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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
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Location: USA
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 Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:03 am Post subject: How to design according to a prof. |
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This is an interesting post from PPB2
This is what one person is teaching his students:
Prof. Steve Hartfields First Principles
1) What are you trying to do in this design?
2) What is driving this design?
3) What’s giving it a sense of order?
4) What are you using to make decisions?
5) Where are you trying to go with this design?
a) How will you know when you have got there?
6) What is the idea/theme/concept/process?
7) Why did you choose this?
8) How did it change/develop/evolve?
9) Has the choice proved to be a useful one?
10) Are you in control of your design?
11) Why is your scheme interesting?
12) Why is your proposal exciting / dynamic?
13) Why will your proposal win an award for architectural design?
I find it interesting that all of the questions basically treat the house as some art object with no connection to nature, function, client, etc..
Of particular interest are the last three. Maybe this professor has been in academia for too long and he needs to actually get out and design a house once in a while.
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Kevin
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Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1095
Location: Eugene, Oregon
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:29 am Post subject: |
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There's some good stuff in there, and yet, it wouldn't be my list...
One little red flag for me: I tend to be rather suspicious of the word "interesting" in these contexts. It goes back at least to when I was a design professor, and had this experience repeatedly...
When an architecture student was asked why he or she had put something random and dubious into the studio project, the response would be something like, "I wanted to make it more interesting". The results were often anything but, except perhaps in the most superficial sense.
Observing this through many repetitions, I came to believe the desire or intention to make something "interesting" is actually a 'negative' motivation. "Interesting" boils down to making something different. But different how? "Interesting" doesn't tell you how, or in what way.
If the other examples one is trying to be different from are good ones, what are the odds that just trying to be different will lead to something better, or even good? "Interesting" doesn't really help.
When I was doing a desk crit and I got the "interesting" reason for an ineffective design move, I learned to ask the student to dig deeper, as deep as necessary to find the _positive_ motivation for whatever design element or aspect they were working on. Where is it, what is it, what is it doing, how is it doing it, for whom... why... These questions are good potential sources of authentic specialness in architectural design, not just more potent than trying to be "interesting", but fundamentally, somewhat opposite!
In the listing of Prof. Hartfield's principles, number 11 is not the worst example, since asking "why" could point to a little deeper answer. But personally, I'd try to find a more helpful question - more helpful for the student designer - than anything about "interesting". |
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lekizz
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 1053
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: |
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Have I missed something? What is PPB2?
In any case, the list comprises of questions, not instructions. I can quite well imagine some of the answers dealing with the issues of nature, function, client, etc.. |
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ArchiMotion
Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 315
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:41 pm Post subject: Nonsensical questions |
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1) What are you trying to do in the design - it may seem to be a valid question, but may not be. Every design should attempt to resolve programmatic requirements, thus one should not be trying to do anything, but resolve first the problem and the program of spaces in a functional way, obviously, and one that is aesthetically pleasing.
Too often designers say "I wanted to do this", "I wanted to express that" etc....so it all boils down to what YOU are wanting, rather then satisfying the problem at hand, and the users needs. Design that is not user oriented is bound to failure.
2) What is driving this design. It should be the user's needs. Every design needs a driving force, but this should always be one of finding a good technical solution to meet the project requirements. So to ask a general question as this, in fact seems to vague and general. What is driving a design? There are hundreds of factors which can drive a design, so this is a superficial question and will bring about superficial answers.
3) What is giving a sense of order? This is not a question to ask. A sense of order can be seen in the organizational scheme, by applying the ordering elements of architecture, such as axial, linear arrangement and so forth. The order should also be clearly seen in the design, without someone needing to ask the question, unless of course you are blind.
4) What are you using to make decisions? This implies there has been research done. It could be relevant styles, construction technology etc. This is a valid question.
5) Where are you trying to go with this design? This is not a valid question. A design should evolve naturally, with no pre-conceived ideas of where it should go. Only when a designer "gets there" does he realize that is where it needed to go.
a) How will you know when you got there? Redundant. Implied in my answer to the question. You won't know how you will know until you actually get there, duh.
6) What is the idea/theme/concept/ process. There are various questions here in one and idea may not be equal to theme = concept = process. So a difficult question to answer all in one.
7) Why did you choose this? A dumb question. Why did I choose what? What if I didn't choose it, it was simply a natural result of the problem? At some point I will choose and make design decisions, but depends what you referring to. Why did I choose the theme? The concept? The problem? The Solution?
 How did it change/develop/evolve. This should be seen clearly in the development drawings.
It is a valid question.
9) Has the choice proved to be a useful one. Ok, this question is ok. It should be useful if it is functional. I guess if it is not useful through it out, as it has not resolved the problem at hand.
10) Are you in control of your design? One would hope and expect the designer to be in control, unless of course he has lost his mind. 
11) Why is your scheme interesting. Vague, not a good question. Something may be interesting to one but not as much to another. Not a good question.
12) Same thing with question 12.
13) How can a designer know for sure if his design will win an award? This is just speculation.... one cannot expect every design to win an award...one can only hope. So the question is superfluous.
Ya, the rest I know, no need to reply to every question..... Ha.
thanks love ya too... |
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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:11 am Post subject: |
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As a whole they seem very superficial and not likely to lead to good architecture but rather good art.
This was posted by a first year student so I guess this was their initiation into the world of architectural design. I know that this has to be common because of what is coming out of the schools.
Perhaps architecture is just too complicated and so needs to be reduced? Or maybe the thinking is that people are going to get enough reality when they get out of school and so might as well have fun for five more years.
It is true that these questions do not exclude functional ideas, they just do not promote them. PPB2 is another forum
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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
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Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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". . .because of what is coming out of the schools." What is coming out of the schools ? Do you visit a lot of architecture schools ?
The first four or five questions might be valid, and might even be useful. It goes rapidly downhill from there, leading to the appropriate criticism of Chris and others. To bad. But there is still a place for architectural education, of course, despite failing leadership like that shown above.
Over at archinect they like to disparage Peter Eisenman. Here's a sample of the blushing architect and a new building in Cincinnati, circa 1996. Note the pre-millenial angst. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp-kc8u_1mI |
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solidred
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 596
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 3:48 am Post subject: |
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I figured the best way to figure-out the viability of the approach was to apply it to actual projects or, a current project (which I didn't design) a past project (which I did, up to pre-construction stage) and in a notional 'ideal' future design:
Prof. Steve Hartfields First Principles
on current project:
1 ) What are you trying to do in this design?
earn a living, keep the client happy, not end up with something too embarrassing
2 ) What is driving this design?
cost and sufficient quality to meet planning, technical criteria and sales of resultant residential units
3 ) What’s giving it a sense of order?
contingency with an overall project massing and elevational approach devised by others during an earlier project phase
4 ) What are you using to make decisions?
experience as opposed to idealism
5 ) Where are you trying to go with this design?
efficient, defect-free completion and maximum durability
a ) How will you know when you have got there?
in stages, from periods of around six months to thirty years and more
6 ) What is the idea/theme/concept/process?
celebrating the quality of density in the urban realm as opposed to suburbanising it
7 ) Why did you choose this?
wisnae me, but I agree with the overall approach
8 ) How did it change/develop/evolve?
cost-driven preference for a different construction technique has led to, I think, a suitably subtle aesthetic variation on a pre-established theme
9 ) Has the choice proved to be a useful one?
no. Most cost-driven decisions lack vision and are often proved mistaken even in the short term. But who listens to the architect these days?
10 ) Are you in control of your design?
only to the extent that we can use the leverage of existing agreements / consents with the planning department (which isn’t a minor thing) although we can invoke the need to preserve our reputation if things really get rough!
11 ) Why is your scheme interesting?
one gets a glimpse of current household demographics
12 ) Why is your proposal exciting / dynamic?
it’s big
13 ) Why will your proposal win an award for architectural design?
it’s cool
on the only recent project I was actually asked to design:
1 ) What are you trying to do in this design?
maximise a sense of lively design from an extremely restrictive brief and cost constraint
2 ) What is driving this design?
see (1)
3 ) What’s giving it a sense of order?
the controlled handling of defined functional volumes in a balance between programmatic adjacencies, site aspect and shape/topography and a careful massing with respect to volumetric legibility and roof form (roof pitch pre-defined)
4 ) What are you using to make decisions?
the above constraints were so tight it was a question of constantly re-working the variables until all criteria were satisfied
5 ) Where are you trying to go with this design?
a memorable and fun place to learn
a ) How will you know when you have got there?
the technical variables gradually coalesced such as to form actual opportunities which were exploited to form something whose whole was more than an accretion of correctly-placed parts
6 ) What is the idea/theme/concept/process?
simplicity
7 ) Why did you choose this?
it was easier to sell a simple idea to the others involved in the project
8 ) How did it change/develop/evolve?
very, very gradually. I was lucky to have months between design iterations in which to re-approach the task with a fresh perspective each time
9 ) Has the choice proved to be a useful one?
yes ... almost
10 ) Are you in control of your design?
one element that I believed liberated the project from a dry technical functionality –‘built version of the technical brief’ – was jeopardized at one stage by my boss. I protested and eventually won. However, the local authority architect later vetoed aspects of it (circular windows, the part where the roof met the ground; the child-like play with elements as I thought appropriate), effectively killing the thing that ‘sung’ with imagined difficulties (the cost of replacing circular glazing; wear-and-tear on metallic roof material at ground level; the double-curve cladding form being ‘too expensive/difficult to build’) leaving a box with rectangular windows –inspiring, huh?
11 ) Why is your scheme interesting?
it is no longer interesting
12 ) Why is your proposal exciting / dynamic?
it isn’t
13 ) Why will your proposal win an award for architectural design?
it won’t
fondly imagined future project:
1 ) What are you trying to do in this design?
critical architecture: an exploration of form, material and programme which questions all aspects of existing practice before variously adopting them or proposing new or revived techniques
2 ) What is driving this design?
productive research
3 ) What’s giving it a sense of order?
almost every aspect of the project can be referred back to a single, uncompromised intelligence: the project is an extension of the unity of the individual, but with all the ‘complexity and contradiction’ that implies. What it doesn’t have is a bland, superficial or dogmatic order
4 ) What are you using to make decisions?
hypothesis-thesis-practice-hypothesis feedback loop i.e. a more-or-less documented experience
5 ) Where are you trying to go with this design?
demonstrable quality from bold re-thinking of conventions
a ) How will you know when you have got there?
if both the users of the building and I are happy with the end result
6 ) What is the idea/theme/concept/process?
subjectivity-objectivity
7 ) Why did you choose this?
hmm… maybe I’ll put a wee book together on this one
8 ) How did it change/develop/evolve?
n/a
9 ) Has the choice proved to be a useful one?
n/a
10 ) Are you in control of your design?
completely
11 ) Why is your scheme interesting?
it has a degree of conceptual and material integrity
12 ) Why is your proposal exciting / dynamic?
it engages in cultural discourse
13 ) Why will your proposal win an award for architectural design?
who cares about gongs and whistles? |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 690
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:20 am Post subject: |
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Very interesting thread indeed.
They always start with a number #1. My number one varies. So I leave it a fill in the blank.
Same for #2.
#3) Forget about design and get a job.
#4) Build something, ask questions latter.
#5) Ask questions, build something latter.
#6) Make your own luck.
#7) Rearrange 1-7 as you deam fit, design something latter, get something built.
# design a better tommorrow.
Well It's a start for me I suppose, for just making that up. It's so tough to teach with words alone. I don't think "list" are that great an idea. Action is a great teaching tool.
Off to get a job
Derek
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solidred
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 596
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 7:00 am Post subject: |
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| I forgot to add but now reading djswan's contribution, I don't have a problem with such a list of questions. The prof's list I'm sure isn't intended as some slyly profound insight into what is and isn't important in architecture. If it were, I'm sure we'd all have our own versions of it. But in the manner of having to present any given project variously to clients, peers, consultants, contractors and to the wider public, it's not a bad discipline to answer someone else's set of questions in a manner that also makes for some validity with one's own agenda, such as it is. Having to manouvre one's fleeting thoughts into an intelligbly alien format, in other works, has its value as a focusing tool. |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 690
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:13 am Post subject: |
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Here's just a few answers
#1) predict the future
#2) the past
#3) gravity
#4) good guessing
#5) build something that wasn't there before
#a) There is no "getting there"
#6) a design
#7) patterns
# shit happens
#9) Time will tell
#10) depends on #8
#11) I hope not
#12) Lots of money
#13) Do I get money?
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ArchiMotion
Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 315
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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1) What are you trying to do in this design?
Hey man, just earn a buck or two.
How about re-designing the World?
2) What is driving this design?
Are you kidding man? Of course, money talks.
But behind it really I think there are some governing forces.
3) What’s giving it a sense of order?
How about putting a little order into those stacks of bills in your pocket?
Oh yes, I forgot, the New W-o-r-ld Order of course.
4) What are you using to make decisions?
How about Mr. Bush.
5) Where are you trying to go with this design?
Hey man, I am trying to re-design it before it is all one big F word man.
a) How will you know when you have got there?
Hey, I hope it isn't too soon man. That scares me.
6) What is the idea/theme/concept/process?
Hey, they've been doing it for years now man, maybe they will get it right soon, heck.
7) Why did you choose this?
Hey man, leave me out of this.
How did it change/develop/evolve?
Wow, that is a good one man.
Check out my post here -->>
http://www.designcommunity.com/forums/topic-20833.html
9) Has the choice proved to be a useful one?
I guess for them it may seem useful. But if it is, we are all in a freaquen mess man!
10) Are you in control of your design?
Wow man, I wish I was. I think this thing is too big for me to fight alone.
11) Why is your scheme interesting?
Hey man, if I had a better scheme to get us out of this for sure I would man.
12) Why is your proposal exciting / dynamic?
I propose that nothing can be proposed. Maybe it is too late man.
13) Why will your proposal win an award for architectural design?
Wow, I sure wish it would. Hum, maybe some will recognize this as an over-zealous re-design effort, but who cares man?
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 690
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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Good luck with those answers. Who's scoring?
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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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Do you visit a lot of architecture schools?
No, I assume that people on the web are an average representation. Also when I see reports in the news about math and science going down hill I tend to believe it based on questions I read in forums such as: "is there a book that explains how light works? (but nothing technical please)"
Well solidred I think I could trace back the source of your frustration to Prof. Steve Hartfields First Principles. It lead you to believe architecture should be a creative and beautiful art form that moves society to a higher plane of existence but left out any of the practical considerations which distinguish architecture from art.
With experience practical answers can be given to these fairly ambiguous questions -they just don't promote them.
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shirley huang
Joined: 20 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: Re: How to design according to a prof. |
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| csintexas wrote: | This is an interesting post from PPB2
This is what one person is teaching his students:
Prof. Steve Hartfields First Principles
1) What are you trying to do in this design?
2) What is driving this design?
3) What’s giving it a sense of order?
4) What are you using to make decisions?
5) Where are you trying to go with this design?
a) How will you know when you have got there?
6) What is the idea/theme/concept/process?
7) Why did you choose this?
8) How did it change/develop/evolve?
9) Has the choice proved to be a useful one?
10) Are you in control of your design?
11) Why is your scheme interesting?
12) Why is your proposal exciting / dynamic?
13) Why will your proposal win an award for architectural design?
I find it interesting that all of the questions basically treat the house as some art object with no connection to nature, function, client, etc..
Of particular interest are the last three. Maybe this professor has been in academia for too long and he needs to actually get out and design a house once in a while. |
It is indeed very interesting.But I think it makes sense why the professor asks these questions.Because the thought of the designer is also very important to design a house for people. |
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lekizz
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 1053
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:58 am Post subject: |
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Bear in mind that if Professor Hartfield is teaching an undergraduate first degree course, the purposes of these courses is generally like any other, to teach young people to think, analyse, question, form opinions, do basic research, meet deadlines, become generally useful members of society.
The difference with architecture degrees is that they form part of a path (which students can choose to follow) which leads them ultimately to qualification/licensing as an architect.
He is not teaching a BTEC in bricklaying or plumbing, the practical/technical/legal experience generally kicks in later in the education process. I was fortunate enough to follow a degree course that packed in much of the practical side into its teaching into the first three years. But to my knowledge that is not common (certainyl in the UK).
I'm just trying to put an alternative argument to the tired old 'all architects are impractical dreamers' line that is trotted out regularly by some non-architects here. I do agree that the list of questions gives an impression that Hartfield has a superficial approach to the subject, especially question 13!! |
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