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Basics: Architectural Design ; Designing Architecture ; Language of Space and


Form ; Diagramming the Big Idea ; and Architecture

Article  in  Journal of Architectural Education · March 2014


DOI: 10.1080/10464883.2014.864918

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Journal of Architectural Education

ISSN: 1046-4883 (Print) 1531-314X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjae20

Basics: Architectural Design; Designing Architecture;


Language of Space and Form; Diagramming the Big
Idea; and Architecture

Thomas Leslie

To cite this article: Thomas Leslie (2014) Basics:�Architectural�Design; Designing�Architecture;


Language�of�Space�and�Form; Diagramming�the�Big�Idea; and Architecture, Journal of Architectural
Education, 68:1, 136-140, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.2014.864918

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2014.864918

Published online: 14 Mar 2014.

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Basics: Architectural Design
Bert Bielefeld, Editor
Birkhauser, 2013
336 pages, 210 black and white
illustrations
$42 (paper)

Designing Architecture: The


Elements of Process
Andrew Pressman
Routledge, 2012
208 pages
$29.95 (paper)

Language of Space and Form


James Eckler
Wiley, 2012
320 pages, 190 illustrations
$36.99 (cloth)

136 Reviews
complexity, but the near-mystical Nonetheless, a good introduc-
operations involved in distilling an tory design textbook remains a holy
architectural scheme from arrays of grail for publishers and authors alike.
programmatic, legal, functional, and Roger K. Lewis’s Architect: A Candid
fabricational constraints continue Guide to the Profession has long served
to distinguish Architects from mere as a key introduction to the practice
architects. The long, jargon-specific, of architecture, while books like
and often self-referential tradition Francis D. K. Ching’s Form, Space, and
of architecture as the goal-directed Order have offered inroads into the
rendering of space and form still rules (both written and unwritten)
bears scrutiny. Though this may of composition while introducing
seem like a tired and limiting defini- cultures of space and form.2 Given
tion, what Reyner Banham called the immense changes brought to
Diagramming the Big Idea the “lore of the profession”1 is the design process by technological,
Jeffrey Balmer and Michael T. resurgent, with beginning design, environmental, and cultural develop-
Swisher Routledge, 2012 design fundamentals, and profes- ments over the last dozen years, the
256 pages sional practice taking on increasing time seems right for a new generation
$34.95 (paper) importance in pedagogy, research, of texts to mentor and challenge new
and—yes—accreditation. designers. Two of the books under
Is this a retrenchment? After review—Pressman’s and Geoffrey
a generation of theory that rejected Makstutis’s Architecture—assume that
the idea of origins or fundamentals, their audience is heading for fairly
this crop of books aimed at beginning traditional practice and thus blend
design students and teachers suggests professional advice and counsel
so. It no longer seems possible that with primers on the design process,
a first-year graduate student could, while Jeffrey Balmer and Michael T.
after weeks of seminars, pound the Swisher’s Diagramming the Big Idea and
desk and wail, “When are we going to James Eckler’s Language of Space and
learn what makes good design?”—a scene Form deal primarily with the gram-
that my classmates and I saw play out mar of design more specifically. The
some twenty years ago. This, in fact, four individual books anthologized
is the leading question that Andrew in Basics: Architectural Design, mean-
Architecture: An Introduction Pressman asks early on in Designing while, examine architectural design
Geoffrey Makstutis Architecture: The Elements of Process, from four separate points of concep-
Laurence King, 2010 and it is this ineffable quest for tual origin. The range of focus and
248 pages, 324 illustrations defining good design—or even just approach in Basics reveals the oppor-
$35 (paper) design—that has remained stubbornly tunities and shortcomings in trying
present. In one way or another this to systematize (or originalize) any
Back to Basics innocent question links these five discipline as complex as architectural
What, exactly, does an “architect” books, all keen to make sense out of a design, but they collectively make a
do? The phrase “architect of ... ” discipline whose newest recruits will case for a hybrid approach—and for
is used to describe software engi- be asked to create, out of complex continued argument over what, pre-
neers, football coaches, and—in a and often-competing vectors, a cisely, constitutes the “big idea,” or
2007 article about Karl Rove that system of design values and methods the “basics” of what we expect from
finally made the American Institute by their own bootstraps. While beginning students.
of Architects (AIA) take notice— attempts to systematize fundamental Pressman and Makstutis both
political campaign strategists. design education—the methodology situate design in the context of
“Architecture” has become short- of the Beaux-Arts or the Bauhaus, practice, expanding primers on
hand for any profession or activity for example—have been endlessly methodology itself into overviews of
that turns a complex soup of factors studied and celebrated, the fact broader professional topics. Both
into something simple and tangible, that “good” and “bad” design has books are defined by their authors’
like a legible program, offensive emerged from virtually every method experiences—Pressman’s long career
yardage, or a polling victory. Real, suggests that the actual tactics focusing on residential building and
AIA-sanctioned Architects (capital behind pedagogy are less important as a teacher of professional practice
A) might take some satisfaction in than the simple attention and self- and Makstutis’s as a global practitio-
knowing that their day jobs have awareness that any such process ner and teacher/researcher of digital
become metaphors for corralling insists upon. technologies. Both present sound

Reviews JAE 68: 1   137


counsel and readable, clear sum- intimidating aspect of a student’s is both a methodology and a con-
maries of what it’s like to work as an early years. vincing case for the role of rhetoric
architect in their respective contexts; The most provocative and engag- in architectural design. Lurking
how ideas are developed, presented, ing of these is Jeffrey Balmer and underneath the conceptual discipline
and discussed with clients and con- Michael T. Swisher’s Diagramming the advocated here is an indictment of
sultants; and what influences designs Big Idea, a lengthy treatise on what more scenographic, formalist, and
at each stage. Makstutis supple- might be termed graphic rhetoric. product-obsessed work, which seems
ments this with useful information Balmer and Swisher have honed in comparison far less engaging than
on global education and current digi- their argument in developing begin- its sophisticated (usually verbal)
tal and environmental technologies. ning coursework at the University arguments suggest. Set against these
There is a clear divide here, between of North Carolina at Charlotte, and intellectually slippery modes of pro-
the intensely local, personal form they stake their claim unapologeti- duction, Balmer and Swisher make
of practice described by Pressman cally from the outset: “Architects,” a clear case that rigor in conceptual
and the typically much larger insti- they write in the book’s foreword, organization, and the resulting spa-
tutional or commercial form that “make diagrams not buildings” (p. tial order, instantiates buildings that
Makstutis assumes as his basis. 1). Makstutis, for one, might argue are efficient and evocative—that
Where Pressman’s examples and case that architects increasingly organize solve problems while engaging us.
studies occasionally seem dated or information rather than simply make This charge gets only more urgent as
conservative, however, Makstutis diagrams, but never mind—the functional demands grow and as our
makes the case for an agile, interna- point in both cases is that this orga- tools to process information become
tional approach to design education nization, and the order that it aims exponentially more powerful. In
and to career planning, pointing toward, constitutes the major ben- this sense, yes, we all make diagrams
out the changes wrought in the last efit (or, in the corporate-speak of instead of buildings, but these are
several years by building information the day, “value add”) that designers increasingly strategies more than
modeling (BIM) and other software provide. The diagram, for Balmer sketches, and this change in focus
that have led to increased efficiency and Swisher, is both an analytic and demands precisely the discipline and
along with demands for production. a synthetic tool, one that reveals or agile exploration that Balmer and
Properly prepared, he suggests, stu- develops the underlying conceptual Swisher propose.
dents should be ready for practice order behind complex weavings of One of Diagramming the Big Idea’s
in any corner of the world, and with architectural systems—proportion, great strengths is its inclusion of
whatever the latest tools may be. circulation, structure, environment, glossaries that give plain-language
Notably, Architecture: An Introduction and so on. By “diagramming,” they definitions for a range of terms (for
includes a brief but important sec- suggest, architects actively think example, “Parti: A diagram that
tion on alternative careers, though through a problem multidimension- delineates the dominant organiza-
the paths offered are predominantly ally, abstracting complex principles tional or formal concept governing
still within the construction field. into simple moves that can be more an architectural scheme ... what we
With a huge range of examples that fluently manipulated and exam- might call the Big Idea” (p. 280);
embrace a variety of types, scales, ined. These moves, in turn, can faculty would do well to study these
styles, and values, Makstutis’s make the case for design decisions pithy definitions, too). James Eckler,
book is a remarkably thorough and or schemes. Swisher’s background Program Director at Maywood
encouraging text and the strongest in painting is evident—this is one University’s School of Architecture
competitor yet to Lewis’s classic pro- of the few design texts that sets out in Scranton, Pennsylvania, also seeks
fessional guide. to discuss composition—and such to demystify the jargon that bounces
Seeing design in professional an emphasis sometimes leads to an around the studio and in doing so to
context is important—on average, overtly graphic emphasis. It is telling find a formal vocabulary that informs
our professionally bound graduates’ that the third dimension doesn’t, in process and product. Language of
time will be spent away from the fact, enter into the discussion until Space and Form divides over 100 “gen-
drawing board, whether in client Chapter 7. Surely, if architects make erative terms” into five categories:
or consultant meetings, jobsite only diagrams, these diagrams are those relating to process and gen-
observation, or in an alternative nevertheless spatial, and the book’s eration, organization and ordering,
career altogether. But the drawing heavier emphasis on two-dimen- operation and experience, objects
board remains the core, to many, sional diagrams may leave students and assemblies, and representation
of what architects do, and the other with the sense that once the plan and communication. These are,
three books under review all focus is clearly diagrammed, the problem necessarily, overlapping, and the
more intently on the design process solving is done. placement of terms in one chapter
itself, seeking to explain and eluci- But this is a minor quibble, or the other seems, at times, arbi-
date what is often a mysterious and since what is being proposed here trary—surely Balmer and Swisher

138 Reviews
would argue that “Order” might published by Birkhauser. This is in “Design Methods,” which expands
well apply to each of the five. But actually an anthology of four short, upon the encyclopedic approach
the essay-length definitions of each pamphlet-like books originally pub- of Ching’s Form, Space, and Order by
generative term (examples include lished in 2008—Basics: Design Ideas, showing that the formal and spatial
nouns like “Sequence,” “Gesture,” Basics: Design Methods, Basics: Spatial principles we use to structure the
and “Palimpsest,” but also actions Design, and Basics: Materials. The responses covered in “Design Ideas”
such as “Retain,” “Juxtapose,” and series originally extended much come from various systems of values:
“Contain”) provide substantial further into European professional traditional systems such as nature
background and description about practice and urban design, and the and geometry, music and mathemat-
what each word really means, both selection here is well chosen—while ics, functionalism, and precedent and
in terms of etymology and in its the four books each had different site; and more provocative ones such
typical use. Eckler uses anecdotes editing teams, they share a familiar as “accident and the unconscious”
to expand these terms into experi- ethic, namely, that architectural and what they refer to as “generative
ence and uses examples of student design is largely an act of consid- processes,” or digital manipulation.
projects to show how each word is eration, balancing, and editing, While acknowledging that partisans
applied in design conversations. and that a wide base of knowledge for many of these approaches have
The result is a useful reference and is necessary for ideas to both arise argued for universality, the authors
a substantial argument for applying from and percolate through this net. note that buying in to any of these
the same sort of rigor in vocabulary Throughout, there is an emphasis on strategies is ultimately arbitrary, and
choice and spoken or written cri- order and rigor in thought, design that there will likely be more than one
tique that Balmer and Swisher call process, and execution, but this fruitful path to refining the complex
for graphically. Lurking beneath rigor is applied globally, beyond dia- sea of “Ideas” into a legible scheme.
Eckler’s patient text and evocative grams and composition, to include (One inherent problem with texts
illustrations is a challenge to the materiality, function, and structure. taking on such basic and wide-ranging
cult of buzzwords and facile design Basics: Architectural Design enjoys a subject matter is a thoroughgoing
moves that ultimately dilute argu- serendipitous lack of editing—the evenhandedness that makes for fair,
ment and criticism. four books appear to be republished objective, but also rather uninspired
Eckler’s book suffers, however, more or less exactly as they were writing—every one of the books to
from a very specific take on design originally, and the result is that hand would benefit from a bit of argu-
as a largely formalist activity—after reading straight through involves ment about why the authors believe
a few essays it comes as no surprise beginning again four times over: their approach to be worth writing
that the long list of terms he takes design is presented as “a response about as opposed to others—in
on does not include “Social,” or to the context in which it becomes this case, when the authors describe
“Environment,” or “Urban.” This is a constructed reality,” the result of R&Sie’s Bangkok Contemporary Art
an unapologetically compositional- “ecstatic intuition,” “active spatial Museum as “rigorously surrealist,”
ist project, and, as such, it will be a appropriation,” and “lending mate- editorial generosity has reached its
valuable reference for programs that rial form to a[n] idea.” The beginning breaking point.)
emphasize composition while run- student may be confused by these From here, Basics delves
ning against the grain in beginning four often-contradictory stances but into what are essentially two
studios that start from more con- may also recognize that architectural position papers that provide over-
ceptual or social origins. Balmer and design is, of course, all of these things, lapping—though sometimes
Swisher, too, have a strong graphic all fighting for her attention and competing—views on the develop-
basis that will seem to some to over- applied cognition at once. “Design ment and instantiation of a design
emphasize clean, pithy illustrations Ideas” and “Design Methods” are the scheme. The first, “Spatial Design”
over the messier realities of material- broadest of the four sections, both by Ulrich Exner and Dietrich Pressel,
ity, social activity, and spontaneity. dealing with the process of design at is a thoroughly phenomenological
In effect, these two books gain much the desk instead of out in the world. approach that covers experiential
of their clarity through a tight focus In the former, coeditors Bert Bielefeld qualities ranging from lighting and
that edits out or avoids such compli- and Sebastian El khouli give a careful temperature to visual cognition
cating factors. To put pen to paper, overview of the factors that go into and murkier ideas such as layering,
however, a student has to begin the process itself—both analytical choreography, and (mostly implied)
somewhere, and both Language of Space ones such as context and function and memory. Manfred Hegger, Hans
and Form and Diagramming the Big Idea those of tradition (that slippery archi- Drexler, and Martin Zeumer contrast
offer valuable toeholds into the long, tectural “lore” of Banham’s again) and this intentionally “soft” approach
messy processes involved in design. of materials. What to do with these with a concluding section that
A slightly broader approach is vectors is covered by Kari Jormakka, includes concise capsules on typi-
taken by Basics: Architectural Design, Oliver Schürer, and Dörte Kuhlmann cal construction materials ranging

Reviews JAE 68: 1   139


from brick and wood to concrete, “lore” that has sustained and lim-
plastic, and membranes. Brief essays ited us for over a century, and none
on perception (overlapping consid- of them posit what our students’
erably with the previous section), careers might actually consist of at
requirements, and properties provide the midpoint of their professional
context for these decisions, and sev- lives. The world in 2040 may or may
eral pages of concluding comments not have any use whatsoever for a
offer advice for material selection conceptual definition of “deforma-
based on technical, perceptual, and tion,” or a metaphorical relationship
regional criteria—though costs with biological precedents. It may,
and maintenance are not discussed in fact, have turned to other hun-
adequately. Basics is a useful, well- grier and more agile disciplines to Newfoundland Modern: Architecture
written, and illustrated collection solve their problems, and “architect” in the Smallwood Years, 1949–1972
that offers valuable, straightforward may have turned from a singular, Robert Mellin
discussion of design strategies, capital-A title to a much broader McGill-Queens University Press, 2011
constraints, and resources and that verb. While all of these books offer 304 pages, 225 illustrations, color
demystifies much current discussion valuable advice for the discipline throughout
with an emphasis on linking process of architectural design as practiced $59.95 (cloth)
and execution. It is occasionally right now, they also lead one to
frustrating in its lack of coordination wonder what they contain that will, JAE readers will likely know of Robert
and of a thorough reconciling of its in another generation, seem quaint Mellin’s work through his 2003
four different points of view. But it or irrelevant (as late as 1998, Architect: Princeton Architectural Press book,
connects two modes of design—as A Candid Guide to the Profession advised Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling,
a discipline and as a practice—and that hand-lettering remained an Potato Trenching, and Other Tales From
for this alone it deserves consider- important skill). Surely the intel- a Newfoundland Fishing Village. Tilting
ation in early studios as a tonic to the lectual rigor that Balmer and Swisher was a remarkable crossover best
either-or nature of the other books propose as a fundamental tool in the seller, at least as popular among gen-
under consideration. designer’s back pocket will still be eral readers and those interested in
This tension between architec- with us. But whether it is a hallmark local vernacular cultures as among
ture as an intellectual activity (the of “Architects” who design buildings architects and architecture students.
nature of the term’s appropriation by or more broadly of “architects” who The compelling mix of oral history,
other fields, certainly) and as a career exist in a far wider field is a larger careful observation in narrative and
or practice has always been par- and more sobering question. drawn form, and Mellin’s grounding
ticularly acute in beginning design, in material culture and folklore stud-
and our instinct to shelter tender Thomas Leslie, AIA, is the Pickard ies explains part of the appeal; equally
first-year students from the politics, Chilton Professor in Architecture important is the sense of Mellin’s
economics, and sheer bureaucratic at Iowa State University, where he personal investment in the place he
inertia that will meet them in the teaches building design, history, describes, the product of many years
profession has consequences—good and technology. He is the author of “embedded” scholarship, during
and bad. Makstutis and Pressman of Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 which time Mellin lived in the village
make passing references to the fact (University of Illinois Press, 2013) of Tilting as a neighbor, participated
that all the thoughtful, careful pro- and, with Jason Alread and Robert in local life and projects, and also
cess work in the world, even when Whitehead, Design Tech: Building brought the fruits of his study of the
coupled with formally compelling, Science for Architects (2nd ed., Taylor place back to its residents. Through
diagrammatically legible proposals, and Francis, 2014). He is the 2013–14 the overall project of Mellin’s Tilting
will run into a buzz saw of budget- recipient of the Booth Family Rome work, he has helped his fellow
ary, political, and even aesthetic Prize in Historic Preservation. residents build a better sense of self-
resistance. And none of them take awareness of their place and identify
on board the fact that with overseas Notes ways for the village to move forward
outsourcing, schedules acceler- 1 Reyner Banham, “1960—Stocktaking” in Reyner in sympathy with its best qualities. At
Banham, ed., A Critic Writes: Essays by Renyer
ated by the process of BIM, and the the same time, Mellin has brought a
Banham (Berkeley: University of California Press,
liability-averse shrinkage of licensed 1996), 50. powerful story of place and the study
architects’ responsibilities, the 2 Roger K. Lewis, Architect? A Candid Guide to the of place to audiences around the
field of “architecture” is declining Profession (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998); Francis world through the book, an accom-
as a percentage of the construction D. K. Ching, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order. panying exhibition of his drawings,
(New York: Wiley, 2007).
industry. All of these books remain photographs, and texts, and his beau-
committed, in some way, to the tifully voiced lectures.

140 Reviews

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