All architecture begins with a concept.

If you're
struggling to find one, curious as to what one is, or
simply wondering how architects begin their projects,
this short course will walk you through the process I use
and some of the techniques I rely on to develop
architectural concepts. All illustrated with one of my
residential projects.
Very simply stated: A concept is an idea that
underpins your project. To an architect, the concept is
what distinguishes a work of architecture from a mere
building.
At it's core architecture seeks to solve problems. It's
the questions we ask that will determine which
problems our architecture will solve.
Developing a concept allows us to frame the
questions we're asking, and it guides the design process.
Choosing a starting point for your design can be
intimidating and an early stumbling block for designers
of any skill level, but it doesn't have to be. Your concept
shouldn't be rigorous, the more malleable it is the
better. In fact, most architecture can't be reduced to one
singular concept diagram. Rather, it's informed by many
concepts working in concert. There may be
organizational concepts, material concepts, functional or
structural or formal concepts. So don't fret if your idea
isn't reducible to a single elegant black stroke on a page.
It's best to illustrate concept development with a
real project. So as I said, we'll use our squid cove
residents as an example. Before we can develop the
concept, we first have to understand the practical
constraints. Now my design process begins only after
gathering and assessing all the given parameters for a
project.

Now this primarily consists of three types of

information. There's information derived from the site,
things like the local climate, the prevailing winds, the
solar aspect, vegetation, neighboring structures, besides
history and any unique liabilities or opportunities. The
site, of course, also comes along with legal frameworks
for development which describe where and what we can
and can’t built.
The second type of information we’ll gather is from
the client. Now every client has a set of cultural beliefs
and preconceptions, preferences and agendas. Of
course, we’ll want to determine their budget and
understand the personality traits and organizational
politics which might also shape the design. The client
and the building type together determine what
architects call the program, which is essentially a
detailed accounting of all the spaces the building will
contain.
And the third type of information I gather is related
to the building typology. Is it a museum, a home, or a
school. To learn about a building typology, we often
conduct an analysis of notable or relevant historical
precedence. We want to know the essential problems
these type of structures grapple with. Understanding the
history of the archetype allows us to approach a
problem from a fresh perspective.
Now all of this necessary information, it's
something that we collect for every single project. This
inventory can also serve as the progenitor for the design
concept, our seed idea. And rather than shunting
creativity, these constraints often incite the creative
process. As with a good film, the setting, the characters,
the cinematography and the plot all conspire to make it
what it is.
It's the experience you'll recall rather than the
concept per se. Sure, the concept sets the film in motion
and it's the starting point for all that follows. But this
concept the one or two line description can't possibly
capture the richness and depth of a finished film, or in
our case, the architecture, yet without it the work is
unfulfilling and so it should be clear that the concept is
necessary for all of our work as architects.

Once we've gathered this information, it's now time

to begin processing it into a usable form. Of the three,
the site inventory is the most readily translated to a
physical diagram. For our squid cove project, you can see
I've transcribed the zoning, the deed, and set back
information onto the site plan. This diagram sets the real
boundaries of our project. We have property line
setbacks, a setback from the ocean, and an unstable
bluff we need to avoid and this is shown on the
topographical plan. There are a number of trees on the
site and one significant ash that were trying to avoid, but
for the most part the trees and vegetation here were
just unremarkable. Next I add to this the solar path, the
prevailing wind direction, and this amazing view. There
are site utilities and an existing logging road. And
because there's no public sewer here, I worked with a
soil scientist to define the best spot for the septic field
and consequently the well which needs to be a certain
distance away from the field.
Now this can often be a stringent limitation of the
buildable area because there's so much granite locally,
so it's important for me to define it early. And though
one last piece of information is that there's a
neighboring house here that we want to avoid looking
at.
Now, I like to diagram these constraints on the site
plan before I visit the site so the information becomes a
part of how I see things when I'm there. Visiting the site,
of course, will leave a different impression and I find
mapping things out first allows me to overlay the two in
a way that selects for opportunity. Now that we have
this diagram, we can start to see the buidable site still
quite a bit of territory.
 This video won't cover the programming phase
we’ll save that for another one, but prior to this, I've
worked with the client to define the size of the home in
the budget, which are as you’d imagine strongly
interrelated. There’s no sense in beginning any design
work until the client is aware of the rough cost of the
work, which at this stage is directly tied to their wish list
of spaces and the sizes of those spaces. So having
completed the programming exercise, I can now diagram
the relative size of the home and overlay that on the site
when the time is right.
Because I worked solely on residential projects. I'm
quite familiar with the building type, so I'm not doing an
exhaustive precedent study for each project. But
knowing the typology allows me to reinvent and rethink
things when I see an opportunity.
If I were working on a building typology I was
unfamiliar with, I'd research the building precedence
and use that information as an underlying framework for
developing the program and possibly as a launching
point for my concept. Now you should look at the work
of bjarki ingles as a contemporary example of someone
who uses typological reinvention to inspire his building
concepts.
So we visited the site, and we know what and
where we can and can't build, we know something
about the building type and we know our client has
budgeted for the design we're about to undertake.
What's next?

Well, this is where the building concepts or parti

comes in and. Parti is sort of architect lingo for a concept
and it actually comes from the French prendre parti,
which means to make a decision. It's the organizing
principle we use as a starting point for the design.
Now I've come up with a few of the most common
ones I rely on to spark ideas, but there are an infinite
number available to you. We'll start with the simplest
and it's one we've already touched on in our initial
information gathering phase. Buildings interpret their
surroundings and reformulate them in a way that can be
experienced. The site demands specificity from our
architecture. It must react to it.
So using the site to inspire the building concept is
as genuine a place to start as any. We can react to
views, light, topography, historical features, vegetation
and other structures.
When a building concept references a site in a rural
setting, it establishes a dialogue between natural and
man made. In urban and suburban context, a boundary
between what you can design and control and what you
can't.
Your design inspiration can editorialize this
relationship. Will it oppose nature or the local
surroundings or complement it. Will it disregard it or
adapt to it, will it impose order on it, or will it assume a
different order.

For our project, the site was an important

progenitor of the design concept. It was important for
me to work with the land form and exploit the natural
slope.
Of equal importance were the view to the water
and the solar aspect, each of which became strong
organizing forces that shaped our early building
massings.
 I imagined one arriving to the site and being
presented with the view beyond rather than the
building. So I knew I wanted to cite home to the south,
splayed out along the hillside rather than on the crest of
the hill.
The sloping landform presented an opportunity to
mimic that with the form of the house and I began
thinking of ways to zone the organization of the building
to complement the site features too. I use the view to
the Cove as well as the solar aspect to select the most
desirable site for the home.
Now, often competing side factors will force you to
choose one side force as more dominant. For example,
the prevailing wind direction is in a direct competition
with the idea I had about arrival to the site. If we were
to position a taller mass to the northwest to act as a
natural windscreen, it would impact our afternoon sun
and prevent an arrival sequence which presented the
view rather than the building.

Not all problems will be solved by assuming a

singular attitude toward the site. What was most
important? Was the idea that the building conformed to
the topography. Unfolding along the hillside allowed the
building to create a series of terrorist plans and
transition spaces mediating inside and out. We can then
use these to establish intermediate zones between
architecture and nature. Using the hard edge site,
retaining walls and decks would give us the chance to
highlight and contrast the soft edges of the site.
Equally, I could have positioned the home at the
top of the site and used it as a light monitor or reviewing
tower, or I could have completely excavated the
terraces, placed a green roof on top and concealed the
home. And although these were ideas I explored along
the way, they were abandoned as my client helped
shape decision making.
This light helps to shape other dimensions of our
concept too. Things like the material and structural
concept and. We'll get into those in future videos. But
you'll begin to see and it's worth noting how the concept
reverberates throughout the design. You'll always be
referring back to it as you iterate and look to it when
you're stuck on a design problem.
 The site will obviously inform the organization of
public and private spaces too. How one arrives and
moves from the public gathering spaces to the more
private sleeping spaces. It’s shapes where we locate
windows, which would be toward the views and to
capture the sun and the site informs the formal concepts
too. This site concept is like a marriage. The architecture
shapes the site and the site shapes our architecture. So
this is not enough, you say. Well, I agree there's more
meaning to extract and more layers to the concept we
should explore.

So inspiration number 2, the client concept. Every

work of architecture requires a client. For residential
architecture, the client is a major force driving the
design concept. Not only from an aesthetic point of
view, but also programmatically. The client determines
the program, and which spaces are most important in
that program. And they obviously provide the financial
framework for realizing the architecture. Successful
architecture artfully addresses a client's needs.
 Now client driven concepts can take the form of
narratives or lifestyle peculiarities or they can be purely
functional, for example, a request for all living to be on
one level or an open plan. For this project, our client
expressed a desire for the house to act as a gathering
place for friends and family, but also that it
accommodates seclusion and the need for retreat from
others.
Because we live in a seasonal community, this
summer here often sees a massive influx of guests and
visitors. So those who live here year round are
accustomed to welcoming house guests in the summer
months. This inspired the division of spaces into
separate living and sleeping pods, each afforded a
unique aspect or view to the site.
As we get in to organize the spaces of the client
driven program, a simple way to develop a concept is to
divide public and private spaces and then take a position
on their relationship. And now perhaps you overlap
them, perhaps they're in separate pods or nested
perhaps their relationship is inverted. From here, begin
to diagram your concept and iterate.
 For our project, we continued on by layering our
client's interest in the outdoors and the near constant
schedule of expeditions to far away places. This lifestyle
helped fuel a story about what the house could be, how
it might function and when they were home and when
they were traveling and where we might position the
spaces in relation to each other.

And this brings us to inspiration number 3, the

narrative concept. Inspired by an attitude about how
our client might live in the home and welcome guests
and how they plan to move in and out of the spaces and
mobilized gear. This all suggested to me the imagery of
an encampment by the sea. I envisaged the home as a
place for family and friends to gather and sort of camp
together. Uniting in the evenings around the campfire to
share romeo but retreating to private quarters for
sleeping.
The village concept provided for both social
gathering and private reflection as needed. Expedition
travel allowed the house to expand and contract with
the seasons and with ebs and flows of visitors. And this
story, as we'll see, begins to inform layers of meaning as
we develop the floor plans and exterior elevations later.
Nested pods provided for escape within the larger
space of the home and a variety of scales, mimic the
sight beyond and my clients need for respite and
seclusion even when surrounded by friends. Each one of
these ideas exist in various forms in the early design
concepts presented.

Now I created this cover sheet to describe the

thinking behind the plans, but it may not be important
for you to convey this to your client, it's sort of up to
you. I think it adds a level of interest and a discussion
point, but not every client will see the value. It's most
important that it exists for you as you develop the
design.

They will of course care most about what the

design looks and feels like. And so at this stage I present
very loose sketched plans to give an idea of how each
concept deploys the program on site and within the
home. This process usually incites reactions both
positive and negative, and you'll use it to pivot moving
forward.
So as you can see, it's not a singular concept.
There's a narrative that ties it together and suggests a
means for organizing the spaces on the site. There's the
site topography and natural features that suggest where
we want to locate the home and there's our client's life
that tells us how the elements of their story can inform
the architecture.
So I'd struggle to produce the diagram of this
concept as gracefully as mile in, but it's still a concept
and it's informed every move I've made sense sure, I
revisited it and refine it, I've tweaked things based on
client feedback and tastes. But it's still there and I
continue to layer on meaning as I develop the design.

When there's a question, I know how to answer it

because the conceptual framework is there to hell. Now
there are, as I said, infinite other ways to develop
concepts. So here's a few more if you're still stuck.
Materials. Architects like Peter Zumthor, Herzog
and Damiran and Peter Bolen often use the raw
materials of building as the starting point for their work.
Every line we trace on the page represents real physical
materials coming together to make our architecture.
Instead of rendering our work and pure white as we
so often do, why not seek meaning from the materials
will use to construct it. Local stone or wood aggregates
trades people or special techniques. These can all be
called into service of the architecture and the spaces can
be enriched with meaning.
Materials have very specific properties by which
their bound. Steel conducts its strong and bending it can
be welded, stone is heavy and thick and imposing, glass
is light and ethereal, bricks are the size of the human
hand and lend texture and scale and warmth to a space.
Ask yourself how these materials or combinations
of them tell a more interesting story. For my work, I'll
always use the underlying narrative concept to reinforce
the material concept. Here, we're using dark stained
local cedar shingles as the siding for our project, the
spruce, pine and fur forest here is a variegated dark
green, the shingles and the wood grain replicate this
subtle tonal difference and the green helps the building
to recede into the site. Board formed concrete
references the wood graining and the process of making.
Its patterns will host mosses and linchens as the building
weathers. Is this a separate concept? No, it all feeds into
an attitude about a place.

Next, a structural concept, the expedition and the

camping narrative that we've been talking about, helped
us develop this structural strategy too. The gable form is
a ten, glazed walls led ample light in and we are
employing lightweight cabling elements reminiscent of
tent poles or a cordage to tie the walls together. And of
course, there's nautical references here that are pretty
strong as well.

Now you could also write a manifesto. What do you

believe this architecture’s role is in society? What are
the larger questions it's proposing. Check out deta
ramps for a famous manifesto. Having researched your
building typology, how can you disrupt long held beliefs,
or organizational layouts. See BIG’s power plant, for
example.
Perhaps you could explore a formal concept, the
idea of architecture parlance, the bird's nest, the chicken
that sells chicken. And of course there's always the
process of making. Charles and Rey Ames use their
journey from ignorance to knowledge as the motivation
for many of their designs.
How can you bring a fresh perspective to the
problem you're facing, is there something inherent in
the process of building that reveals something novel?
The design process isn't singular or linear. We don't
create a concept and stick to it in the face of changing
information. Use what you're learning to pivot, that's
perfectly acceptable, sensible even.
You'll present ideas to your client or professor and
they'll react. Design is a dialogue and the concept
ensures you have something to talk about. Return to
your design and tweak it using the new information
you've gathered. Each time we learn a little bit more
about our client, about the design and new
opportunities arise.
 Now, in the next part of this short course, we'll look
at how we begin turning the concept into architecture. If
you found this video helpful in any way, you can help me
by giving me a thumbs up below and sharing it. This is
how I know what I'm doing is helping you and it will
allow me to continue to grow the channel. Thanks for
watching, cheers.