ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS

ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURAL
CONCEPTS
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
III. STRUCTURAL CONCEPTS
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/ BIOTECTURE
V. TECHNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
1. Analogies – literally relating architectural
form with other objects or processes.
a. Biological Analogy
Architecture Based on Anatomy
Concept of Organic Architecture
Parts of a Whole
Morphology: Science of Form
Form Follows Function
Influence of the Environment
Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York
The Kaufman House – “Falling Water”
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
b. Mechanical Analogy
Scientific evolution and Artistic Evolution
follow the same laws.
Movement and Function
Collaboration in the progressive
accumulation of technical knowledge
Precise destination and expression of
potentialities
The Centre Pompidou by Renzo Piano
 Use of Bricks earth as main material
of the building

The Geodesic Dome by B. Fuller

I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
c. Gastronomic Analogy
Demands the combination of materials of
strength, ideal sequence or plan, analysis
and testing of efficacies
Goes beyond scientific analysis; requires
intuition, imagination, enthusiasm, immense
amount of organizational skill
Example: Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao,
Spain by Frank Gehry
The Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, Spain
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
d. Linguistic Analogy
Eloquence and Expression
Emotions and experiencing emotions
Vocabulary and composition
Example: Tadao Ando’s Chapel on the
Water
Tadao Ando’s Chapel of Light

Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi

I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
e. Metaphors
Abstract relationships
Johnson and Johnson Building by Frank Lloyd Wright
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
f. Essences
Meanings
Issues
Symbols
Going beyond Programmatic Requirements
The Borobudur in Indonesia
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
g. Programmatic
Stated requirements
Example: Building Offices
I. THEMATIC OR SYMBOLIC
ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
h. Ideals
Universal Values
Highest Aspirations
Example: Gothic churches, Greek
Architecture
 Gothic Churches

The Parthenon
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
1. Traditional Definition of good architecture
 Classical Orders, Neo-Classical Orders (Concept)
 Vitruviu’s Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
2. Architectural Programming
EXISTING STATE
The Setting
Cultural,
Social, Political,
Historical, Economic FUTURE STATE
Physical Conditions/ Site Mission
Data Goals
Geography, Climate Performance
Archaeology, Geology, Requirements
Client/User Profile Concepts
Demography,
Organizations, Needs,
Behavior
Constraints,
Legal, Financial,
Technical, Market
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
3. Optimization/ Satisfaction of Needs
Durand: There are only two problems in
architecture
1) in private buildings , how to provide the
optimum accommodation for the smallest
sum of money
2) in public building, how to provide the
maximum accommodation for a given
sum.
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
3. Optimization/ Satisfaction of Needs
Ornament had nothing to do with
architectural beauty, since a building was
only beautiful when it satisfied a need.

“Whether we consult our reason, or examine

ancient monuments, it is evident that the
primary purpose of architecture has never
been to please, nor has architectonic
decoration been its object.
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
3. Optimization/ Satisfaction of Needs
Public and Private usefulness, and the
happiness and preservation of mankind,
are the aims of architecture.
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
4. “Less is More” –Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
The International Style:
• “The house is a machine to live in.” – the program for
building a house should be set out with the same
precision as that for building a machine.
• Structural frame should be separately identified from
the space-enclosing walls.
• House should be lifted on pilotises so the garden may
spread under it.
II. FUNCTIONAL CONCEPTS
• Roofs should be flat, capable of being used as a garden
• Pitched roof disturbed the cubic of rectilinear form
• Interior accommodation should be freely planned

The Villa Savoye

III. STRUCTURAL CONCEPTS
1. By Gravity
2. Post and lintel
3. Arches and Vaults
4. Flying Buttress
5. Domes
6. Frames
7. Tube Construction
III. STRUCTURAL CONCEPTS
8. Mushroom Construction
9. Stretched Membrane
10. Suspended Systems
11. Stratification
12. Prefabrication
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/
BIOTECTURE
1. Environmental Theory of Perception
Light and Color as a modifying element of
space; artificial or natural, light can be
manipulated by design to identify places
and to give places particular character.
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/
BIOTECTURE
1. Environmental Theory of Perception
Le Corbusier: “Architecture is the masterly,
correct and magnificent play of masses
brought together in light. Our eyes are
made to see forms in light. Thus, cubes,
cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are
the great primary forms which light reveals
to advantage; they are not only beautiful
forms, but the most beautiful forms.
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/
BIOTECTURE
2. Organic Architecture
Each design component becomes an
essential part of the whole such that when
one is removed, the composition will be
incomplete.

Architecture is the process that organizes

and composes various interrelated forces
into a unified whole.
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/
BIOTECTURE
2. Organic Architecture
The constituent parts of the whole may
seem discordant and disorganized but
never unrelated.
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/
BIOTECTURE
3. Evolutionary Architecture
• Architecture can create as nature creates.
• A building can be seen as a living organism with
functional processes.
• The overriding objective is to reach the
ultimate evolution of a design so that it is a
perfected culmination of function, form and
purpose within its limits of budget, materials
and so forth.
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPTS/
BIOTECTURE
4. Using what is there
Design takes off from the natural features
of the site. The concept is based on
available resources.
V. TECHNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
TECHNOLOGY – applied science;
the branch of knowledge that deals with the
creation and use of technical means and their
interrelation with life, society and the
environment, drawing upon such subjects as
industrial arts, engineering, applied science and
pure science.
V. TECHNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
1. TECTONICS – the art and science of shaping,
ornamenting or assembling materials in
building construction.
V. TECHNOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
2. BAUHAUS: Aim was to unite art and
technology under a purified aesthetic that
removed all ornament and articulation
from form and stressed the beauty of
expressed function. Ornament was
considered a bourgeois decadence, if not
an actual crime – Walter Gropius, Marcel
Breuer and Josef Albers