Session

will start at 08:00

DT411
Design Theory
• The Design
Process

• The Design
Project
 • What is the design process?

• Where does great design come from?

The Design Process:
• The creative Cycle

• Physical conditions that influence design

Development
and
Detail
 • There are different attitudes and activities that an architect
must adopt in order to follow an innovative and creative
process of design.
The Creative Cycle:
• The cycle from one stage to the next is not continuous. The
architect may even skip some stages or move back and
forth between them.
COMPLEXITY
• Inspires/Provokes response to improve architects
understanding

CHALLENGE
• Architect to question the status quo.

CREATIVITY
• Architect must be open to new ideas

CONFIDENCE
• Be confident that the process will lead to
progress/achievement
COMMUNICATION
• Drawings, models, words

CRITICAL JUDGEMENT
• Always used for decision making

CONTROL
• Keeping control over the idea so it works and can be
shared
 • The following is mostly used in Architecture but can be
used for any design:

➢ Gravity
Physical Conditions that ➢ Time
Influence Design: ➢ Climate
➢ Enclosure
➢ Openings
➢ Culture
➢ Resources
➢ Skill
 • The design project is common to both architectural
education and practice.

• It is not only the means by which buildings are built, it is

also a vehicle for solving problems, experimentation,
The Design Project: improving skills and communication of new ideas.

• It is important to remember that neither the process of

design nor the course of a design project follow a neatly
linear course.

• One project may start with client, another with site.

 • Clients, Users, Briefs.

The Design Project can • Site, Context, Place

be divided into 5 Major
Phases: • Initial Ideas

• Development and Details

• Construction and Occupation

 • Clients, Users, Brief
The Design Project:
• Site, Context and Place
 • All Projects emerge in order to fulfil the need of the client.

• The Client, the user and their various needs and constraints
Clients, users and briefs: need to be understood by the architects and Designers.

• The brief is not a static document. It must be developed in

collaboration with the client and users and often evolves to
cope with the changes In circumstances as the project
develops.
• The brief can change the direction, ambition and nature of
the project and can radically alter the interpretation of the
project depending on what is agreed upon by the architect
and client.

• The architect is the driver behind developing the brief as

the project develops.
 • Cost
• Function
• Accessibility
The Needs and • Quality
Aspirations of the • Security
• Life Cycle
Architects, Clients and • Users
Public: • Usefulness
• Buildability
• Sustainability
Design Process at work:
 • Occasionally, through its location, resources or cultural
significance, a site provokes a project to come into being.
Most often, development is triggered simply by availability
or the opportunity for re-use of a site.
Site, Context and Place: • The demands of the site can transcend those of the client
because every building, no matter how private, belongs to
the public: its users include those who walk around it every
day, whether they are invited to enter or not.
• A single building is only a fragment of an urban, rural or
suburban composition and will never be experienced in
isolation.

• Therefore, it cannot be designed in isolation.

• The physical composition of a site contributes to making it

a distinct place through the particular arrangement, type,
scale and materiality of buildings or topography.

• Overlaid on its physical composition is a social, political,

economic and cultural context, which influences the way
that people use the site and which gives it its character.
• The character of a place is what distinguishes it from other
places.

• This gives meaning to our experience of being there; it can

inspire the users of the place and the architects asked to
design there.
• Our shared human reaction to a place is created by the
dynamic of the physical site and its cultural context.

• This dynamic needs to be understood and interrogated by

the architect preparing to design there.

• The architect must visit, observe, participate in and record

the site.

• Their perception must be heightened if they are to

understand complex and subtle facts and reactions to the
site that are not always expressed by the inhabitants
• As with all complex architectural problems, the architect
must use their critical judgement to discriminate and set
priorities because an attempt to express all the
characteristics of a place equally is likely to result in a
shallow rendition or meaningless cacophony.

• The architect must pursue what seems most relevant and

what they understand best.

• They must communicate in a way that leaves scope for

interpretation and adjustment for change in the future.
The Design Project
 • Some ideas will not be needed, others will become more
significant.

Initial Ideas: • The architect thinks, expresses the ideas with media and
reflects on the result before making decisions.

• Sometimes, this allows an idea to emerge like a happy

accident
• Initial Sketches also trigger solutions that were not thought
of before the sketches were drawn.

• Initial sketches and ideas are experiments: they test the

effects on the constituent parts of a design and the
reactions of the clients, Architects and Third Parties
• Architects must gather project-specific knowledge on
diverse subjects from the client’s business practices to the
water table on the site.

• There will be project reviews, meetings with the client, user

consultations and negotiations with interest groups and
government bodies, such as planners.
• The architect cannot rush to impose form on a project
before reaching consensus on its meaning and purpose.

• This act of explaining the project to oneself, and to others,

turns the idea of the project into a story.

• This narrative informs design decisions during the project’s

development and also gives meaning to the experience of
those who will use the building.
How to think like an
architect:
 • Critical discussion in practice occurs within the design
studio and between clients and other interested parties
such as planners, building users, heritage groups and
politicians.
Understanding
Restrictions: • The apparently unwelcome restriction tethers infinite
possibilities to a fixed point of reality, however mundane.

• This demands a solution to a real problem that cannot be

ignored and so the design activity begins to work on the
restriction until it becomes something positive.
 • Over the course of a project, an architect will develop a
concept that can be used to make choices about
everything from construction materials to the emotional
Developing a Concept: experience of the building users.

• It can unite several competing demands into an overall

idea to prevent the building becoming a cacophony of
disparate elements.
 • The process of architectural design is a creative act that
requires the designer to employ their full range of skills,
What triggers which takes time and requires periods of activity and of
reflection.
Architectural Activity:
• Every architect follows their own design process, which has
been informed by their education and experience, and
which adapts to respond to the different kinds of design
problems that they encounter.
• To Do After This Session: