Architect at Work

            When I first heard this topic “Architect at Work”, I had the image of some skyscrapers and I totally agree with my teacher’s opinion when she said that we as architects design the building when someone says what is going to be built. And I think that I hit the nail in the head, because the work of architect is related to the spatial ability, designing and generating the form of the building and interior and exterior spaces of the building. When the architect starts to design a building and to bring it into life, there are some steps which are essential and need to be known: It starts with locational analysis (responsibility of town planners and geographers),  environmental control (specialist of building design), Judgment over matters of cost (quantity surveyor), interior design (skills of an artist).  One word is used for very different concepts such as functional architecture, data architecture, solution architecture or enterprise architecture. In addition, boundaries between architecture and design are unclear. Some say they are similar concepts. Others argue that they are complementary concepts with different levels of abstraction. To do so here are some ways generating 3 dimensional form:

1.      Pragmatic

2.      Iconic

3.      Analogic

4.      Canonic

PRAGMATIC Design

Design is about making stuff, we make stuff to test our hypotheses. The word pragmatic itself says: dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. This type of design is carried at the very first beginning of the work. In this case the architect sees the relationship between the climate that the nature offers and the need of the client. The building may affect the climate, as well as the climate can affect the building, which may be cultural, social, political, economic… All in all these refer ti CLIMATIC MODIFICATION. Do you guys remember all the stuff we are doing in the studio, that abstract house with given shapes? All we are doing is pragmatic design, because we are testing not only the material (because the material is defined), but also the linking in between in such a way to work. In other words TRIAL AND ERROR UNTIL A FORM EMERGES, just like the mammoth’s hunter’s tent. What drew my attention was the “inheritance” of such buildings, for different reasons. For example a group of people have their own tradition in building a house and they have kept it for several years, or they may transform it with some little changes, but the idea doesn’t change. When I first read this type of design, I took the answers of all the questions in my mind: How come that the igloos or tepees stay in that form? I think that these were the genesis of the design. Just like the fire, when primitives discovered it but didn’t know how to explain the discovery.  Now I have a question? Can you build an igloo in your country? It sounds like absurdity, because we have never seen an igloo out of blocks of ice been built in other countries, except Antarctic. I think that you clearly know that the climate there favors the form and design of an igloo. And like all the other things,

ICONIC DESIGN

These kind of designs are related to the history of a tribe or some legends. I am going to make a parallelism: When we say Alvar Aalto, in my mind comes the image of warm and curving buildings that were unlike the mechanistic, coolly geometrical, abstract designs of his European peers. This is the characteristic that helps us recognize the style of the architect.

Iconic design is related to pragmatic one, because firstly you have to deal with pragmatic design and then with iconic one, just like the building, the bricks are arranged in such a way to make the entire building.

ANALOGIC Design

Did you know that Lord Kelvin developed the mirror galvanometer from noticing sunlight reflecting from his monocle? The engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel invented the caisson from observing ships worms tunneling through wood. These examples show us how we can generate new forms only by concentrating and observing the “old” ones or better saying the known ones. When we first see a building, the first impact that strikes us is the visual attraction. So we try to make an analogy of the building with something that resembles with. But this doesn’t mean that only the exterior part of the building “obey” this rule. Probably you have seen a chair which looks like a shoe (especially nowadays), or a coach which implement the image of an animal or something taken by nature. But let’s take a look back at the history. Did you know that pyramids were tombs, called mastabas? All the functions of life and beyond life were carried into these pyramids. Analogic design, a method of generating new forms, is found. The use of new forms aroused by analogical processes are firstly seen in the funerary complex designed for King Djoser at Saqqara. Mastabas, the only kind of buildings in that time near Nile had an analogy with the heap of stones which burial shafts had come to be covered with- a pragmatic device to prevent the sand flow away.

CANONIC Design

Do you remember the phrase: “Use your own gridline… Follow the grid that lines offer you.” It is nothing but canonic design. I think that your best work is when you used the gridline that the object/figure or something like this offered you. You know why? Because this implies regularity, and not a chaos. We are talking about 2D design. You may think that it is impossible, but the canonic design can be used to generate 3D forms and indeed into architectural buildings. For example: from Plato we understand that a solid can be formed with triangles. But this is up to your choice. As well as you may choose your own gridline, such that of a human scale or your finger, elbow, leg and so on. In my opinion, canonic design is very useful and why not fundamental to architecture because it makes our work much more easier since we have this regulating grid system that helps us to continue our design.

To sum up: “It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it is the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” So pragmatic, iconic, analogic, canonic…not only these types of design, but all the other types of design are needed to generate three dimensional forms. Each one of them is unique, each one of them gives us special clues that lead us in designing and maintaining such magnificent and functional buildings.