EMU, Department of Arch.

- ARCH312 -Architecture & Design Theories

instructors: T.ulusu Uraz, H. Pulhan……………………...2018-19 Fall
 ‘the arrangement of elements that make up a work of art,
machine, or other man-made objects’ including buildings,
neighbourhoods and cities…. (webster dictionary)

 ‘devising and incorporating in a sketch, drawing a sketch

of something’, where sketch is synonym for ‘plan’ or
‘design’(the dutch van dale dictionary).

 A design is something that is a thinking activity rather

than making.

 ‘to make a plan or program’ is a design that indicates

how something should be arranged, operated and
realised.
 Design is the planning that lays the basis for the making of every
object or system. It can be used both as a noun and as a verb
and, in a broader way, and recently adjective and even adverb in
applied arts and engineering
 design as realization(as a verb) –planned actions,
something intended as a guide for making
something else;
 design as aim (as a noun) - an anticipated
outcome that is intended product (image/thougth
base) or/and product that guides your planned
actions (words/explanation/presentation of this
product);
 design (as an adjective) –creation in an artistic or
skilled manner; "a beautifully designed house";
 design (as an adverb)- performing in an artistic
way ‘designerly behaviour/approach’ etc.
 These concerns emerged strongly at two important periods in the
modern history of design: 1920’s and 60’s
 Before scientific way of looking at design; the main aim of design was to
produce a beautiful/acceptable/appriciatable architectural product
which used to be defined according to its well known
historical/stylistic appearences.
 in the 1920s, This approach supported with a search for scientific
design product, defined by functionalist and rationalist point of view
and guide to find the best/good solutions and building form
 and in the 1960s, with a concern for scientific design process,
knowledge of architecture and design became separate
knowledge/research areas.

 After 60’s scientific approaches and methods, and

techniques which were developed to design ships, airplanes
cars and all other important technological maschines,
products and even weapons design and became an
important tools to be used for building design.
 .
 what to design/what is the product of
design/what should the building look like
 how to achieve design/how to obtain
 A good product of design/ the sistematic
process of design
 Descriptive Research of Design……….1960’s(scientification
attempt in design research)

 how to think about the product of

 design / the mental activity of designer
 Prescriptive Research of Design…..1980’s
It was assumed that, in architecture as in many other applied arts, the
main goal was to reach a good quality product. According to this
view the building is seen as a product of design and therefore design
is reduced to the characteristics of this final outcome.
Designer may rely on almost exclusively traditional methods, and
design ability was widely accepted to imitate these well known styles,
types, typologies and this approach used to have a great influence
on the way of teaching design as well.
As being the first institution of Architectural Education, The "Beaux-
Arts" art school of design is considered teaching design through the
characteristics of the well defined final outcome or end product.
From the traditional point of view in Renaissance; the product of design
means the beautiful presentation of the form according to the well known
norms /orders and figures
the well known characteristics of
the architectural products used to
be very important. Therefore
educational emphasis was largely
on product itself and
presentations of these formal
characteristics, like drawings and
sketches.

In this case, design was seen more as

a task of producing an expected
solution, rather than of solving a
problem through design

Therefore, design was

simply an act of imitating,
repetating the existing
forms, norms, standarts,
images and types.
 To reduce design simply and merely to the end product which was
basically imitation of the existing well known forms was directly
applied for teaching architects in the beaux-arts period.

 in this teaching ideology, aesthetics and immitative success of the

presentation used to be more important then real quality of the end
product.

 Accordingly, design ability used to be seen a natural talent of the

young architects and teaching process was involving to develop it
more through immitation based artistic presentations.

 As design was seen an artistic talent and not actually teachable

activity, architect at the same time was treated an artist. Therefore it
was impossible to explain and to understand and also to teach this
way of producing/designing architectural product in the modern era.

 In the modern era starting with 50’s, due to the desperate shortage
of new buildings, new building typologies and houses, the
increasing demand for the professionally trained architects
emerged. Number of school started to deal with a new architectural
curriculum.
 the formation of the
modern movement/
The Weissenhof
German Werkbund
exibition 1927

 The best architect of

Europe were
commissioned to
design a part of the
area.
 P. Behrens, J. Frank,
R. Döcker, W.
Gropius, .....B. Taut,
Mies, J.J.P. Oud, M.
Stam, Le Corbusier,
And V. Bourgeois,
 District showed an
experimental
character:
 A desire to ‘scientise’ design starts in the 20th-Century modern
movement of design. In the early 1920s, the De Stijl hero Theo van
Doesburg expressed his perception of a new spirit in art and design:
 later, the architect Le Corbusier wrote about the house as an
objectively-designed ‘machine for living’:

 ‘The use of the house consists of a regular sequence of definite

functions. The regular sequence of these functions is a traffic
phenomenon. To render that traffic exact, economical and rapid is
the key effort of modern architectural science.’

 throughout much of the Modern Movement, we see

a desire to produce works of art and design based
on objectivity and rationality, that is, on the values
of science used to explain the value of
architectural form and design product..

Scharon’s house Oud’s terrace-houses
 Product qualities, their contribution to
design itself is very important as it is the
main interest in the architectural discourse
and criticism in modern era.
 In the design studios, we deal with many
existing buildings and architectural
products most of which design by the well
known leading architect, widely used as
presedents or case studies by students to
take lessons or to be inspired.
international style
represents one of
the basic Formal Philip johnson’s AT&T
language of the building is a well known
Modern Architect early example of the
post-modernist approach
and represents certain
formal characteristics.

Architect
develop their
own formal
vocabularly,
even they
show it in
their way of
presenting
their own
design ideas
 PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS:
 building typologies, formal images,
physical- visual qualities, fashions,
movements, aesthetic values, taste of
designer, taste of client/user…izm’s…
 any standarts…norms…rules…
 any unspoken myths, professionally or cultural
shared images…..
 These all are very important have their own
advantage and disadvantages…
design as a sistematic
process step by step
way of thinking
 In the afterwar period In order to construct a new object
we need a method, that is an objective system.’

 These aspirations to scientise design surfaced strongly again

in the ‘design methods movement’ of the 1960’s.

 The desire of the new movement was even more strongly

than before to base design process (as well as the products of
design) on objectivity and rationality.

 In 1960’s the development of ‘a science of design’ in the

universities became important: ‘a body of intellectually
analytic, partly formalizable, partly empirical, teachable
doctrine about the design process’ has been applied and

used.

 In this period it is underlined that design was
not an artistic unteachable activity anymore
but should be teachable with the help of
scientific point of view or methods which
define design a sistematic route or description
to be followed not only by architects as
professionally guided process, but
architecture students too, in their design
studios.
 Scientification in design has been achieved
in three direction:
 Knowledges used in design should be
scientific…
 Designer approach and attitude should be
scientific…
 Evaluation mesurments and methods
should be scientific…
 best /optimum / expected solution
the method deals with THE PREPARATION (analysis base)-
PROPOSAL-EVALUATION (could be linear / cycle) as a three
part process briefly, consisting of ANALYSIS-SYNTHESIS-
EVALUATION

THE PREPARATION /ANALYSIS/ ……the establishment of the

goals and criteria for design in other words definition of
problem and problem criteria and collecting data accordingly /
PROPOSAL / SYNTHESIS…the generation of the potential
design proposal
EVALUATION…..the measurement of the proposed solution,
against the problem criteria & definition /

PROBLEM SOLVING APPROACH /design maps/ step by

step process (DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH APPROACH
deals with this type of explaning design process) ????
/Sistematic Process is scientific decision making
process:
initiation-preparation-proposal making-evalution
action…decision making…
/The scientific process is adapted to the
development process of architectural product.
collecting information(site conditions and
constrains, architectural program) about design
problem - producing a proposal as an answer –
evaluation – making decision /
architectural brief - schematic design – design
development-construction document
Phase 1: architectural brief / Phase 2 :schematic design
Phase 3: working drawing/ Phase 4: construction document
each phase can have number of steps:::
Analysis involves the exploration of relationships, looking for patterns in the
information available and the classification of objectives.
Synthesis on the other hand is characterized by an attempt to move forward and
create a preliminary solution to the problem.
Appraisal involves the critical evaluation of suggested solutions against the
objectives identified in the analysis phase. If the suggested solution is not good
enough to answer the objectives which put forward in the analysis phase, the
decision sequence goes back again from appraisal to synthesis. This warns
designer to produce an another idea.
 However the only thing is important in the
process definition of design is evaluation
which helps development of the proposal
by either
 changing,
 modifiying
 or giving up with it totally.
 in other words taking actions and cycles:
feedback (Change-develop), iteration (go an
other level adding more information)
 On the other hand, Evaluation in architectural design occurs
in several scales and includes a variety of participants.

 Apart from the evaluation of alternative proposals by

designer, design products are typically reviewed by other
designers, and experts, clients, certain review boards(
building inspector, zoning and subdivision boards, financial
institutions), users, newspapers and magazines and
professional journals….

 Additionally buildings are sometimes evaluated after they

have built and occupied for some period of time. This ‘post
occupancy evaluation’ intents evaluates the orginal program
in terms of actual measured performance.
Designprocess in mant cases show very personal charteristics
 However, in the 1970s there emerged a criticism against design
methodology and a rejection of its underlying values, it also had to be
acknowledged that there had been a lack of success in the
application of ‘scientific’ methods to everyday design practice.
Design methodologists also sought from the earliest days to make
distinctions between design and science, as reflected in the following
quotations:
 Alexander said: ‘Scientists try to identify the components of existing
structures, designers try to shape the components of new structures.’
Gregory said: ‘The scientific method is a pattern of problem-solving
behaviour employed in finding out the nature of what exists,
whereas the design method is a pattern of behaviour employed in
inventing things...which do not yet exist.
 Simon said : Science is analytic; design is
constructive.’ ‘The natural sciences are concerned
with how things are...design on the other hand is
concerned with how things ought to be.’ Simon.
Fundamental issues were also raised by Rittel
and Webber , who characterized design and
planning problems as ‘wicked’ problems,
fundamentally not appropriate to the
techniques of science and engineering, which
dealt with ‘tame/well defined’ problems.
 Proposing sistematic method for design proccess is an
attempt to make a common /clear/shared activity for
everybody, to rescue design from the unknown nature of
black box mind (proposing someting related creativity
&intiution) of talented designer.

 Despite of the intention for defining design as process; this

can still not reveal form making nature of design as making
SYNTHESIS therefore from this point of view design still is
undefined activity and designer mind was still ‘black box’

This was the main reason for the researchers started to think
about the characteristics of mental activity of designer.

 That means they tried to understand/explain the

black box nature of designer mind as an attempt
for turning it more transparent box or ‘glass box’….
 This is mostly related to the personal
characteristics of the designer..
 Lets have a break
not more than 15 minutes
design as an mental
activity& special
way of thinking
 In this last approach, therefore, the science of design is the study of
design –
 something similar to study of ‘design methodology’;
 the study of the principles, practices and procedures of design.
evidently, design methodology ‘includes the study of how
designers work and think, the establishment of appropriate
structures for the design process, the development and
application of new design methods, techniques and procedures,
and reflection on the nature and extent of design knowledge and
its application to design problems’.

 The study of design leaves open the interpretation of the nature of

design activity. Schön appeared to be more prepared than his
positivist predecessors to put trust in the abilities displayed by
competent practitioners, and to try to explicate those
competences rather than to supplant them. This approach has
been developed particularly in a series of conferences and
publications throughout the 1990s in ‘design thinking research’.
 Drake’s (1979) approach
 In this approach design is problem definition activity rather than
problem solving.
 In any case design starts with the designers way of re-defining the
problem or even his own way of find the problem; to achieve this
she/he analysis the problem to understand it better.
 Asking what is the most important problem of the given design
sittuation? Drake’s map explains to start design by defining the
problem, which in other words finding generator…

generator-conjecture-analysis
This means every designer has its own staring point
Individualistic / personal attempt for analysis leads individualistic /
personal way of defining design problem
 Design as a mental activity /
the problem re-defining or finding process / what is the
most important aspect of problem / GENERATOR
In simple terms ;
Firstly, decide what might be the most important aspects of the
problem,
is the generator can also be named as main idea, starting point, and
related to contextual properties, program characteristics are mainly
originated from different steakholders and components of design.
These all can be taken as constrains, programmatic inputs
or concept of design, in general all the inputs of the design
should need to be considered, however one or some of
them selected by designer to be taken more seriously in
order to re-define the design problem. They are simply play
roles of design generator.
 Design as a mental activity /
a problem re-defining attempt / through proposed rough
solution as an initial answer which canbe taken as
CONJECTURE which is the first attempt for SYNTHESIS

 Develop a rough proposal on the basis of the selected

problem criteria which is generator.
 In this stage designer puts forward a conjecture in other
words produces a proposals as quick as possible without
worrying about its correctness, which gives him/her
opportunity to think alternatively.
 Produce something will directly be related to imagine first
and visualise it later on. This is make it visible throgh
presentation for everbody as well as designer him/her
self
Zeisel’s (1984) Map supports Darke’s approach…
From the same point of view Zeisel defines
the designer’s activity respectively:
imagining-presenting-testing.
or in other words
imagination-visualization-evaluation
As a process of design
Generator/conjecture(imagination-visualization)/testing(evaluation)
in general sense
design is more synthesis to analysis rather than
analysis to synthesis
 Design can be define:
 First, Understand the problem(analysis)
 Second, finding or re-defining the problem (synthesis/idea ‘mental
image base’ )
 Third, externalize the mental image(s) (preliminary-initial
form/conjecture)
 and Test or evaluate the form

Evaluation of the form after all, to see if the proposal is suitable with
your definition of the the problem or generator which you have
chosen to start with….

 By doing so you can discover other parts of the problem that you had
not seen before.

 Or…..may be you change your generator your starting point

 Here it has some common features like ‘feedback’ in the descriptive
approach…
 visualization/presentation: 2-3D abstract modelling
(thinking sketches and final presentation works)
 In design studios, students usually draw what they can draw, but not
what they can imagine….

 Computer and even drawing with the rules(technical

drawings:plans/sections/elevation) limit your way of transfering what
you are imagining in your mind to the paper.

 The easiest and applicable way of visualization is sketching.

 However the designer may sketch or apply to technical drawings but

his drawings are not totally explicit about what is going on in his
head.

 Therefore most of the design route remains hidden. Not only the the
designers visualization capacities but the capacities of presentation
technics defines the characteristics of the final form.

along the history of design, designers used more sophisticated ways
of modeling to represent their ideas.
Thinking with the sketch
Historic clay models from China
(200BC) and Ancient Greece.
 The wooden model for the facade of St. Lorenzo in
Florence , made by Michelangelo following a succession of
preliminary models, one of which was made of clay.
 A painting by Domenico Passignano in the
Casa Buonarrotti, showing Michelangelo presenting a
model of St. Peter's to the pope.
Design as an Mental Activity and thinking
process mainly consists of two BASİC
THINKING TYPE –intiutive and rational /analitical thinking
How does the designer works, how does his thinking
ability continue? Although it is quite difficult to know how
the designer’s way of thinking develops, however we may
still sometimes be able to observe this process by
looking at the thinking sketches.
It is obvious that there are two types of design thinking together
shows the characteristics of the designer's thinking activity.
the first dealing with more abstract forms and images is defined as
fast, crude, holistic, and parallel (lateral),
while the second one dealing with rather concrete forms and images
shows
deliberate, attentive, detailed, and sequential (linear)
characteristics.
Sketches shows two basic thinking activities: intiutive and
rational
Abstract forms are tools and concrete forms are the tools and
product of intuitive thinking process products of rational thinking process

•Fast Crude –without considering •Careful-Specific –considering the

details- exploratory details-explanatory
•Holistic •Considering the particulars
•Developing with Multiple choices •Developing through steps
•Explorative sketches –abstract •Mature sketches – solid forms-
forms-more productive-open to •Tentatively more concrete solutions
alternative thinking
•Tentatively more abstract solutions
Due to its productive nature, sketches
remainds and suggest diverse solutions
for different people and different moments
of the design process
Design as an Mental Activity: Two basic
thinking types- design activity is the
interactive process between these types of
thinking-intuitive and rational: design
proposal gradually develops from abstract
formal qualities to more concrete final form

We know that architects work within the range of

sketches starting from first proposal which is
rather abstract and with more exploratory
potentials; gradually goes to the last final
product which has comperably concrete and
explanatory characteristics.
Designers generally deals with both of them. This is very
important in design education to be developed equally.
These can be named abstract to concrete or intuitive, and
rational thinking
Opportunity seeking and producing alternatives are the basic
activities for intuitive thinking; decision making and
evaluating are basic activities for rational thinking

Eeexplorative presentation explanatory presentation

ABSTRACT FORM CONCRETE FORM

 The first approach is Systematic process starts from the
facts and describes what the reality is. Works through
analyses to synthesis.
 Second is Mental Process, more normative judge by
making inquiries deals with what the reality should be,
could be, migth be…and how it develops, therefore
development follows through synthesis to analysis
more.
 Relevantly definition of the solution changed:
 From the best solution / expected solution / Optimum
solution /
 To acceptable solution / proposed solution / imagined
solution /dreamed solution…etc rather than correct
solution
 The most common and influential way of representing
designs has been drawing;
 Designing by drawing implies the “process of design”
as well as ‘the product of design’ .in other words
‘process of producing design product’
 Presenting or visualising his/her own idea give the
designer great freedom for changing, modifiying and
manipulating the form and his ideas or images
accordingly….
 He could make changes in parts of the solution and
immediately perceive (see) the result; then he could
continue this process of 2D-3Ddrawing and redrawing
until he can see all the problems are resolved.
Through this proccess which is an institutional process
learned and experienced in the schools, order, meaning,
concept of the form were produced and reproduced.
 In the schools we educate the architects by
separating designing process, from construction and
making process. Then it more likely goes under the
effect of rapid change and innovation; through
modeling and representation reality.
 This “perceptual span” enabled designer to make more
fundamental changes and innovations within each
design.
 However, this would not be possible in the
“vernacular process”. a craft man in vernacular
building process actually make the product (building).
He does not have the chance to develop and change
his idea before. On the other hand he can do
necessary changes during the making process or he
develops and change the unsatisfactory parts and
points in his following work.
 Cannot be comprehensively stated
Many features of design problems may never be
fully uncovered. Design problems are often full of
uncertainties. So we should not expect a
comprehensive and static definition of design
problems.
 Require subjective interpretation
Our understanding of design problems depends on
our ideas for solving them. What may seem important
to one designer, may not seem so to others.
Therefore we should not expect entirely objective
statements of design problems.
 Tend to be organized hierarchically, as
well as needs to be re-defined, and
reviewed by a selective eye…
 There are infinite number of different
solutions
Since design problems cannot be comprehensively
stated, this means that there can never be a certain
list of possible solutions. Therefore design problem is
more open ended rather than closed ended.
 There are no optimal solutions to design
problems
Design almost always involves compromise. The
designer rarely optimize some requirements without
suffering lossing an other or some others. So there are
no optimal solutions to design problems, but rather a
wide range of acceptable solutions. Design solutions
can never be perfect , and they are often more easily
criticized than created. Therefore designers must
accept that their solutions will appear wrong in some
ways to some people.
 The process is endless
Since design problems do not have certain definitions and
there are infinite number of solutions, the design process
cannot have a certain end. The designer’s job is never
really done, and he/she can always try to do better. The
designer decides the end of the process as a matter of
judgement. When the chances of significantly improving
the solution seem small, then it is not worth going further.
 There is no “definitely correct” process
It is possible to analyze the structure of design problems,
and modify the process accordingly. In fact, controlling
and changing the design process is one of the most
important skills a designer must develop.
 Design is a prescriptive activity
Designers do not aim to deal with questions of what, how and
why, but rather with what might be, could be and should be.

 The process involves finding or redefining problems as

well as solving them
 Problems and solutions are seen as emerging together rather than
following each other. That is, both problem and solution become clearer
as the process goes on. And the designer is actually expected to find
problems as well as solutions.

 The design process seen as a negotiation between problem and solution

through the three activities of analysis, synthesis
 and evaluation

 Design inevitably involves subjective value judgment