I realize that seems like an absurdly open ended question but I am a new architecture student in my first year barch, accepted to school for the spring semester of my freshman year and I am feeling already behind all the other students in my class who were here in the fall. I am struggeling with where to begin what is the order of things to figure out? the form or the stucture? what are the codes?
I'm not looking for a specific solution but if anyone can offer suggestions of ways to approach or organize there thoughts and work would be greatly appriciated. Thanks.
I would say start with an idea of what you want the building to accomplish. Develop a thesis and weigh the design decisons against whether or not they strengthen or weaken the thesis of the desired result.
architecture is one of those things where it's extremely iterative. you just have to start going and addressing things one step at a time. then take a step back and see what's working/not. analyze and rework. until the deadline is up. or you run out of money.
take the plunge. you won't get it right the first time around.
i've never designed a building (though i've partially "designed" included utility components.)
with design or any task (repairing something, even) i
1 begin with basics: existing to be kept and functions.
2 keep alt ideas to the side, pursue the best. check and crosscheck.
everything sorts out during the process.
I agree with aseid entirely. Completely forget the word code as pertains to building, there's too much to know for you to waste your time on now. You are in school, bust your ass, enjoy learning, have fun with your design. Make it a point for professors to reign you back rather than ask why you didn't push further.
yes, aseid said it perfectly... for now, take the word "building" right out of your vocabulary - if anything you are creating spatial conditions - but as a first year student dont get hung up on creating perfect designs. remeber, studio is as much about failure as it is about success. if you are having a hard time with a task, then you are probably on the correct path, if it seems easy then you must not be asking the right questions.
suggestions:
learn many different methods of analysis (subjects and graphic representations)
dont throw your analysis away when you are done with it - i have seen many students complete great analysis and then come back with a model that has no connection.
sketch constantly - any time you are stuck on an idea take out your trace paper and sketch on dozens of layers until something clicks, (or you pass out)
I would say (even thougth aseid is absolutely rigth), you have to know what you wanna do first and foremost.
Some people care more about structure, others about the play of ligth. What interest me is interesting/effective spacial arrangement. Find out what you're interested in and do somethign with that.
Forget the codes. Codes are just numbers in a book that are applied into a desing after the fact in this point in time.
And above all, HAVE FUN. If you're not enjoing what you're doing, there's not point in doing it.
I'll pick up on something ACfA said. Architecture - or any form of design - is an iterative process. To solve the problem, you have to first solve the problem. OK wait....
The only way to find out what the design problem is is to solve it once. Then you know the right questions to be asking, what needs to be solved. By solving it badly at least once, but more likely two or seven or thirty times, you start to get to what works and doesn't.
As el jeffe said, be courageous enough to do a bad job at first - this is what leads you to better answers. A good friend of mine once said every artist needs a private studio because "you need a place where you can screw up" i.e. make mistakes from which to learn. In an architecture studio environment, surrounded by peers, this can be an incredibly intimidating thing. But take a deep breath and go for it - the best learning in studio comes from other students, and to have anything to ask their advice about, you have to draw something you can then talk about.
As a teacher, I often told my students the same thing: draw something, anything, any represeentaiton of the idea you can manage, because then at least we'll have something to talk about, if only as something to reject in pursuit of a better answer.
oh. never love what you create. as soon as you get close. she'll break your heart. (past 900 posts!)
seriously though. be self-critical. but be willing to compromise. liberty bell is right on. you have to START. so just draw what your first idea is to your solution. then draw your second and third. etc. then compare. revise. weed out options. and keep going.
a lot of people will question your desire. this is merely to see if you really want it enough. because if you don't it's going to be a painful road. but don't let it discourage you. it can be a supremely rewarding experience and a joy. and any career has its doldrums.
Problem is that there are no limits .If you fancy a sweet design and go modeling it with Solids, then it will make a Spetacular display but, id that what architecture engace ,is SPETACULAR what is comfort. Start building a house can be creating the jobs where SPETACULAR only leave emty cold rooms fit nowhere like human needs ,it's Glass Steel and Cold uotside performance times. - We realy need a New Architecture. Do go solve a relveant challance ; try make more sense than just copying the things as allready done, go create something new, There you get your house --- you proberly forget it as soon as you realised it.
I know mdler probably wasn't too serious about the beer + cad response, but it brings up the point of staying away from computers before their time. I still believe that a fast, quality design process can't happen in cad. You need to be surrounded by the piles of trace and balsa wood for ideas to be able to flow freely.
Working in the absolutes of cad will tend to distract and make you focus on things like corridor widths and making things line up perfectly that just aren't important for an undergrad project.
Find a medium that works for YOU that you feel confident working in. Then when you've gotten comfortable working with that, try somthing you've never used.
Sorry ,maby my aproach are a riddle,but realy if such simple a thing as creating the blueprints for a building structure ,shuld be a problem even starting at, sorry my comment are ment as a genuine advise , I must point out tnat there are other way's than the strait Revit closure. I want to build more than just what is offered and that's where the future of architecture are to be found, not in refining what we allready done by hand.
I find computers great, where other architects seem to be restricted in both tools and basic direct link production tools. The Riddle of building a house too long have been about Spetacular and Splendid, I think to build a house is to provide the jobs make the detail interiours do it, in a new way.
To emagine future architecture as just copying the old stuff into computer code, is a direct Laugh just making a joke about today's Digital Direct production oppotunities is by choice making architecture into the opposite of what it shuld provide --- is cramped Lego Like accounting statistic realy what you want for your children ? Wouldn't you allow the same organic knowhow riddeling the great tools, creating grand real places ; don't you think it matter on what basics ???
Are Strait corners all you want to emagine, will you still make a building out of 20000 different small parts, parts with each their production line ?
We "build modern" for quite a while now done it in standard way's easy made into rigid computer code, shuld the future of computers in architecture realy be, just to keep an accurant account on the old way's of building, accounting providing ?
"he just wants to talk about himself rather than you."
Not true I want to describe new way's in 3D-Honeycomb That is true not that I don't want to talk about You.
What it mean to know another way of doing a possible design in steel plate cut easy, compared a handyman's Lego assembly with steel beams Girders and hangers --- that's my messeage.
That today's architecture acturly are mainly the old way's just made digital only tell, that with Direct-Link production of the building compoment, make a more promising choice with 3D-Honeycomb, when you understand that this "building mass" replace all the old trouble, Realise how much easier it is to fine tune the digital model , --- but ok I got my own back problems tumbling with heavy pieces, no wonder an old hippie want attempting tools right at hand, such that work . 3D-H work different than just making a digital drawing of small drawn blocks in 3D space, 3D-Honeycomb is a new architecture.
Oh and vado's post reminded me: when designing a building, the first step is to make sure you're not accidentally designing it for the site next door. ;-)
just stay away from shapes
design from the outside in
remember what it feels like to be a person
do not try to impress your professors. they are old and stuck in their ways.
dont be a prick unless you can back it up
simple is better
Liberty Bell I know a University of Arizona Professor who did just that.
Designed and developed construction documents for a house in the Biltmore Estates Subdivision. Only to discover the house was not only on the wrong lot, it was on the wrong side of the ravine. So it was a total redesign.
my preference though is not to do so alone if at all possible. in grad school i worked with a trio of very talented folks and we all sat down to a table and talked and drank wine and sketched on the same bit of trace til the drawing was a serious mess and we arrived at some kind of idea...then did so again and again, with models or paper or in text....
and in the last week or so we worked madly to make it into a building.
it worked but was so luxurious, and i miss it. now i have to meet deadlines...but the lessons stick( stuck ? ). collaboration, willingness to discard an idea, and a real love for the process of design without worrying too much about failing are important.
was watching the tele yesterday and a talking head was describing the great artists and architects he had met and how they all had the ability to let go. according to the head, singers, painters, sculptors and architects all have to ignore the rules and self-regulation at some point and just go for it.
Right, jump: the willingness to discard an idea is, in my experience, a common trait among the best designers I've worked with. It is hard to do, of course. But so often leads to a better solution.
snooker, I feel like I might have heard a rumor of this UA professor who designed for the wrong site...was that when you were there? Hey, it happens to everyone at some point - I once drew an entire cafe elevation with one extra structural bay - it laid out great, until I looked again at the plan and realized I actually had 8 linear feet less than I thought I did!
sometimes it's not difficult to come up with a pleathora of ideas for a project. but the trick is to select the best ideas and make them work in concert. i always tried to do too much in school projects and wound up spending little time on many many different things. i could've benefitted from being willing to discard ideas, even good ones, and focusing on making the best ones work even better.
i think it's also best to get some distance from an idea, project, design, etc, there are times when i get into something then put it down for a while, and when i look at it again i am much more perceptive about it's limitations and strengths.
First conceptualize what you want to design. Forget architecture but try to design. Look at your environment to comprehend how things are designed. Observe first then try to realize your idea by making a model. Construct it as if its real by paying attention to its articulation. Details are the most important aspect of design.Its about putting things in a meaningful order however that order is not in books its in the mind. World is chaotic though so do not run for an order. Be radical with your ideas.Dont look what others design. Trust yourself and discover the world around you as if you see it new. There are more to say but this can be an essay then. So pls observe things carefully and try to discover how they are done even its a hut or a barn. Good luck
Mar 24, 06 4:55 pm ·
·
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.
How do you design a building?
I realize that seems like an absurdly open ended question but I am a new architecture student in my first year barch, accepted to school for the spring semester of my freshman year and I am feeling already behind all the other students in my class who were here in the fall. I am struggeling with where to begin what is the order of things to figure out? the form or the stucture? what are the codes?
I'm not looking for a specific solution but if anyone can offer suggestions of ways to approach or organize there thoughts and work would be greatly appriciated. Thanks.
I would say start with an idea of what you want the building to accomplish. Develop a thesis and weigh the design decisons against whether or not they strengthen or weaken the thesis of the desired result.
architecture is one of those things where it's extremely iterative. you just have to start going and addressing things one step at a time. then take a step back and see what's working/not. analyze and rework. until the deadline is up. or you run out of money.
take the plunge. you won't get it right the first time around.
i've never designed a building (though i've partially "designed" included utility components.)
with design or any task (repairing something, even) i
1 begin with basics: existing to be kept and functions.
2 keep alt ideas to the side, pursue the best. check and crosscheck.
everything sorts out during the process.
maybe also useful: it's often suggested in math that one work on a much simplified problem, then addin the complexities.
dude you are a first year b arch
you have no business designing buildings,
design the strategies you will eventually use to design buildings
develop you tools and techniques and mastery of mediums
go tangent to all your preconceived ideas
read some books
make lots of models
draw with and on things you have never done
learn some computer programs
be a sponge
just stay away from buildings
start with concepts and make strategies then manifest those strategies as built form, tangible stuff
perhaps think about the inhabitation of those forms
its too early to do buildings
BTW, dont worry about everyone else
just do your thing everyone progresses at their own pace
competition is good but you have to develop your own way of working and that takes time
just stay hungry and things will fall into place
I agree with aseid entirely. Completely forget the word code as pertains to building, there's too much to know for you to waste your time on now. You are in school, bust your ass, enjoy learning, have fun with your design. Make it a point for professors to reign you back rather than ask why you didn't push further.
or transfer to dentistry
sorry, couldn't resist passing on what's likely the best advice I never took.
I agree with Aseid as well. Pick up:
Sketch Plan Build by Bahamon
It should be inspiring, and give you insight as to how some architects think and what they've accomplished in the process.
and have the courage to make it ugly.
yes, aseid said it perfectly... for now, take the word "building" right out of your vocabulary - if anything you are creating spatial conditions - but as a first year student dont get hung up on creating perfect designs. remeber, studio is as much about failure as it is about success. if you are having a hard time with a task, then you are probably on the correct path, if it seems easy then you must not be asking the right questions.
suggestions:
learn many different methods of analysis (subjects and graphic representations)
dont throw your analysis away when you are done with it - i have seen many students complete great analysis and then come back with a model that has no connection.
sketch constantly - any time you are stuck on an idea take out your trace paper and sketch on dozens of layers until something clicks, (or you pass out)
I would say (even thougth aseid is absolutely rigth), you have to know what you wanna do first and foremost.
Some people care more about structure, others about the play of ligth. What interest me is interesting/effective spacial arrangement. Find out what you're interested in and do somethign with that.
Forget the codes. Codes are just numbers in a book that are applied into a desing after the fact in this point in time.
And above all, HAVE FUN. If you're not enjoing what you're doing, there's not point in doing it.
I'll pick up on something ACfA said. Architecture - or any form of design - is an iterative process. To solve the problem, you have to first solve the problem. OK wait....
The only way to find out what the design problem is is to solve it once. Then you know the right questions to be asking, what needs to be solved. By solving it badly at least once, but more likely two or seven or thirty times, you start to get to what works and doesn't.
As el jeffe said, be courageous enough to do a bad job at first - this is what leads you to better answers. A good friend of mine once said every artist needs a private studio because "you need a place where you can screw up" i.e. make mistakes from which to learn. In an architecture studio environment, surrounded by peers, this can be an incredibly intimidating thing. But take a deep breath and go for it - the best learning in studio comes from other students, and to have anything to ask their advice about, you have to draw something you can then talk about.
As a teacher, I often told my students the same thing: draw something, anything, any represeentaiton of the idea you can manage, because then at least we'll have something to talk about, if only as something to reject in pursuit of a better answer.
Ach I could go on but hafta run...
You get someone else to do it, architecture is too tough.
oh. never love what you create. as soon as you get close. she'll break your heart. (past 900 posts!)
seriously though. be self-critical. but be willing to compromise. liberty bell is right on. you have to START. so just draw what your first idea is to your solution. then draw your second and third. etc. then compare. revise. weed out options. and keep going.
a lot of people will question your desire. this is merely to see if you really want it enough. because if you don't it's going to be a painful road. but don't let it discourage you. it can be a supremely rewarding experience and a joy. and any career has its doldrums.
case of beer + auto-cad = building
Problem is that there are no limits .If you fancy a sweet design and go modeling it with Solids, then it will make a Spetacular display but, id that what architecture engace ,is SPETACULAR what is comfort. Start building a house can be creating the jobs where SPETACULAR only leave emty cold rooms fit nowhere like human needs ,it's Glass Steel and Cold uotside performance times. - We realy need a New Architecture. Do go solve a relveant challance ; try make more sense than just copying the things as allready done, go create something new, There you get your house --- you proberly forget it as soon as you realised it.
solve the above riddle and you will be architect extraordinaire!
I know mdler probably wasn't too serious about the beer + cad response, but it brings up the point of staying away from computers before their time. I still believe that a fast, quality design process can't happen in cad. You need to be surrounded by the piles of trace and balsa wood for ideas to be able to flow freely.
Working in the absolutes of cad will tend to distract and make you focus on things like corridor widths and making things line up perfectly that just aren't important for an undergrad project.
Find a medium that works for YOU that you feel confident working in. Then when you've gotten comfortable working with that, try somthing you've never used.
Sorry ,maby my aproach are a riddle,but realy if such simple a thing as creating the blueprints for a building structure ,shuld be a problem even starting at, sorry my comment are ment as a genuine advise , I must point out tnat there are other way's than the strait Revit closure. I want to build more than just what is offered and that's where the future of architecture are to be found, not in refining what we allready done by hand.
I find computers great, where other architects seem to be restricted in both tools and basic direct link production tools. The Riddle of building a house too long have been about Spetacular and Splendid, I think to build a house is to provide the jobs make the detail interiours do it, in a new way.
To emagine future architecture as just copying the old stuff into computer code, is a direct Laugh just making a joke about today's Digital Direct production oppotunities is by choice making architecture into the opposite of what it shuld provide --- is cramped Lego Like accounting statistic realy what you want for your children ? Wouldn't you allow the same organic knowhow riddeling the great tools, creating grand real places ; don't you think it matter on what basics ???
Are Strait corners all you want to emagine, will you still make a building out of 20000 different small parts, parts with each their production line ?
We "build modern" for quite a while now done it in standard way's easy made into rigid computer code, shuld the future of computers in architecture realy be, just to keep an accurant account on the old way's of building, accounting providing ?
archinewbie-
my BEST advice:
just ignore anything per / vindpust says. he just wants to talk about himself rather than you.
archinewbe,
I can tell you this; the dude who sits next to you in your class knows architecture no more than you do.
"he just wants to talk about himself rather than you."
Not true I want to describe new way's in 3D-Honeycomb That is true not that I don't want to talk about You.
What it mean to know another way of doing a possible design in steel plate cut easy, compared a handyman's Lego assembly with steel beams Girders and hangers --- that's my messeage.
That today's architecture acturly are mainly the old way's just made digital only tell, that with Direct-Link production of the building compoment, make a more promising choice with 3D-Honeycomb, when you understand that this "building mass" replace all the old trouble, Realise how much easier it is to fine tune the digital model , --- but ok I got my own back problems tumbling with heavy pieces, no wonder an old hippie want attempting tools right at hand, such that work . 3D-H work different than just making a digital drawing of small drawn blocks in 3D space, 3D-Honeycomb is a new architecture.
Maby That's you.
case of beer + roll of trace = building
There ya go
i thought it was an ounce and a roll of trace, man have times changed?
This might just free you up enough to scare the hell out of the other Students and Professors. I suggest you read the story in this website.
http://www.searinghouse.com/home.php
architecture bores me. especially my own...
Oh and vado's post reminded me: when designing a building, the first step is to make sure you're not accidentally designing it for the site next door. ;-)
meth + 5 rolls of trace...
thanks lb.
very carefully. and with a program. usually a couple of pens are involved.
a new type of decorative mesh drapery for the great architectual designer,
pls look at our website.
http://www.masewa-wiremesh.com
MSN:[email protected]
just stay away from shapes
design from the outside in
remember what it feels like to be a person
do not try to impress your professors. they are old and stuck in their ways.
dont be a prick unless you can back it up
simple is better
hmm..
Liberty Bell I know a University of Arizona Professor who did just that.
Designed and developed construction documents for a house in the Biltmore Estates Subdivision. Only to discover the house was not only on the wrong lot, it was on the wrong side of the ravine. So it was a total redesign.
i tend to sketch and model a lot.
my preference though is not to do so alone if at all possible. in grad school i worked with a trio of very talented folks and we all sat down to a table and talked and drank wine and sketched on the same bit of trace til the drawing was a serious mess and we arrived at some kind of idea...then did so again and again, with models or paper or in text....
and in the last week or so we worked madly to make it into a building.
it worked but was so luxurious, and i miss it. now i have to meet deadlines...but the lessons stick( stuck ? ). collaboration, willingness to discard an idea, and a real love for the process of design without worrying too much about failing are important.
was watching the tele yesterday and a talking head was describing the great artists and architects he had met and how they all had the ability to let go. according to the head, singers, painters, sculptors and architects all have to ignore the rules and self-regulation at some point and just go for it.
Right, jump: the willingness to discard an idea is, in my experience, a common trait among the best designers I've worked with. It is hard to do, of course. But so often leads to a better solution.
snooker, I feel like I might have heard a rumor of this UA professor who designed for the wrong site...was that when you were there? Hey, it happens to everyone at some point - I once drew an entire cafe elevation with one extra structural bay - it laid out great, until I looked again at the plan and realized I actually had 8 linear feet less than I thought I did!
Be humble.
liberty bell is right, as always.
sometimes it's not difficult to come up with a pleathora of ideas for a project. but the trick is to select the best ideas and make them work in concert. i always tried to do too much in school projects and wound up spending little time on many many different things. i could've benefitted from being willing to discard ideas, even good ones, and focusing on making the best ones work even better.
i think it's also best to get some distance from an idea, project, design, etc, there are times when i get into something then put it down for a while, and when i look at it again i am much more perceptive about it's limitations and strengths.
i think lb was talkin about someone closer to home...
drop a brick. listen. run from whomever it wanted to bean.
sorta easy.
get paid. design.
no, no. here's a real suggestion. design something YOU will build. build it. heh heh heh.
First conceptualize what you want to design. Forget architecture but try to design. Look at your environment to comprehend how things are designed. Observe first then try to realize your idea by making a model. Construct it as if its real by paying attention to its articulation. Details are the most important aspect of design.Its about putting things in a meaningful order however that order is not in books its in the mind. World is chaotic though so do not run for an order. Be radical with your ideas.Dont look what others design. Trust yourself and discover the world around you as if you see it new. There are more to say but this can be an essay then. So pls observe things carefully and try to discover how they are done even its a hut or a barn. Good luck
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.