Parallels with Contemporary Architecture_History Of Design

History of Interior Design II 12. Parallels with Contemporary Architecture Tutor : Amal Shah Spring 2021 Faculty of Design, CEPT University

Precedents: What is an Architecture Precedent Study?

Key features Precedent can be defined in the following ways:

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Something said or done that may serve as an example or rule to justify a subsequent act of the same or a similar or comparable type.

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The convention established by such a precedent or by long practice.

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A person or thing that serves as a model.

An architecture precedent study can aid your design process from concept to final design. Note that precedents are not copied but used as an inspiration to your design.

They are an idea or guide to a method that you are wishing to employ in your scheme.

The use of a precedent in design can lend authority to your design by associating your proposal to something else.

A precedent can communicate a meaning to your design, whether as a form of dialogue to your client, the public, or for the designer.

An architecture precedent study can help you solve problems in a design process that have previously been solved in other designs.

Precedents: What is an Architecture Precedent Study?

Look for buildings you can actually visit, explore and experience rather than completely relying on the information you find on the internet or in books.

To be able to visit a building, explore it, study the materials, the form etc, is quite different from reading about it in a book.

Using precedents local to your site, can help you understand the architectural language of the area and develop a design that is sympathetic to the context.

Don’t just select a building ‘because it looks nice’. There needs to be a lot more to it than that: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Why does it look nice?

What sets it apart from other similar buildings?

How is it constructed?

Would it work with your design?

How did the architect make the building successful?

Or, why is it a negative precedent?

Is the design good? What makes it good?

What materials have been used?

Precedents: How to Analyse and apply an Architecture Precedent Study?

The precedent is there to help you resolve a design problem. Be it a suitable solar shading solution, or a cladding material, you need to drill down on what that particular precedent has taught you and why you feel it is an important inspiration for your design.

Remember that different precedents will offer different solutions and experiences. For example, a building that demonstrates a good floor plan, my not necessarily be the building you want to look at for employing advanced technologies in materials and design.

Take time to research and interpret the precedent building, and figure out how it is constructed and its significant features.

This is where a combination of precedents, can help you develop ideas and solutions, by cherry picking information from each and weaving the concepts into your design.

Analyse the form, structure, using any photographs and drawings you have in order to start to fully understand all aspects of the building or segment that you are focusing on.

What is the building or element you are studying for?

What function does it fulfils.

You can conduct your analysis of the building according to what you are trying to discover, understand or resolve.

Precedents: How to Analyse and apply an Architecture Precedent Study?

Some of the things that you should consider are: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Structure Scale Light Materials and surfaces Details Proportions Context Social / cultural impact Form Access Aesthetic And many many more!

It is important not to copy. Be specific in the area which you feel applies to your design, learn lessons from the precedent and find ways that you can be creative with its integration, and solving your design problems.

These need to be communicated to your client/tutor in order for them to understand your reasoning, and give them the vision of your design.

Continue to build your design and spatial vocabulary and you will slowly create a precedent study library in your mind that you can refer to again and again during your design process.

Immerse yourself in architecture, and this will become easier.

Critically assess designs you see, ask questions, be inquisitive.

Precedents: Diagrams?

“To communicate the analysis of the buildings and the formative ideas in this study, a diagram or a set of diagrams is utilized. The diagrams are drawings that, as abstractions, are intended to convey essential characteristics and relationships in a building.

As such, the diagrams focus on specific physical attributes which allow for the comparison of that attribute between buildings independent of style, type, function, or time.

The diagrams are developed from the three-dimensional form and space configurations of the building. They take into account more information than is normally apparent in a plan, an elevation, or a section.

To reduce the building to its essentials, the diagrams can be intentionally simplified. This elimination of all but the most important considerations makes those that remain both dominant and memorable.”

“For the analysis, it is necessary to establish a graphic standard so that comparison could be made between the diagrams.

In general, heavy lines are used in each diagram to accent a particular issue.

In the formative idea part of the study, the plan, elevation, or section of the building is drawn lightly for orientation purposes, while the issue being analyzed and compared is indicated by heavy lines or shading.”

PRECEDENTS IN ARCHITECTURE Analytic Diagrams, Formative Ideas, and Partis Fourth Edition Roger H. Clark & Michael Pause

Precedents: Diagrams?

Precedents: Diagrams?

Precedents: Diagrams?

1. Composition of Space

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Point

The Pisa Baptistery marks the focal point contextually as well as in the base form.

Indian Coffee House by Laurie Baker

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Line

The Pisa Baptistery marks the focal point contextually as well as in the base form.

The Farnsworth House planning reflecting linearity in space.

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Organization- Space Within a Space

Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier.

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Organization- Interlocking Spaces

Pilgrimage Church, Germany, 1744

The interlocking portions of the volumes is shared equally by each space. The dome links the adjacent spaces

Villa Baizeau in Carthage by Le Corbusier having interlocked volumes.

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Organization- Adjacent Spaces

Chiswick House, London- The spaces are individualistic in size, shape, and form. The walls that enclose them adapt their forms to accommodate the differences between adjacent spaces.

Central Beheer building having adjacency in spaces in plan as well as volumetrically.

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Organization- Spaces Linked by a Common Space

Vierzehnheiligen

Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza, Italy

Library, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, Louis Kahn plan

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Foreshortening- Foreshortening is a technique used in perspective to create the illusion of an object receding strongly into the distance or background. The illusion is created by the object appearing shorter than it is in reality, making it seem compressed

Jewish Museum Berlin by Daniel Libeskin

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Movement

British Museum, London- The spaces are planned around the primary movement path

Guggenheim museum where the movement bath plays a vital role in spatial planning and experience

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Unity

Villa Château

Villa Shodhan by Le Corbusier

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Balance

Villa Rotunda by Palladio

National Assembly Building Dhaka by Louis Kahn

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Focus-Emphasis

St Peter’s Square, Vatican city

Brion-Vega Cemetery

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Contrast

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad by Louis Kahn National History Museum London, a contrast of mass and void

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Scale and Proportion

Villa Foscari,, Italy, 1558, Andrea Palladio

Villa Graches by Le Corbusier

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Square

Borobodur, the Buddhist stupa monument

The boathouse jewish community centre, trenton new jersey by Le Corbuiser

Elements of Design | Composition Of Space Triangle

Modern Art Museum, Caracas, Venezuela, 1955, Oscar Niemeyer

Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, Egyp

Villa Sundt House, Madison by Frank Loyd Wright

2. Form, Space and Organization

Linear Defining Elements in Form, Space & Organization

Sainte- Chapelle Cathedral, Paris

GC Prostho Museum, Japan, Kengo Kuma

Planar Defining Elements in Form, Space & Organization

Palazzo Strozzi,, Italy, 1538

House, Berlin Building Exposition, 1931, Mies van der Rohe

Surface as Defining Element in Form, Space & Organization

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1646, by Francesco Borromini (Baroque)

Taichung Opera House, 2009, Toyo Ito

Order, Organization & Circulation : Linear | Form, Space & Organization

Speyer Cathedral, Germany, 1030

Salk Institute of Biological Studies, California, Louis Kahn

Order & Organization & Circulation : Centralized | Form, Space & Organization

Villa Farnese, Caprarola, 1547–1549

Guggenheim Museum, New York City by Frank Lloyd Wright

Order & Organization : Grid | Form, Space & Organization

Crystal Palace, 1851, Joseph Paxton

Centre Pompidou, Paris, Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers

Order & Organization : Clustered | Form, Space & Organization

St. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, 1633–1641

IIM Ahmedabad, Louis Kahn

Symmetry | Principles of Design | Form, Space & Organization

Villa Rotunda by Palladio

Unity Temple, Illinois, 1905–1907, Frank Lloyd Wright

Axis | Principles of Design | Form, Space & Organization

Uffizi Palace in Florence, Italy, frame an axial space that leads from the River Arno, through the Uffizi arch, to the Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio

Multiple axes of Darwin D. Martin House and Estate, Buffalo, New York, 1904, Frank Lloyd Wright

Hierarchy by Point, Line. Plane & Volume | Form, Space & Organization

Villa Trissino at Meledo, Andrea Palladio

Legislative Assembly Building, Chandigarh,1956–1959, Le Corbusier

Datum by Point, Line. Plane & Volume | Form, Space & Organization

St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City

Sanskar Kendra, Ahmedabad, Le Corbusier

Rhythm, Repetition, Hierarchy by Point, Line. Plane, Volume | Form, Space & Organization

Wells Cathedral, England

Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center by Renzo Piano

3. Elements of Space-Making

Walls | Elements of Space- Making

Villa Capra La Rotonda, Andrea Palladio

Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baju by Zaha Hadia

Columns | Elements of Space- Making

Decorative columns from Renaissance

Yusuhara Wooden bridge museum, Kengo Kuma

Windows | Elements of Space- Making

Gothic Rose windows

Ronchamp Cathedral, 1955, Le Corbusier

Doors & Portals | Elements of Space- Making

Round portal in all door openings necessitating thicker walls Speyer cathedral

IIM Ahmedabad by Louis Kahn

Flooring | Elements of Space- Making

Baroque Flooring techniques

Falling water house by Frank Lloyd Wright

Ceiling | Elements of Space- Making

Pantheon, Rome- Renaissance

Menil Museum, Renzo Piano

Staircase | Elements of Space- Making

Romanesque staircase

Gothic staircase

Olivetti Staircase, Carlo Scarpa

Facades | Elements of Space- Making

Facade from Renaissance period

Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry

Threshold | Elements of Space- Making

Lisbon workshop by Filippo Brunelleschi

Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van Der Rohe

Ornamentation | Elements of Space- Making

Baroque style f ornamentation

Aurora Place facade by Renzo Piano