AR105 THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE

Dec 2020

Source:http://architecture.mit.edu

Prof. G.SANGEETHA B.ARCH, (NIT Trichy), M.TECH. (IIT Madras) (Ph.D)

Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture
National Institute of Technology Trichirappalli 1
 What is Architecture?

Architecture is the imaginative blend of art and

science and CONSCIOUS design of
environments for people such as buildings,
structures, objects, outdoor spaces etc.

It can be as small as an entrance gateway to

as large as an entire campus and everything in
between.
Architecture is an Art

Art always serve as an inspiration to

architecture.

Architecture is a kind of sculpture.

Architecture is said to be frozen music.

 Architecture is an Art
➢Architecture is also considered a visual art like
painting and sculpture.

➢The difference between a painting and architecture

is that a building has a function and must be designed
with safety in mind.

➢The overall scope of architecture was first formulated

in the first century B.C. by Vitruvius, a Roman architect
who described architecture's obligations to provide
commodity (utilitas),
firmness (firmitas) and
delight (venustas) in the comprehensive guide, "The
Ten Books of Architecture".
• Commodity addresses how the building serves its
function and can be made more useful to the
occupants.

• Firmness refers to a building's ability to stand up over

time to natural forces.

• Delight refers to the aesthetics.

– Delight can also refer to how a building makes you
feel: ranging from awe to joy to fear to love to
peace.
– Delight in built space (whether it is positive or
negative) can also be auditory, tactile, olfactory,
thermal, visual, and even kinesthetic.
THE THREE’S
• Beginning in the 17th century, with the rise of
professionalism, the discipline of architecture
became increasingly specialized.

• With the 19th century expansion of scientific

knowledge, the evolution of other technically
oriented disciplines such as engineering, and the
corresponding introduction of more complex
construction systems, the discipline of architecture
became more focused on questions of basic
functionality and aesthetics
 Who is an architect ?
• An architect is a licensed professional with
specialized skills who designs buildings/
cityscapes/spaces and helps make real the unique
vision of their clients and communities.

• Architects design buildings using a creative process

by which they manipulate art elements to create a
unified and pleasing artistic statement.

People need places to eat, work, live and play.

Architects transform these needs into concepts and

then develop the concepts into building.
 What do architects do?
The role of an architect is not just to design
buildings.

Through the design, the architect must protect

the health, safety and welfare of the general
public and the users of the buildings.

Hence architecture should be USER centric

always.

That’s one another difference between a

engineer and architect.
 Design elements and principles
Design elements and principles describe fundamental
ideas about the practice of good visual design that are
assumed to be the basis of all intentional visual design
strategies.

The elements form the 'vocabulary' of the design, while

the principles constitute the broader structural aspects
of its composition.

Hence architecture can be called as a language

Awareness of the elements and principles in design is

the first step in creating successful visual compositions.
 What is DESIGN ?

Design is the organized arrangement

of one or more elements and
principles (e.g. line color or texture) for
a purpose.
 The Elements and Principles of Design

The Primary Elements of Design

POINT

LINE

PLANE

VOLUME

These are considered to be the “words” of design

 The Elements and Principles of Design

The Principles of Design

AXIS
SYMMETRY
HIERARCHY
RHYTHM/REPETITION

DATUM

TRANSFORMATION

These are like the “rules” of grammar

Frank Lloyd Wright, American Architect on Architecture
"What is architecture anyway?
Is it the vast collection of the various buildings which have been
built to please the varying taste of the various lords of mankind?

"No, I know that architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking

form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the
world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived. So
architecture I know to be a Great Spirit....

"Architecture is that great living creative spirit which from

generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists,
creates, according to the nature of man, and his circumstances as
they change. That is really architecture."
 PRIMARY ELEMENTS

- Point and Point Elements

- Line and Linear Elements

- Plane and Planer Elements

- Volume and Volumetric Elements

& Form
 PRIMARY ELEMENTS
• “All Pictorial form begins with the point that sets itself
in motion … The point moves … and the line comes
into being - the first dimension.

• The line moves to form a plane, we obtain a two-

dimensional element.

• In the movement from plane to spaces, the clash of

planes gives rise to body (three-dimensional) … A
summary of the kinetic energies which move the
point into a line, the line into a plane, and the plane
into a spatial dimension” - Paul Klee (German Artist)
 PRIMARY ELEMENTS
Point indicates a position

A point extended becomes a

Line with properties of:
- length
- direction
- position

A line extended becomes a

Plane with properties of:
- length and width
- shape
- surface
- orientation
- position

A plane extended becomes a

Volume with properties of:
- length, width and depth
- form and space - surface
- orientation - position
POINT
A point marks a position in space.
Conceptually, it has no length, width or depth, and is
there fore static, centralized, directionless.

As the prime element in the vocabulary of form, a point can

serve to mark:
- the two ends of a line
- the intersection of two lines
- the meeting of lines at the corner of a plane or volume
- the center of a field
• Although a point theoretically has neither
shape nor form, it begins to make its
presence felt when placed within a visual
field.

• At the center of its environment, a point is

stable and at rest, organizing surrounding
elements about itself and dominating its
field.

• When the point is moved off-center,

however, its field becomes more
aggressive and begins to compete for
visual supremacy.
• Visual tension is created between the
point and its field.
 POINT ELEMENTS
• A point has no dimension.

• To visibly mark a position in space

or on the ground plane, a point
must be projected vertically into a
linear form, as a column, obelisk,
or tower.

• Any such columnar element is

seen in plan as a point and
therefore retains the visual
characteristics of a point.

• Other point-generated forms that

share these same visual attributes
are the:
Piazza del
Campidoglio, Rome,
C. 1544, Michelangelo

The equestrian statue

of Marcus Aurelius
marks the center of
this urban space.
LINE
 LINE
• A Line is a critical element in
the formation of any visual
construction.

• It can serve to:

• join, link, support, surround,
or intersect other visual
elements.

• describe the edges of and

give shape to planes.

• articulate the surface of

planes.
 LINE
• Although a line theoretically has only one dimension, it must
have some degree of thickness to become visible.

• It is seen as a line simply because its length dominates its width.

The character of a line, whether taut or limp, bold or tentative,
graceful or ragged, is determined by our perception of its
length- width ratio, its contour, and its degree of continuity.
➢ Even the simple repetition of like or similar
elements, if continuous enough, can be
regarded as a line. This type of line has
significant textural qualities.
• The orientation of a line affects its role in a visual construction.

• While a vertical line can express a state of equilibrium with the

force of gravity, symbolize the human condition, or mark a
position in space, a horizontal line can represent stability, the
ground plane, the horizon, or a body at rest.
• An oblique line is a deviation from the vertical or
horizontal.
• It may be seen as a vertical line falling or a horizontal
line rising.
• In either case, whether it is falling toward a point on the
ground plane or rising to a place in the sky, it is
dynamic and visually active in its unbalanced state.
LINEAR ELEMENTS

House 10. 1966, John Hejduk

Although architectural space exists in three dimensions, it can be linear in form to accommodate the path
of movement through a building and link its spaces to one another.

Cornell University Undergraduate

Housing. Ithaca, New York, 1974, Richard
Meier.

Buildings also can be linear in form,

particularly when they consist of
repetitive spaces organized along
a circulation path. As illustrated
here, linear building forms have the
ability enclose exterior spaces as
well as adapt to the environmental
conditions of a site.
HORIZONTAL LINEAR ELEMENTS
VERTICAL
LINEAR
ELEMENTS
LINEAR ELEMENTS

Crown Hall. School of Architecture and Urban

Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, 1956,
Mies van der Rohe.

At a smaller scale, lines articulate the edges

and surfaces of planes and volumes. The
lines can be expressed by joints within or
between building materials, by frames
around window or door openings, or by a
structural grid of columns and beams. How
these linear elements affect the texture of a
Seagram Building. New York City, 1956-58,
surface will depend on their visual weight, Mies van der Rohe and philip Johnson.
spacing, and direction .
PLANE
PLANE
• A line extended in a direction other than its
intrinsic direction becomes a plane.

• Conceptually, a plane has length and width,

but no depth.

• Shape is the primary identifying characteristic

of a plane.

• It is determined by the contour of the line

forming the edges of a plane.

• Because our perception of shape can be

distorted by perspective foreshortening, we see
the true shape of a plane only when view it
frontally.
• The supplementary properties of a plane
- its surface color, pattern, and texture -
affect its visual weight and stability.

• In the composition of a visual

construction, a plane serves to define the
limits or boundaries of a volume.

If architecture as a visual art deals specifically with the formation of

three dimensional volumes of mass and space, then the plane should
be regarded as a key element in the vocabulary of architectural
design.
PLANE

• Planes in architecture define

three-dimensional volumes of
mass and space.

• The properties of each plane -

size, shape, color, texture - as
well as their spatial relationship
to one another ultimately
determine the visual attributes
of the form they define and the
qualities of space they
enclose.
In Architectural design, we manipulate three
generic types of planes:

Overhead Plane
The overhead plane can be either the roof plane
that shelters the interior spaces of a building from
the climatic elements, or the ceiling plane that
forms the upper enclosing surface of a room.

Wall Plane
The wall plane, because of its vertical orientation,
is active in our normal field of vision and vital to
the shaping and enclosure of architectural space.

Base Plane
The base plane can be either the ground plane
that serves as the physical foundation and visual
base for building forms, or the floor plane that
forms the lower enclosing surface of a room upon
which we walk.
 PLANAR ELEMENTS
• While we walk on a floor
and have physical
contact with walls, the
ceiling plane is usually out
of our reach and is almost
always a purely visual
event in a space.

• It may be the underside of

an overhead floor or roof
plane and express the
form of its structure as it
spans the space between
its supports, or it may be Hangar, Design I , 1935, Pier Luigi Nervi.
suspended as the upper The lamella structure expresses the way forces are resolved
enclosing surface of a and channeled down to the roof supports.
room or hall.
 PLANAR ELEMENTS

A roof plane can extend

outward to form
overhangs that shield
door and widow openings
from sun or rain, or
continue downward
further still to relate itself
more closely to the
ground plane.

In warm climates, it can

be elevated to allow
cooling breezes to flow
across and through the
interior spaces of building.
Robie House, Chicago, 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright.
The low sloping roof planes and broad overhangs are
characteristic of the Prairie School of Architecture.
PLANAR ELEMENTS

Kaufmann House (Falling Water) , Connellsville, Pennsylvania, 1936-37, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Reinforced concrete slabs express the horizontality of the floor or roof

planes as they cantilever outward from a central core.
PLANAR ELEMENTS

Schroder House, Utrecht, 1924-25, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld.

Asymmetrical compositions of simple rectangular planes and primary
colors characterized the de Stijl school of art and architecture.
VOLUME

A plane extended in a direction other than its

intrinsic direction becomes a volume.
Conceptually, a volume has three dimensions:
length, width and depth.

All volumes can be analyzed and understood to

consist of:
- points or vertices where several planes come
together
- lines or edges where two planes meet
- planes or surfaces which define the limits or
boundaries of a volume.
VOLUME

In architecture, a volume can

be seen to be either a portion
of space contained and
defined by wall, floor, and
ceiling or roof planes, or a
quantity of space displaced
by the mass of building. It is Plan and Section
important to perceive this Space defined by wall, floor, and ceiling or roof planes.
duality.

Elevation
Space displaced by the mass of a
building. Notre Dame Du Haut, Ronchamp, France,
1950-55, Le Corbusier.
VOLUMETRIC ELEMENTS

Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1928-31, Le Corbusier.

Building forms that stand as an object in the landscape can be read as

occupying volume in space.
VOLUMETRIC ELEMENTS

Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome, C. 1544, Michelangelo.

A series of buildings enclose an urban square.

Building forms that serve as containers can be read as masses that define
volumes of space.
The Principles of Design
 The Principles of Design

AXIS

A line drawn between two points in

space and about which forms and spaces
can be arranged in a regular or irregular
manner
SYMMETRY

• The balanced distribution of

equivalent forms and spaces
about a common line (axis) or
point (centre)
HIERARCHY

• The importance or significance of

form or space based on its size,
shape or placement relative to
other forms and spaces of the
organization
RHYTHM/REPETITION

• The use of recurring patterns to

organize a series of like forms or
spaces
DATUM

• A line, plane or volume that by its

continuity and regularity helps to
organize a pattern of forms and
spaces
WHAT DO WE DO WITH THEM
 ASSIGNMENT – 1
DEADLINE – January 2 week 2021

• Understanding and appreciation of Basic design principles

– Three examples for each is a must.
– Example choices : Stationery Items, Cutlery items,
Architecture related, Automobiles related, Anything else.
– Each of you should have covered all the choices atleast
once
– Graphical representation is a must that explains your
understanding/appreciation of the principles
– Presentation carries weightage
– A4 size sheets should be used
Reference books:

1. Architecture: Form, Space, & Order by Francis D.K. Ching,

publishers Jhon Wiley & Sons, INC, New York,1976

2. Approach to architectural Design by ARG Isaac, Butter worth &

Co. Ltd., London, 1977

3. Introduction to architecture by Anthony J.Catanese & James

C. Snyder, McGraw Hill Books Co., Newyork, 1988

4. Design fundamentals in Architecture by Pramar V H

5. The Architect's Guide to Facility Programming by Mickey A.

Palmer McGraw-Hill publication 1981