PREFACE FOR CONCEPTS

Prepared by :
WILLA S. SOLOMON.MS.UAP

Lectured by :
VICENTE J. DAYAG JR.MS.UAP.PIEP.
 WHAT ARE CONCEPTS
● Concepts are a set of
rules or guidelines that
we establish for ourselves
to help us remain
consistent and productive

● Not as rigid as a plot or a ● A painting by Caravaggio: “ Supper

business plan, but they at Emmaus”
do involve a vision of the ● Caravaggio had a noteworthy ability
to express in one scene of
challenges ahead unsurpassed vividness the passing
of a crucial moment.
● The Supper at Emmaus depicts the
recognition of Christ by his disciples:
a moment before he is a fellow
traveler, mourning the passing of the
Messiah, as he never ceases to be
to the inn-keeper’s eyes, the second
after, he is the Saviour.
 WHAT ARE CONCEPTS
● Concepts are also about
intentions that seek a
result that is poetic,
lasting and memorable

● In this sense concepts

are not simply about a ● Eiffel Tower: Gustave Eiffel
● The tower is currently painted a shade
resolution of a functional of brownish-gray in three different
matrix of adjacencies. colors in order to make it look the
same color.
● The colors change from dark to light
from top to bottom, but it looks the
same because of the background (the
sky being light and the ground being
dark.
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● More than any other

artistic endeavor, the
design fields depend on
concepts for the reason
that they take up a lot of
resources: money,
personnel, materials etc.
● Sydney Opera House:
Jorn Utzon
● It requires a concept to
● Issues such as structural,
justify the expenditure of construction, materials,
all these resources and supervision, financing, and
more politics hampered this
architectural marvel.
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● Because the design fields

are very much about
making possible a space
or an environment for
fellow humans.

● It is important to articulate ● Seattle Public Library:

what that environment will Rem Koolhaas
look like and mean at the "The stacks, arranged along a
outset of the job continuous spiral ramp contained
within a four-story slab, reinforce a
sense of a world organized with
machine-like precision."
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● Because they help us

defend a result that is
unfamiliar to those who
hire us.

● By providing a reason for

the efforts and product
that we put forth, the
public is more likely to
accept non-mainstream
● Clinton Presidential Library by :
expressions
James Polshek Architects
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● Concepts are first and ● The product is the

foremost the product of outcome of having eked
limitations, which can be out a response to the
translated to mean limitations.
obstacles, be they,
political, environmental,
economic or spatial .

● Once the limitations are

defined and understood,
the designer goes on to
work with the appropriate
metaphor, scale, form, ● University of Virginia:
material. Thomas Jefferson
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY
● To design the plan of DC, ● The system of diagonal lines
Pierre L’Enfant looked to his with nodes every so often gave
predecessors in France fro DC a degree of hierarchy
help between government functions
and in the process gave those
● He needed a plan that would functions important vistas in
bind the various components the city
of the government into a
singular relationship

● The grid was not sufficient

enough for the reason that it
had no sense of beginning or
end
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY
● In Villa Savoye Corbusier
sought to put in real material
terms his need to express the
spirit of the age that one lives
in.

● Conceptually his main aim was

to express the his age,1929,
was beginning to defy gravity
and location.
● In lifting the villa above ground
● This was the age of the car and in favoring the horizontal
and the idea that we are window over the vertical he
constantly on the move first wanted to free the
architecture from the site and
second to wash away the
effect of structure
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY
● As the National Gallery is in ● The final result makes cuts out
DC and in an important of the building in such a way
moment in the city’s plan,
I.M.Pei was careful to work so as to continue the sweep of
with a concept that would avenues outside inside the
make out of his architecture a building
unity between exterior and
interior, city scale and room
scale.

● On the inside the materials

were chosen to reflect the
facades of the city, thereby
folding the experience of
walking on the sidewalk inside
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY
● To speak about art and its
relationship with the city,
Marcel Breuer used as a
concept the inverted pyramid

● If the pyramid had signified the

relationship between the
earthly and the divine, the
Whitney signifies the same but
in reverse order; art uses
divine inspiration to inform us ● In the process the trapezoidal
about earthly matters window comes to play an
important role in putting forth
the idea that between the artist
and the public there is a
special perspective
WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● As an institution that
prides itself on the study
of art and liberal studies,
the Getty Center in LA is
reminiscent of ancient
Greek city states and
Greek values

● And so when Richard

Meier came to design a
collection of buildings for
it in LA, he was quick to
use the Parthenon for his
conceptual thinking
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● Important about the

Parthenon are the site
and how it presented a
ready-made hierarchy
between two components
of a single belief system.

● Perspective and how

there is no one
perspective that overrides
other views, order and
how it disciplines
relationships
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY
● The Pompidou Center in Paris is ● This was a time when energy
one of the more provocative was scarce and public
buildings built in the 20th C; It
inevitably raises curiosity in us. consciousness was slowly
moving towards sustainability
● What inspired the architects on
it to externalize the mechanical
systems and expose its
structure?

● By pushing the ducts to the

outside and opening the building
up to flexible space, the
architects sought a concept that
would drive the point about
energy home and give up
expression to the issue of the
day
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY
● Not unlike Le Corbusier, Rem
Koolhaas is an architect who is
also interested in exemplifying
his age and in particular the
effect that the electronic world
has had on us in the last few
years.

● In the Educatorium on the

campus of Utrecht University,
he works with the concept that
reflects the way the electronic
world has blurred edges and
freed space
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● On the inside Koolhaas

relies on mirrors and
glass floors to show how
we have confused the
relationship between
distant spaces and we
have in a way begun to
defy gravity.

● His ribbon-like forms and

use of ramps are to
extent of showing the
continuity of space today
and how we are more
open to possibilities.
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● In designing the St.

Chapel of St.
Ignacious Steven Holl
had to work with two
restrains: budget and
space.

● To respond to these
restrains he relied
almost completely on
light as a way to bring
meaning and beauty
to the chapel
 WHY ARE CONCEPTS NECESSARY

● He specifically relied on
the concept of a bottle of
light, a bottle that
captures light from above
and diffuses it on the
interior

● Which means that rather

than the walls it was the
roof that played the
greatest role in making
out of his design a special
intervention
 IMPORTANCE OF CONCEPTS
● Concepts have been the designer’s way of
responding to the design situation presented in
the program.

⚪ They are derived from problem analysis or initially

prompted by it.

⚪ They are rudimentary in character

⚪ They both require and must embrace further

development
 APPROACHES IN THE
DESIGN PROCESS
● Techniques, models, paradigms, idioms and processes
for designing

⚪ Serve as a vehicles/catalysts for improving the effectiveness

of a designer

⚪ They broaden and deepen the designer’s understanding of

design activities

⚪ Use to organize and present information for designing

⚪ To provide successful architectural solutions

 NATURE OF CONCEPTS
● Although design projects may begin with a single
overall direction, any building design comes is in
fact composed of many concepts.

⚪ Concepts may be product or process oriented and can

take place in any stage in the design process

⚪ Can occur in any scale

⚪ Can be generated from several sources

⚪ Have a hierarchal nature

 PROBLEMS IN CONCEPT GETTING

● Building exceeds client budget

● Incompatible activities zoned together
● Inefficient layout
● Spaces too large or cramped
● Furniture don’t fit activity patterns
● Too much or too little furniture in spaces
● Building won’t accommodate future growth and
change
● Poorly utilized land
 PROBLEMS IN CONCEPT GETTING

● HVAC Systems difficult to service

● Oversized or undersized HVAC
● Over - designed or under - designed lighting
● Improper security provisions
● Violation of codes and ordinances
● Parking problems
● Obstructed views
● Destruction of existing ecological relationships
CHECKLIST IN DESIGN
FUNCTI SPACE
ON (volume
(activity required
grouping by
GEOMET and zoning) activities)
RY CONTEX
(circulation, T
form (site and
and image) DESIGN climate)
ENCLOS SOLUTIO SYSTEM
URE N S
(structure, (mechanical
enclosing ,
planes & electrical,
openings) HUMAN etc.)
ECONO
FACTOR
MIC
S
(first cost
(perception,
maintenanc
behavior,
e cost)
etc.)
References

● Architecture Form, Space And Order by

Francis D.K. Ching, John, Witley & Sons,
2007.
● Concept Sourcebook: Edward White