its own because we have become too connected to the cellular devices that are supposed to make our lives simpler.  It is a statement to a time that was in fact simpler.  The black metal has a lower wealth appearance than silver or especially gold which relates to my situation as a student of architecture.  The idea is that I have not designed the watch, instead allowed the watch to speak to others about my inner self. 

Now imagine a broader view of what surrounds an architect…his desk, pen, paper, daily schedule even.  These are all opportunities for creation and design.  Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for constructing complete works of art.  He would physically design the silverware for some of his residential designs.  This method is often too laborious and cost intensive, but it serves as an idea to remind us that we are a composition as a person and everything around us will reflect what is kept inside.  

Who Does an Architect Design For?

I want to answer this one quickly because I believe that in this manor is will be most received. 

Design for People

Well what about nature and the environment?  If nature did not directly affect humanity then we would not be concerned with it.  Since nature and the environment are symbiotic with people, then we design for both.  It is very simple, but when contemplated, very deep.

Why Does an Architect Design?

Passion.  There should be no other reason.  You may say that you want to design to better people’s lives or save the world.  That is a splendid idea and I encourage you fully.  But without passion, you will fail.  Passion must be the driving force behind every idea and every concept that comes from your mind.  Passion is what will make your design believable to people.  It is what will make people truly feel what you have created and they will experience your design the way it was intended.  We have all seen works that were pushed by deadlines, half-hearted by the ill-interested, or stamped out by the one who does not carry design in his heart.  These works fall short of their potential.

Where Does Design Take Place?

Where does it all happen?  Does it occur at a desk in an office from the hours of 8am – 5pm? Does it occur in a board room with clients and consultants?  Well, yes actually, it does occur in those places.  Collaboration is a great producer of design and innovation.  But it is not where ALL design takes places.  The car ride from the office to your home, on the couch while watching television commercial, or in bed right before you fall asleep can all be places of design.  In essence, design occurs in your mind.  And if you are a true architect or a true designer, your mind never shuts off.  It is always thinking of ways to improve, change, or adapt one thing or another.  You should allow your mind to always be open to new ideas, because then you will start making connections to things you never thought possible.  All of a sudden a woven basket informs you on the structure of a building, or the smell of coffee in your kitchen brings to life how you are designing a café.  Allow the process to continually flow, but more importantly…keep a pen and paper close near at hand.

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I want to thank you, the reader, for your time and patience with this writing.  It was a small step into my mind, and I was able to finally unleash some of the thoughts which have been swirling around.  If anything is gained, I hope you take away the meaning of the word architect, because it is not just a creator of buildings.  He is rather a creator of environments by manipulating the existent into an experience.  So go out into the world and be an architect.

Mies van der Rohe and le Corbusier on the Open Plan

The floor plans developed by Mies van der Rohe are unique from their counterparts of their time yet they walk the lines of Modernism.  Although they follow the laws, they advance the principles and refine what a modern building can become.  It is a refinement in simplicity that is designed to speak to a new world in the emergence of new technology.

The first order of business for Mies was to throw out all previous conceptions of the floor plan.  He was not the first to create the free plan but he focused the idea to a very literal point.  In order to do this, Mies first determined that the room of a space did not influence the plan, nor is there any center to the house.  Frank Lloyd Wright’s “hearth” is nowhere to be found.  One of his first famous works, The Country Brick House, keeps walls as structure but gives them a new purpose.  A single wall is not designed to simply serve one space.  Instead Mies allows these planes to intersect the house and define multiple spaces.  As this happens, the spaces themselves begin to intersect not only visually but physically as well.  It is no longer a matter of being in one space and having the ability to see into another.  This creates visual fluidity alone.  Mies pushes the planes beyond the normal point of termination.  In plan, a horizontal wall in one space is pushed to become a vertical wall in another.  This physically brings one space into another by continuation of the material.

The Barcelona Pavilion would be another refinement of Mies’ own ideals in regard to plan.  Corbusier’s point about the free plan starts to take a very literal form.  Here, the column takes on the role of the wall and because of its importance, it is decorated as such.  The walls become partitions to solely to define space.  With the plan entirely free of any walls needed to support the roof, partitions are placed in the most minimal of fashions to simply define a space.  This extreme minimalism is liberating and free.

The 50x50 would have to be the pinnacle of the free plan by Mies.  It is a total elimination of anything that is unnecessary.  At this point, the plan does not say house.  It says space, and that is what it is.  Allowing the materials to be true, Mies creates a plan that serves its purpose at the most basic level a building can function which is to physically contain.  Visually, there is no containment, and the person is on display or rather nature is on display for the user.      

One could argue that this expression is designed to speak to the struggling culture and economy of Germany.  It says that through new innovations and technology, the German nation can be liberated.  It follows the tradition that Mies has been schooled in which is that of efficiency through technology.  Mies allows his steel columns and solemn partitions to stand for what they are and not stray from their purpose in a building.

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The floor plan of Le Corbusier carries the ideals of an open plan but approaches the issue in a dramatically different way than Mies van der Rohe.  In order to understand the plan of Le Corbusier, one needs to understand his paintings from before.  At first glance they appear random, quirky, and distorted.  But as one who can reflect after knowing the style of Corbusier, there is a pattern or system that starts to come to the foreground.  There is a method of proportioning that is very evident that brings order to the piece.  It seems that this system and way of organizing space would follow Corbusier into his method of creating the plan as an architect. 

Let us examine Villa la Roche and Ville la Savoye.  Corbusier does in fact stick to his own principle of the open floor plan.  At first it appears that the spaces determine how the entire building is composed and the interior walls help form the structure.  In fact, this appears to be the opposite.  The plan is opened in the Villa Savoye by allowing a grid of columns to bear the weight of the building.  Villa la Roche uses a series of columns embedded in the walls to create the open plan. 

Now Corbusier is able to place walls, or partitions rather, where he sees fit to define a space.  When looking at the plan by itself, there is nothing open about it.  Many of the spaces appear to be closed and sectioned off from one another.  When the plan is moved into section, one can see how visual penetrations of spaces occur.  By being in one room but seeing into another allows the user to feel a larger sense of space.

 

The issue remains however, if partitions are freely placed but appear to close off space, how are the spaces organized?  I believe they are organized according to Corbusier’s mathematical scheme of dividing and ordering space.  It appears Corbusier thought that strict patterns, mathematical formulas, and proportions could lead to good design given the designer felt it was indeed good in the end.  He did not want to allow a space to exist simply happen because it fits.  Order was given to everything including his plan for both la Roche and Savoye. 

What Corbusier also included in his free plan for both buildings was a center point.  There is not a load bearing mass or central column in the center of these to villas but rather a void.  This void allows for the movement of people, thus he is putting the human at the center of the design.  It is from the atrium or the stairway that the rest of the plan is centered around. 

These ideas are extremely rooted in the classics.  Proportions and ordering systems were typical of Greek architecture.  They informed the structure to which a plan could then be designed.  These systems can be found in the plans and elevations of Greek temples.  The idea of the human center or holy center is also common in Greek architecture but goes back even further and across the globe.  Corbusier is attempting to revive these lost techniques of design and merge them with modern technology and materials to create a new style of architecture.