In our last lecture it was discussed about the architect work, his general skills and his unique ones. So, it’s worth mentioning some of his abilities for example, being town planers and geographers as they deal with locational analysis; they are specialists of building design as they deal with structures, servicing and environmental control; they are quantity surveyor as they are good judges over matters of cost and also they own skills of an artist which is mostly expressed in the interior design.
One of the most important tasks an architect has is to generate 3 dimensional forms of the objects. In his study Geoffrey Broadbent says that there are four ways of generating this 3D image: Pragmatic, Iconic, Analogic and Canonic.
Pragmatic Design: dates back to the Paleolithic area, when the “trial and error” form first emerged. The word pragmatic itself says: dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. Even though the building purpose in this kind of design is climate modification the building it is also modified by cultural, social, political, economic or aesthetic values. In the broader concept of climate, building purpose is still Climatic Modification. They used the materials which nature gave them( mammoth bones and skin )and put them together in a way that seemed to work to create places to be protected from the wild nature climate and also change and control it .( e.x.mammoth's hunters tent.)
Iconic Design: the way that a building is built deep into the tribe consciousness and, because each member of the tribe has a fixed mental image of what a house should be like, we shall call the iconic design. It attempts to match between the controlled climate and the available resources of the culture itself. The form of an object becomes so bound up with the way of life of a society that the pressures against changes become very rigid. Iconic design is related to pragmatic one, because firstly you have to deal with pragmatic design and then with iconic one, just like the building, the bricks are arranged in such a way to make the entire building.
Analogic design: “Generation of the new forms!” The term “iconic signifies that an artifact reminds us of its objects because of a resemblance. This method includes the development of new forms by analogical process. The first design of this kind was Mastabas, buried tombs in pyramids. Related to this method Imhotep used the logic forms extended from the buildings it and he designed capitals in the shape of flowers. Whatever design analogues we use, be they drawings, three-dimensional models, computer programmers even, the analogue itself will almost certainly impose its own conventions on our designing and thus distort what we have intended to do. We can mention some examples as: the pyramids, Kahn's performing art centers, and his roof of the chapel at Ronchamp etc.
Canonic Design: A designer before started work on site prepared drawings which acquired a fascination for him; he developed a concern for pattern, for order and regularity, which was often expressed in the form of over-grid. The discovery of the proportional system by the Egyptians lead to the use of canonic designs based on human proportions in order to create this order and regularity. But the Greeks with their mathematical skills were the real innovators, with the four elements: earth, fire, water and wind, made from regular geometric solids.
“In order to build well, and distribute your efforts to advantage, in order to obtain solidity and unity in the work, units of measure are the first condition of all. The builder takes as his measure what is earliest and most constant, the tool that he is least likely to lose, his pace, his elbow, his finger.”
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