Concepts in Architecture

IVTH YEAR,
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE,
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE,
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING,
ADAMA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY,
Concepts in Architecture
Asst. Prof. Sumantra Misra, M.Arch, PhD Research Scholar,
Department of Architecture, School of Engineering, Adama Science and
Technology University

Module Structure
Concepts
Concepts and
Architectural Design
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concept
Hierarchies
Appropriateness
Self
Criticism
Five Types of Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals

A simple definition of a concept suggests that
concepts are ideas that integrate various elements
into a whole.
These elements can be ideas, notions, thoughts,
and observations.
Concepts are the antithesis of notions, which do
not make any pretense about being appropriate.
Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts

Concepts are the antithesis of notions, which do
not make any pretense about being appropriate.
A concept implies appropriateness; it supports
the main intentions and goals of a project and
respects each project’s unique characteristics and
restrictions.
Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts – 5 Similes
architectural ideas,
themes,
super organizing ideas,
parti and esquisse,
literal translations,

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
Architectural ideas are concepts
that have been reduced to a
formal architectonic concern
like daylight, space, sequences
of spaces, integration of
structure and form, and sitting
in the landscape.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
Each can influence the general
design of a building. The
specific architectonic concern is
then used as the basis for the
design decisions that follow.

themes,
parti and esquisse,
A theme is a specific pattern or
idea that recurs throughout the
design of a project
Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
Charles Moore suggests that his
work is a search for the
particular way in which each of
several themes or principles
that interest him can be
developed.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
The title of a booklet on Louis I,
Kahn’s Kimball Art Gallery in
Fort Worth, Texas, is “Light is
the Theme.”

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
Super organizing ideas refer to
the general geometric
configurations or hierarchies
that the parts of a project
should respect.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
Urban design and campus
planning provide some clear
examples in which overall
organizing patterns are
established and the pattern
idled in.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
This was true in Jefferson’s
design, where there is a clear
overall pattern yet the
individual houses have their
own identities.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
The goal of the super organizing
idea was to give enough
structure to the pattern so that
the individual parts could be
developed with their own
idiosyncrasies and still support
the whole.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
The parti (Scheme) and
esquisse (sketch) are the
conceptual and graphic
products of a particular method
of instruction developed in the
Beaux Arts Schools of France
during the nineteenth century.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
This method demanded that
students develop their conceptual
skills to a high level. They were
expected to develop a concept and
preliminary sketch of the building
configuration in the first few hours
of work on a project and to hold to
that parti throughout the project.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
Literal translation is a phrase used
by Edward Larrabee Barnes to
describe the goal of developing a
concept and diagram that can
become the simplified plan for the
project.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
themes,
parti and esquisse,
To Barnes, the concept for a project
should be expressible in the kind of
sketch one might do on a napkin.
Presumably, that original diagram
would be just as visible and
identifiable in the finished building
as it was on the napkin.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
Concept formulation is not an
automatic activity; it takes a
concentrated effort to develop a
concept that appropriately
integrates things not previously
brought together.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
Bringing things together is a
creative act-one that designers,
architects, critics, artists,
musicians, and writers have
identified as being about 10 percent
inspiration or genius and 90
percent hard work.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
Architectural Design Concept formulation is an
unfamiliar activity for most people,
and students of architecture have as
much trouble mastering it as they
do other aspects of design.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
Three problems block skill
development in conceptualizing.
•The first block deals with problems
of communication,
•the second with inexperience, and
•the third with the problems of
generating hierarchies.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
of communication,
Surprisingly, the most difficult
communication problem is not in
explaining our concepts to others,
but in explaining our ideas to our
selves.
Designers learn to develop a
dialogue within their own minds as
a prelude to explaining ideas to
others.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
of communication,
Another communication problem that
influences concept formulation is graphic
communication.
In architecture, everything must get drawn if
it is to be build, and drawings comprise half
of the contract documents for building.
The process of sketching should begin early
so that the proposal and its concept can
continually be criticized and improved.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
•the second with inexperience,
Concepts are difficult to invent if they are an
unfamiliar aspect of architecture.
Since many buildings are built without the
benefit of a concept and since most critics
and many architects avoid writing about
them, it is relatively easy for the beginning
designer to have no ambitions for concepts
and no understanding of the role they play in
building design.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
•the third with the problems of
generating hierarchies.
This is especially a problem for the
beginning student who, because of
lack of experience, has difficulty
deciding if an idea is a brilliant
concept or an awful one.
The architect must be able to make
discerning judgments.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Concepts and
Ideas are specific, concrete thoughts we have
as the result of an understanding insight, or
observation.
Buildings and building design are composed
of many small decisions, and it is important
to develop skills in generating ideas and
concepts that respond to the wide variety of
issues that emerge.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
Notions are very similar to ideas except that
there is a connotation of randomness.
Notions are ideas that are presumed to be
insubstantial, unsubstantiated, or often
trivial when tested against other ideas.
Still, there is always the possibility that there
is an important germ of truth hiding in even
a glib remark.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
One of the basic tenets of scientific problem
solving, or synectics, as it is called by
Gordon, is random idea generation.
When one is working on a problem that has
evaded resolution, any idea or notion might
contain the germ of the solution.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
Synectics and other idea-generation
techniques depend on the ability of a small
group of people to generate many ideas-
some of them apparently absurd, irrelevant,
and notional-as the initial and critical step in
a process aimed at resolving the problem.
Students can expect to be inventing notions
when they wish they were inventing
concepts.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
Concepts are similar to ideas, in that they
are specific thoughts we have as a result of
an understanding, except that a concept has
this particular characteristic.
It is a thought concerning the way several
elements or characteristics can be combined
into a single thing.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
In architecture, a concept also identifies how
various aspects of the requirements for a
building can be brought together in a
specific thought that directly influences the
design and its configuration.
A concept in architecture is an ambitious
thing, the result of a concentrated and
imaginative effort to bring apparently
dissimilar things together.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
The character or expression of any building
can only be achieved if it is itself a total
expression. Like any work of art, it must be
dominated by a strong, simple concept. All of
its parts must be an active part of one
dominant attitude. This is true whether the
elements and decisions are big, early ones, like
plan and structural systems, or later ones, like
interior color and door knobs. This challenge
of making a building a total expression seems
to me the highest and most difficult one. But it
is the one that I think must concern all of us
most. – Eero Saarinen
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
Given that the requirements for a building can
number in the hundreds, supplemented by
additional requirements and goals that the
architects themselves incorporate, it should be
apparent that a single concept statement that ties
all the elements together could be both ambitious
and elusive.
Architects, in their writings and lectures about the
concepts behind their designs, often offer short
essays of scenarios that tie together all the
important factors and ideas that influenced their
solution.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
While the goal in developing a concept appropriate
to a project is to integrate the various parts into a
unified whole, a designer expects the final building
itself to be the integrated statement of several
concepts.
The name for this design strategy based on
concepts for individual parts is instrumentalism.
An incremental attitude toward design suggests
that architecture comes from resolving individual
issues according to their own needs, and not by
searching for overall concepts.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts
Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts

Concepts and
Another strategy or resolving this dilemma is
for the architect to be less demanding about
how much a concept should include.
Saarinen, although known for his enthusiasm
for using concepts, typically generated only
very general conceptual statements for his
buildings.
Saarinen often developed concepts only for one
or two issues in a project, leaving the
development of other aspects of the design to
circumstances.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts
Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts

Concepts and
The conceptual scenario expands the concept
statement, turning it into a short essay that
includes more than one major issue and
identifies more than one set of visual images
for the project.
The conceptual scenario can be used to identify
how all the important ideas and issues that
might be left out in a briefer conceptual
statement could be brought together in a
longer prose statement.
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts
Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts and
Why not, then, build a temple, not to GOD in that way
-more sentimental than sense - but build a temple to
man, appropriate to his uses as a meeting place, in
which to study man himself for his God’s sake? A
modern meeting-house and good-time place.
Build a beautiful ROOM proportioned to this purpose.
Make it beautiful in this simple sense. A natural
building for natural Man. . .
That ROOM; it began to be that same night. Enter the
realm of architectural ideas. The first idea - to keep a
noble ROOM in mind, and let the room shape the
whole edifice, let the room inside be the architecture
outside. Frank Lloyd Wright
Ideas
Notions
Concepts
andIdeas
Conceptual
Scenarios
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
The sequence is ordered as: notion, idea, concept, and scenario.
This is based on a pattern of increasing complexity, appropriateness, and depth
of thought.
In the early stages of a project, ideas have a good chance of being notion able,
especially if minds are open to innovative, unusual, and imaginative thoughts
that might help resolve unique or difficult design and programmatic
requirements.
At some point architects become more informed and familiar with the project
and begin to identify some notions as more important and more appropriate than
others.
Finally, similarities, potential interactions, and groupings of ideas become
apparent.
These observations create the base from which a sustained argument for doing
things is developed.
Concept
Hierarchies
Appropriateness
Self
Criticism
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
The problem of choosing an appropriate form for concepts-
whether metaphors, analogies, or scenarios-is less important than
the self-criticism applied to those concepts as they are
formulated.
The key question in critical dialogue is still, “Is this idea
appropriate to the project?”
Both the concept and the solution should ultimately be
appropriate and integrated with problems and activities of the
building.
Concept
Hierarchies
Appropriateness
Self
Criticism
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Another interesting variation on the question of appropriateness
is whether or not concepts are necessary and appropriate for all
building types.
Are they appropriate for some buildings and not others?
Both architects and critics have argued that not all buildings are”
sculpturally” important or “foreground” buildings, that some
buildings deserve to be “background” building
Concept
Hierarchies
Appropriateness
Self
Criticism
Concepts

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals
There are five types of concepts:
analogies (looking at other things),
metaphors (looking at abstractions),
essences (looking beyond the programmatic
needs),
programmatic concepts (looking at the stated
requirements, and
ideals (looking at universal values).

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals
Most frequently used device
Identify possible, literal relationships between
things.
One thing is identified as having all the desired
characteristics, and thus it becomes a model
for the project at hand.
direct analogyies can be used in which one
building provides an appropriate image for
another project

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals
Like analogies, metaphors identify
relationships between things.
However, the relationships are abstract rather
than literal.
Similes are metaphors that use the words “like”
or” as” to express a relationship.
Metaphors and similes identify possible
patterns of parallel relationships while
analogies identify possible literal relationships.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals Essences distill and concentrate aspects of
more complex issues into terse, explicit
statements.
Essence connotes insights into the most critical
and intrinsic aspects of the thing being
analyzed.
A statement of the essence of something can
also be the result of discovering and identifying
the roots of an issue.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals
Not all concept capture the essence of a project,
nor do they all symbolize the function of all the
activities in a building.
Concepts can be developed around more
pragmatic issues often explicitly identified in
the building program.
While many architects take pride in their
ability to solve a client’s problems, only a few
actually make a pragmatic approach sound
inspiring and many designers inadvertently
avoid working on the problem at hand while
trying to be creative.

Concepts and
Concept
Heirarchies
Five types of
Concepts
Concepts
Analogies
Metaphors
andSimiles
Essences
Direct
Responseand
Problem
Solving
Ideals
In contrast to the previous categories of concepts,
which suggest that the architect look inside the
problem or at a similar problem to discover
appropriate concepts, ideal concepts are those that
architects bring to the problem.
If architects bring the right concept to the project,
they are praised for their genius.
If their choice is inappropriate, it becomes a
preconception and their basic competence is
questioned.
Ideal concepts represent the highest aspirations
and goals of the architect.

Concepts in Architecture

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