Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR DESIGN

ID423- Interior Design Studio II – FALL 2021

Precedent Analysis
Contents
• What is a precedent?
• Criteria for selection
• How to analyze
• Case study
• Concept
• Analysis
• Structure
• Massing & hierarchy
• Geometric analysis
• Interior Details
• 5 points of Architecture
• Conclusion
What Is A Precedent?
“Something done or said that may serve as an example
or rule to authorize or justify a subsequent act of the
same or an analogous kind”, and a ‘study’ as “a state of
contemplation.” -Merriam Webster
• A 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.
• A precedent study can help you solve problems in a
design process that have previously been solved in
other designs.
Criteria For Selection
Don’t just select a building ‘because it looks nice’.
There needs to be a lot more too it than that

• Why does it look nice?

• What sets it apart from other similar projects?
• How is it constructed?
• Would it work with your design?
• How did the designer make the project successful?
• Or, why is it a negative precedent?
• Is the design functional? What makes it functional?
• What materials have been used?
And the list goes on…
Criteria For Selection
• You need to start by establishing the brief, and therefore understanding the problem. You are
seeking guidance or inspiration in a certain area, so it is important you select suitable precedents
for your design. It may be that you are designing a museum, for example, so exploring museum
precedents, would lead you to discover the requirements, conditions and problems that a
museum design might present.
• Do not necessarily head straight to the internet for ideas – although it is a valuable resource. You
can also consider magazines, journals, books – so make sure you head to the Mariam Abdulla
Library too in order to collect your resources.
• It is also important to get out and about and experiencing some buildings for yourself. For
example, you are designing a museum: get out to your local museums and see what inspires you.
• 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 design language of the area and
develop a design that is sympathetic to the context.
• To seek access to such public buildings request your Registrar to issue you a Letter of Permission.
How To Analyze
The precedent is there to help you resolve a design problem. 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.
Some of the things that you should consider are:

• Structure • Representation and presentation styles and

• Scale and Volume techniques
• Details • Form and massing
• Proportions • How a building interacts with light and shadow
• Context • Window opening
• Social / cultural impact • Entrances
• Form • Interior finishes
• Access • External finishes
• Aesthetic • Furniture
• Landscape
• Planting
Below are a few key areas to look at:
• Materiality – look at examples of how a building finishes work with one and another and their surrounding
context, what influenced the designers decisions, how do different materials meet and interact with each
other, how are junctions detailed?
• Details – Materiality merges with and plays a large role in how a building is detailed, but aside from this you
can use your precedents to influence how connections between structures and the site are made. Look at
how openings are formed, and how wall, floor and roof junctions meet each other, how a staircase connects
two floors, and how it interacts with them, and how window sills are formed etc. This can be investigated on
both a macro and micro level.
• Structure – Structural strategies form the foundation (literally) of a buildings design, and so study how your
precedents are supported and span over their open plan spaces, how columns and beams are sized, and is
the structure exposed or hidden.
• Scale and volume – Put simply a building must fit, and so a scale and volume precedent study would look at
how buildings and sites of a similar size to your proposal interact with their surrounding environment. Are
they successful, are they overbearing and if so why, and how could you avoid this? If they work well, then
how do they achieve this? what can you learn?
• Access and circulation – There are many ways to address access and so study the variations of how buildings
attract their inhabitants, how do people know where the entrance is? and how do they know where to go
once inside?
• Light shadow – light and shadow play an extremely important role in how a building is experienced, and so
look at how each of these are addressed; how has the designer brought light into the building? How are
elements accentuated? and what does this feel like?
• Concept development – A precedent study can often lead to and influence concept development. Study the
fundamentals of how your precedents were formed and where they started, how were the volumes and
spaces created, what influenced design decisions, and what was the driving force behind the project?
• Proportions – Design is built upon proportion and often a projects success is dependent on it. So study how
volumes and forms interact and sit next to each other, how large and small openings sit within an elevation,
how floor levels influence a buildings height and the proportions of its openings, how different materials
break up massing.
Case Study:
Villa Savoye (France) by Le Corbusier
1929 - 1931
 The delicate floating box that
Corbusier designed is both functional
house and modernist sculpture,
elegantly melding form and function.

Photo courtesy: End User (2006) https://www.flickr.com/photos/iainb/albums/72057594127445245

The Villa Savoye was designed as a summer
home for the Savoye family. According to Le
Corbusier, they were;
“clients totally free of preconceptions, ancient
or modern.” (Baltanas, 2005)

Le Corbusier aimed to integrate the home and

the automobile, and because it was to be a
summer home, he also wanted to allow for
“contemplation of nature” (Benton, 1987).

It is described as a “receptacle for sunlight

elevated above the landscape” (Baker, 1984).

For Corbusier a home is a “machine to live in.”

Concept ACCESS CURVE | SLAB | ROOFTOP

The essential concept of the villa consists of three

distinct layered elements:

1. Ground-floor access curve

2. First floor slab
3. Second floor curved roof screen.

All three are linked by a ramp spanning all of the

floors, as the route of movement was highly
influential in determining the forms.
N.T.S Ground plan (left), first story (center), atrium and roof garden (right), Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1929
Picture courtesy: https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/a6e0790ce97bec178afd3297fe8386967add5eff.jpg
Analysis 2D ORGANISING PRINCIPLE & CIRCULATION

The organizational systems of each floor, set into the grid allowing for a separation of structure and enclosure,
namely:
• Access curve determined by car’s turning radius, balanced asymmetry or primary axis.
• Rectangular slab divided on a diagonal axis into balanced public and private areas.
• Free curved roof screens which both “proclaim and contain” the relationship to natural surroundings.
“The movement route has special significance, being the means of linking the successive experiences provided
by the villa.” (Baker, 1984)
Structure PILOTIS PLACEMENT | UNDERLYING GRID

• There is a structural grid of 5 x 5 pilotis. Modified because of the ramp which becomes a; “rectangular
space on the first floor due to the slight prolongation of the two of its facades.” (Baltanas, 2005)
• The column grid extends through all three levels, sometimes concealed within walls, which are not
structural.
• This grid allows for a “free floor plan” and façade.
Plan to Elevation Relationship

• The grid of the pilotis can be seen in both plan and the section views.
• The access volume on the ground floor is seen in the elevation as a segmented curve of
glazing, while the curved roof screen is seen on the top floor.
• The front edge of the slab appears as the largest rectangular volume in elevation view.
• Corbusier experimented with the "free plan" as a result, walls take any form and can be placed anywhere.
• Multiple points-of-view at the main entrance. One could walk straight, take the spiral staircase or use the ramp.
• The placement of the pilotis and the recessed ground level makes the form look almost like it is levitating.
• Window orientation (horizontal as opposed to the traditional vertical) therefore balancing the verticality of the
form with some equally horizontal lines.
Massing & Hierarchy FLOOR DIVISION

ELEVATION 1 ELEVATION 2

• The silhouette (red) is very simple and linear. There is very little hierarchy seen other than the size of
the two floors. (covered area)
• From the second elevation, the silhouette is slightly different. However, the general idea is pretty much
the same.
• The large slab can be seen as an extension over the form across the grid.
• Additionally, the roof screen is pushed towards one side of the roof.
Geometric Analysis FAÇADE DIVISION

The following diagrams show Le Corbusier's

obsession with regulating lines in every aspect
of the Villa Savoye from the use of the golden
"Geometry is the language of man... he has
section, to circle arcs, to the diagonal grid.
discovered rhythms, rhythms apparent to the
eye and clear in their relations with one
Let’s explore…
another... They resound in man by an organic
inevitability, the same fine inevitability which
causes the tracing out of the Golden Section
by children, old men, savages, and the
learned.”

-Le Corbusier, Le Modulor.

Front Elevation and the Golden Section
• The front elevation of Villa Savoye can be described by two golden section rectangles side-by-side.

Source: Elam.K (2013) Behance, ‘Corbusier's Villa Savoye, Geometric Analysis’

Relationship of the Villa Savoye to Circle Arcs
• The pleasing proportions of the building are due to the harmonious relationships of all of the structural elements.
• A large circle arc from post to post, shown in red touches the top of the building.
• Two smaller circle arcs from edge to edge, shown in blue, touch the tops of the window openings.

Source: Elam.K (2013) Behance, ‘Corbusier's Villa Savoye, Geometric Analysis’

Villa Savoye's Relationship to the Square
• While the rectangular structure of the house can be readily described with golden section rectangles, the front elevation, including the extending roof structure, can be enclosed by two squares.
• These squares extend from the pillars to the top most point on the house, with the center of the squares landing at the break between window openings.
• Further the body of the house can be described by six tangent squares side-by-side.

Source: Elam.K (2013) Behance, ‘Corbusier's Villa Savoye, Geometric Analysis’

Visual Balance
• The Villa Savoye is balanced by the protruding top structure at the left with the solid entry structure below right.
• The window openings are symmetrical and and provide a strong horizontal plane with divisions that are rhythmical, diagonal, and engaging.

Source: Elam.K (2013) Behance, ‘Corbusier's Villa Savoye, Geometric Analysis’

Diagonal Grid
• A diagonal grid imposed on the front elevation with the squares reveals a series of relationships between the structure of the house and its regulating lines.

Source: Elam.K (2013) Behance, ‘Corbusier's Villa Savoye, Geometric Analysis’

Interior Details
• Sliding windows as opposed to casement
windows with double swing wings. Sliding
windows saves space.

• Daylighting has been maximised by creating

openings on multiple levels.

• Built-in systems. Free standing furniture is

sparingly used. Le Corbusier wanted the house to
perform like a well-oiled machine

Picture courtesy: End User (2006)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/iainb/albums/72057594127445245
Interior Details
• The form challenges the traditional inside /
outside dichotomy.

• There are blurred boundaries. For example one of

the exterior walls is a full-height glass bay that
does not visually separate the living room from
the terrace, so when standing inside the living
room you feel more outside than inside.

• Therefore questioning what defines outside and

what is inside?

Picture courtesy: End User (2006)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/iainb/albums/72057594127445245
Picture courtesy: Arch Daily https://www.archdaily.com/84524/ad-classics-villa-savoye-le-corbusier
Interior Details
• Window muntins accentuate the geometric
fragmentation. Whether vertical like at the
entrance (where the car turns) or horizontal like
at the ramp. They slice into the visual space.
Picture courtesy: End User (2006) https://www.flickr.com/photos/iainb/albums/72057594127445245

• The helical staircase's white balustrade cuts the

space and the black handrail leads your eye
upwards.

Ramp and spiral staircase, Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1929 (picture courtesy: Scarletgreen, CC BY 2.0)
Conclusion
• Modular design had influenced Corbusier’s spatial planning and
minimalistic aesthetic with built-in systems.
• The pilotis that support the decks, the ribbon windows that run
alongside the hull, the ramps providing a moment of egress from
deck to deck.
• The lower level serves as the maintenance and service programs of
the house.
• The upper levels serve as the living quarters.
• Villa Savoye is thoroughly tailored to Corbusier’s Five Points:
1. Pilotis
2. Flat Roof Terrace
3. Open Plan
4. Ribbon Windows
5. Free Façade

Picture courtesy: Arch Daily https://www.archdaily.com/84524/ad-classics-villa-savoye-le-corbusier

End.