PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

Essentials of the Structure

 Introduction:
• The various periods of historic
developments have left to this age
buildings which may be identified as
temples, cathedrals, factories and
bungalows.
• These have been built to house the
activities of man and to these structures
has been given the name of architecture.
 Architecture defined:
• May be a group of buildings or a
profession.
• The term "architecture" is an inclusive
one.
a. It may refer to the process of designing a
building and supervising its erection.
b. It may also be regarded as the procedure
assisted with the conception of an idea and
its realization in terms of building
materials.
c. Architecture is shelter, not only for man
during the various hours of his daily
existence - work, recreation, and sleep -
but also to protect all the activities of
human race.
• Architecture is represented by a building
which meets in a satisfactory manner the
requirements of:
a. Logical function;
b. Sound construction and;
c. Beautiful composition
• It is only when all of these qualities are
present that good architecture can be
said to exist.
• Man begins to create shelter by
surrounding space with the materials
provided by nature and made usable by
the ingenuity of civilized people.
• Space, in itself are:
a. Indefinable;
b. Intangible and;
c. Has no limits.
• Yet when it is enclosed with stone and
steel according to accepted rules of
composition, the result may be called
“Architecture".
• Architecture (Latin architectura, after
the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων – arkhitekton –
from ἀρχι- "chief" and τέκτων "builder,
carpenter, mason") is both the process
and the product of planning, designing,
and constructing buildings and other
physical structures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture
 In providing shelter it is to be
observed that buildings have:
1. Walls and roofs

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2. Doors and windows;

- That these elements are assembled in a simple
or complex manner.
• Whatever the type or character of the
building, parts of it are more evident to
the observer than others — the exterior
is: more readily seen and understood
than is the arrangement of the rooms,
which is called the plan.
• Thus, there exist the invisible and visible
structures, or the plan pattern and the
apparent volume.
 THE INVISIBLE STRUCTURE

• The plan:
– The beginning of a building
– The foundation upon which the scheme of
the structure rests.
– It relates the various units to each other
– The most important element of volume and
should receive early consideration
whenever the solution of a problem is
attempted.
• "We should proceed from within to
without" from a satisfactory
arrangement of the plan units to the
enclosing of these units by the shell
which is called the exterior.
House Plan
• Plans are a set of two-dimensional
diagrams or drawings used to describe a
place or object, or to communicate building
or fabrication instructions.
• Usually plans are drawn or printed on paper,
but they can take the form of a digital file.
• Plans are often for technical purposes such
as architecture, engineering, or planning.
• Their purpose in these disciplines is to
accurately and clearly capture all the
geometric features of a site, building,
product or component.
• Plans can also be for presentation or
orientation purposes, and as such are
often less detailed versions of the former.
• The end goal of plans is either to portray
an existing place or object, or to convey
enough information to allow a builder or
manufacturer to realize a design.
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 Standard Sheet Order in a Drawing
Set
• Site - Site plans, including a key plan,
appear before other plans and on smaller
projects may be on the first sheet.
• Landscape - Most projects require a
landscape plan, although this can be
integrated with the site plan if the
drawing remains clear.
Coyoacan Apartments
www.goldmanrenderings.com
www.2d-landscapearchitecture.com
hendricksarch.com
• Plans - Floor plans, starting with the
lowest floor and ending with the roof
plan usually appear near the beginning of
the set.
• Reflected Ceiling Plans - RCPs
showing ceiling layouts appear after the
floor plans.
• Sections - Building sections that
describe views cut through the entire
building appear next, followed by wall
sections, then detail sections.
www.lerouxdesignandbuild.co.za
• Elevations - Starting with the principal,
or front elevation, all the building
elevations appear after the plans. Smaller
residential projects may display the
elevations before the plans. Elevation
details may appear on the same sheets as
the building elevations.
247cadoutsourcing.com
• Details - Details may appear on any of the
previous sheets, or may be collected to appear
on detail sheets. These details may include
construction details that show how the
components of the building fit together. These
details may also include millwork drawings or
other interior details.
• Schedules - Many aspects of a building must
be scheduled on larger projects. These include
schedules for windows, doors, hardware,
landscaping elements, rooms, and areas.
• Structural - While smaller projects may only
show structural information on the plans and
sections, larger projects have separate sheets
describing the structure of the building.
• Mechanical - Mechanical drawings show
plumbing and heating systems.
• Electrical - Again, many electrical layouts are
shown on the floor plans, however larger
projects have this information on separate
sheets.
 THE VISIBLE STRUCTURE

• By enclosing space: volume or mass is

created.
• If this space has no relation to the
activities of man:
–There exist only the simple geometric
forms of the: a. cube, b. pyramid, c.
sphere.
–If the surfaces of these volumes and
the enclosed interiors are treated so
that the forms are related to human
needs, then they may be regarded as
architecture.
Visible structure is composed of form
and surface as follows:
A. FORM
• MASS or volume or evidence of the 3
dimension.
a.1 direction - vertical or horizontal axis
of the mass.
a.2 shape - geometric qualities.
B. SURFACE
• AREA—surface with two dimensions as
in a facade of a building.
b.1 Texture - surface treatment identified
with materials whether rough or smooth.
b.2 Tone - light and shade caused by
openings, projections.
b.3 Color - inherent or applied color
caused by spectrum hues.
 FORM

• It is an inclusive term that has several

meanings.
• It may refer to an external appearance
that can be recognized, as that of a chair
or the human body that sits in it.
• It may also allude to a particular
condition in which something acts or
manifests itself, as when we speak of
water in the form of ice or steam.
• Form In art and design, we often use the
term to denote the formal structure of a
work— the manner of arranging and
coordinating the elements and parts of a
composition so as to produce a coherent
image.
• Form suggests reference to both internal
structure and external outline and the
principle that gives unity to the whole.
• Form often Includes a sense of three-
dimensional mass or volume, shape refers
more specifically to the essential aspect
of form that governs its appearance—the
configuration or relative disposition of
the lines or contours that delimit a figure
or form.
Shape – is the principal aspect by
which we identify and categorize.
forms.
 Visual Properties of Forms
Size - The physical dimensions of length,
width, and depth of a form. While these
dimensions determine the proportions of a
form, its scale is determined by its size
relative to other forms in its context.
Color - A phenomenon of light and visual
perception that may be described in terms
of an individual's perception of hue,
saturation, and tonal value. Color is the
attribute that most clearly distinguishes a
form from its environment. It also affects the
visual weight of a form.
Texture - The visual and especially tactile
quality given to a surface by the size, shape,
arrangement, and proportions of the parts.
Texture also determines the degree to
which the surfaces of a form reflect or
absorb incident light.
Properties of Forms
Position - The location of a form relative to
its environment or the visual field within
which it is seen.
Orientation - The direction of a form
relative to the ground plane, the compass
points, other forms, or to the person viewing
the form.
Visual Inertia - The degree of
concentration and stability of a form.
The visual inertia of a form depends
on its geometry as well as its
orientation relative to the ground
plane, the pull of gravity, and our line
of sight.
• All of these properties of form are in
reality affected by the conditions under
which we view them.
• A changing perspective or angle of view
presents different shapes or aspects of a
form to our eyes.
• Our distance from a form determines its
apparent size.
• The lighting conditions under which we
view a form affects the clarity of its shape
and structure.
• The visual field surrounding a form
influences curability to read and identify it.
Shape refers to the characteristic outline of a plane figure or the surface
configuration of a volumetric form.
It is the primary means by which we recognize, identify, and categorize
particular figures and forms.
Our perception of shape depends on the degree of visual contrast that
exists along the contour separating a figure from its ground or between a
form and its field.
Bust of Queen Nefertiti
The pattern of eye movement of a person
viewing the figure, from research by Alfred L.
Yarbus of the Institute for Problems of
Information Transmission in Moscow.
In architecture, we are concerned with the shapes of:

• Floor, wall, and ceiling planes that enclose space.

• Door and window openings within a spatial

enclosure.
• Silhouettes and contours of building forms.
These examples illustrate how shaping the
juncture between mass and space expresses the
manner in which the contours of a building
mass rise from the ground plane and meet the
sky.
Suleymaniye Mosque,
Constantinople (Istanbul), 1551-58, Sinan
Villa Garches,
Vaucresson, France,
1926-27, LeCorbusier.
This architectural
composition Illustrates
the interplay between
the shapes of planar
solids and voids.
Primary Shapes
Gestalt psychology affirms that the mind will
simplify the visual environment in order to
understand it. Given any composition of forms,
this tend to reduce the subject matter in our
visual field to the simplest and most regular
shapes.
The simpler and more regular a shape is, the
easier it is to perceive and understand.
From geometry we know the regular shapes to
be the circle, and the infinite series of regular
polygons that can be inscribed within it. Of these,
the most significant are the primary shapes: the
circle, the triangle, and the square.
 Platonic Solids

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid
• en.wikipedia.org
Circle - A plane curve every point
of which is equidistant from a fixed
point within the curve
The circle is a centralized, introverted
figure that is normally stable and self-
centering in its environment.
Placing a circle in the center of a field
reinforces its inherent centrality.
Associating it with straight or angular
forms or placing an element along its
circumference, however, can induce in
the circle an apparent rotary motion.
 Sphere

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Dutch studio Archiview gave this planetarium-like
cinema in Groningen

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The Growroom is a spherical farm pod that brings agriculture to city streets
Space10's Growroom explores how cities can feed themselves using local
food-producing architecture.

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Bird nest Beijing China
Triangle A plane figure bounded by three sides and having
three angles

The triangle signifies stability. When resting on one of its sides,

the triangle is an extremely stable figure. When tipped to stand
on one of its vertices, however, it can either be balanced in a
precarious state of equilibrium or be unstable and tend to fall
over onto one of its sides.
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Swiss architects Herzog & De Meuron's 40-story, 590-ft. mixed-use tower was
approved by the city council and praised by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë Rome
Square A plane figure having four equal sides and four right
angles

Compositions resulting from the rotation and modification of the square

The square represents the pure and the rational It is a static and neutral
figure having no preferred direction. All other rectangles can be considered
variations of the square— deviations from the norm by the addition of height
or width. Like the triangle, the square is stable when resting on one of its
sides, and dynamic when standing on one Its corners.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING NO.P1

1. Observe and take some pictures of

buildings along session road. And
then make comments about it using
the principles od design in
architecture as your guide. On short
bond paper, provide write ups and
follow the standard format of
research work.
Due Sept 24, 2022 (Saturday)
End
 References:
• Salvan, George S. (1999). Architectural theories of
design. Quezon City: JMC Press.
• Internet