Making Architecture

	Course Outline
Session 1 Notes	Session 2 Notes	Session 3 Notes
Session 4 Notes	Session 5 Notes	Session 6 Notes
Session 7 Notes	Session 8 Notes	Session 9 Notes
Bib % Bio	Final	Projects

• link: Matt Taylor Studio Project •
• link:Pattern Language •
• link: Xanadu Project •
• link: My Palo Alto Workspace •
• link: Work Index *

ARCHITECTURE

Theme

A true work of architecture [link] - as any art - expresses a a singular theme that integrates all the aspects of the piece into one coherent whole. Everything emanates from this focus and expresses it. Without this thematic integrity, a work is merely a conglomeration of parts which lack power.

Architecture has three attributes - take one away and you do not have it. These, shelter, arrangement and expression have to be in balance. They are integrated and made harmonious by the THEME of a work.

Architecture must integrate the attributes of shelter, arrangement and expression in such a way that both augments and expresses a way of life - and working. Great architecture does this in a way that leads those who use it [link] to a fuller understanding of life’s potential and provides means to achieve that potential. Architecture is not a visual art. It is fact-based. Architecture is the ART of experience. It is a major tool for the art of living [link].

Deriving a work’s THEME [link] is a major step in the process of making architecture. It is like creating the mission statement for an organization. It is the goal statement - the standard - that makes feedback [link] possible. Without this, everything is arbitrary. One way of solving any problem is as good as any other as long as the problem is worked out. With theme, however, each problem can be solved on it’s own level (of recursion)‚ and in reference to the overall purpose/function of the work. Theme makes integration, a layers of meaning, possible.

THEME has to be recreated [link] at each step of the Design Formation Model. It is first discovered and developed in the Program and Schematic Design stages. To proceed too far in the design process without understanding the theme of the work is a grave mistake.

The theme of a work evolves out of it’s program. It is expressed, first, in the schematic phase of development. It is developed throughout each subsequent work phase and is only fully realized with USE. How the building is employed is equally as important as the effort that goes into it’s design. The entire Design, Build, Use [link] cycle makes the art of architecture. THEME cannot be imposed. It emerges in the early design process as a result of thought and contemplation about the true meaning of the work. What is this space about? what values does it represent, express, promote? What happens here? What happens here that cannot happen anywhere else in exactly the same way? What point of view, what capacity is unique to this place? What human experience will be created here? Theme can never be forced. It cannot be totally understood or controlled either. It can be brought forth by a systematic process.

Theme speaks in the language of denotation and connotation. Colors, textures, forms, masses, and the order of their assembly, have direct tactile presence and social meaning. It is through the composition of these elements that idea is expressed by and fused into physical form. The physically of a built environment changes over time. A new work can never match the quality of a well designed and built place that has been lived in and evolved with care and craft. The energy of use becomes the memory of thing [link]. Thing expresses spirit; spirit becomes thing. The built work [link] is the direct expression of the builders and their society.

Theme, therefore, is not just an idea to employ while making a design - it is that. Theme becomes the thing. Beyond being a tool of the design process, it is the soul of the work. This is not an a device - a mere intellectual conceit. It cannot be faked. This is why the way a building is built is so important. People energy, for good or bad, is bonded in the result. This is a secrete that every craftsman knows. The attention given to one’s own mental state and the detail of the work is what makes craft. It is, of course, a view and a practice that emanates from a completely different set of assumptions than the common build-it-for-money (only), mechanistic paradigm. Architecture cannot be had that way. It takes cathedral builders [link] to do a great work.

Theme demands. It challenges the design, build, use team. It sets the standard of performance. It also teaches and guides. To create a theme for a work is to accept a strict master who will require your best attention and effort. If the theme does not place you on the performance edge the resulting work is perfunctory and normal. It will lack life. It will be stale.

A building’s theme starts the process of finding the vocabulary of a work. It acts as a mental armature that allows design team members to bring a great range of their individual perspective to the process while achieving an integrated result. Harmony and diversity - both necessary values. A building’s vocabulary is expressed, in a material way, by the grammar employed in it’s execution. This grammar is expressed, primarily, by the palette [link] employed and the module [link] used. The module schema provides the scaffolding from which FORM emerges and structure is determined.

Of course, this is not arrived at in a linear and mechanical way. THEME is discovered. It emerges from thought and dialog with a broad community engaged in the work. It is an act of philosophy and design. It is not entirely the result of conscious, rational thought. It is aided by meditation, imagination, serendipity and inspiration.

A theme is usually captured in the Program Statement of a work and expressed in the schematic sketches. This is, perhaps, the major role of SCHEMATICS - to render the essence of a work in a way that provokes a creative response from the community who will build and employ it. The schematic design creates a formal problem [link] that the community of designer-builders are challenged to solve.

A brilliant example of theme is provided by Ayn Rand in the Fountainhead. It is the scene where a boy on a bicycle comes across one of Roark’s projects [link]. The theme of the book and the project, itself, are both explicated in a short, powerful description. Not only is this an excellent piece of writing, it is provocative thematic description of an architectural idea. Roark’s explanation of the project to the clients, elsewhere in the book, is an excellent example of an outline program statement.

It is the idea embedded in a work that provides it meaning and life. This idea is capitalized in the theme of the work. The theme is made real by the use of denotation and connotation in the selection of materials, colors, shapes, forms and masses. It is embedded and, thus, pervasive in a work when it drives every esthetic decision made in the process of creating the work. This is a major factor, like is Pattern Language, in the making of architecture. It is not the only fracture. However, take it out and you have a building, not art.