The thing about architecture is I don’t know what I don’t know. I can ‘feel’ what doesn’t work but I can’t always explain why it doesn’t. After twelve years of wandering my house and contemplating the spaces indoors and out, there are still problems that I haven’t been able to resolve.
I stumbled upon the intriguing little book 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick (MIT Press) in the New Museum in New York. I love the compactness and tactile qualities of its physical design and the encapsulation of its messages without any hint of dumbing down. I could say that I wish I had found this little book years ago, like while I was wracking my brain over my final project at Algonquin or puzzling over my Old Gal, but key information always seems to arrive just when I’m best able to absorb it. As Louis Pasteur said, “Fortune favours the prepared mind.” It is a fun and engaging introductory text for anyone who wants to understand more about their built environment, who is thinking of designing their own house, or engaging the services of an architect to do it for them.
Although it is an architecture-based text, many of the ideas apply to any creative process, regardless of the medium of expression. It offers a healthy mixture of the practical (#55: “The best placement of a circulation path through a small room is usually straight through, a few feet from one wall”) and philosophical (#82: “True architectural style does not come from a conscious effort to create a particular look. It results obliquely – even accidentally – out of a holistic process.”) An architect I will never be, but I had a multitude of “ah-ha!” moments throughout my read that helped resolve some past and present design dilemmas. Here are a few key takeaways.
(15) A parti is the central idea or concept of a building
It is “a diagram depicting the general floor plan organization of a building and, by implication, its experiential and aesthetic sensibility.” It is not a floor plan but a symbol of the space, co-representing the tangible with the intangible. The concept applies equally well to any endeavour, creative or business driven, that requires a high degree of cohesion. I read a great interview with Francis Ford Coppola yesterday (thanks Pete for your posting) that speaks to the idea of parti, but from a directorial (and language-based) perspective.
When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.
The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.
(17) The more specific a design idea is, the greater its appeal is likely to be
“Being nonspecific in an effort to appeal to everyone usually results in reaching no one.”
(45) Three levels of knowing – simplicity, complexity, informed simplicity
“Informed simplicity is an enlightened view of reality. It is founded upon an ability to discern or create clarifying patterns within complex mixtures. Pattern recognition is a crucial skill for an architect, who must create a highly ordered building amid many competing and frequently nebulous design considerations.”
(28) A good designer isn’t afraid to throw away a good idea
“Just because an interesting idea occurs to you doesn’t mean it belongs in the building you are designing…Save your good but ill-fitting ideas for another time and project – and with the knowledge that they might not work then, either.”
Coppola expands on saving ideas effectively:
The first thing you do when you take a piece of paper is always put the date on it, the month, the day, and where it is. Because every idea that you put on paper is useful to you. By putting the date on it as a habit, when you look for what you wrote down in your notes, you will be desperate to know that it happened in April in 1972 and it was in Paris and already it begins to be useful. One of the most important tools that a filmmaker has are his/her notes.
(48) If you can’t explain your ideas to your grandmother in terms that she understands, you don’t know your subject well enough
(73) The two most important keys to effectively organizing a floor plan are managing solid-void relationships and resolving circulation
It’s about balancing the unsexy “core functions” of a building (solids) ie. bathrooms and mechanical space with the sexy “larger, primary program spaces” (voids) ie. living rooms or exhibit galleries. The building’s circulation – “where people walk” – requires a similar balance between efficiency and aesthetics.
(76) Overdesign
It’s easier to shrink an oversized building by ten percent than to cram “unexpected spatial requirements” into an existing building program.
(78) “The success of the masterpieces seems to lie not so much in their freedom from faults – indeed we tolerate the grossest errors in them all – but in the immense persuasiveness of a mind which has completely mastered its perspective.” – Virginia Woolf
Being “right” doesn’t necessarily make for greatness.
(84) Two points of view on architecture
Architecture is an exercise in truth. A proper building is responsible to universal knowledge and is wholly honest in the expression of its functions and materials.
Architecture is an exercise in narrative. Architecture is a vehicle for the telling of stories, a canvas for relaying societal myths, a stage for the theater of everyday life.
I prefer the organic quality of the second point of view. The first feels claustrophobic and controlling.
(1) Summer people are 22 inches wide. Winter people are 24 inches wide.
Betcha never thought about this before, huh? Maybe that’s why Canadians fit best in wide-open spaces….