ARCH3113

Architectural Design Studio A - Typology

Target Students BSSc 3

Course Term 1

Course Type Required

Venue Studio

Teacher(s) CHOW, Kelly / ENDRIZZI, Raffaella / MOK, Charis / SHINJI, Wataru / SHINOHARA, Hiroyuki

Within architectural discourse, the first typological approach developed out of the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment as can be found with the French archaeologist and art writer Quatremẻre de Quincy in his work Encyclopẻdie (1789). The result of this corpus of work has since been influential and it has become the subject of debate in architectural discourse of the twentieth century. But within the modernist architectural discourse, the concept of type suffered a loss of significance. For example, in modernism the notion of type was reduced to the notion of stereotype. However, we see a reemergence of the significance of type and typology during the 1950s as reflected in the writings of Aldo Rossi, mainly The Architecture of the City (1982).

Fundamental to creative composition is knowledge and understanding. One needs to acquire cultural and technical knowledge and acquire insights into relevant design options and the effects of design decisions. Designing is a process of searching for a ‘correct’ result. This quest can be considered ‘empirical’ only in so far as that it tends to follow a path of trial and error. In a design process there is not one ‘correct’ outcome. The designer can come up with a variety of potential solutions, each of which would lead to considerably different environmental qualities and spatial experiences, if built.

Although the design process itself is clearly not ‘scientific’ in nature, the designer does make use of many sources of knowledge and information, which contribute to shaping the end product. In [design], a proven method of acquiring knowledge and insight is the study of precedents, to be analysed systematically. Recurring formal themes and characteristic forms of variety make it possible to identify specific types of design artefacts. These can be organised systematically in design typologies which may in turn contribute to understanding and appreciation of specific design artefacts.

One of the most effective compositional structuring devices was traditionally the architectural style. In the Renaissance, the renewed orientation on ‘classical’ architecture of Romans and Greeks led to a set of stylistic rules which would not necessarily lead to the same result, but could be applied with a certain amount of freedom and inventiveness by different designers. After the emergence of the modern movement in the early twentieth century, the classical rules were declared obsolete. No generally accepted stylistic framework has taken their place. Although designers frequently refer to their knowledge of historical examples, and may at times re-interpret previous themes or even borrow directly from design examples, designers frequently attempt to cross – or at least to ‘stretch’ – existing boundaries. Design practitioners are constantly ‘re-inventing’ what was conceived before, within the shifting cultural (and technological) climate of the moment.

The cultural climate of the twentieth century fin-de-siècle seems to have given rise to a tendency amongst leading designers to keep surprising their audience with ‘original’ solutions in order to stay in the limelight. In contemporary architecture there is a tendency not to adhere to any pre-determined, binding themes – or indeed methods - of design, but rather to make choices within a framework of plan-specific design rules developed per project. The contemporary architectural ‘landscape’ offers both the familiar and the innovative. We bear witness to a constantly shifting ‘parade’ of architectural forms and themes. There is no generally accepted architectural style, no standard set of rules.

Designing is essentially an activity of conceiving futures. Instead of looking back, designers are inclined to look towards ‘what might be’, they seldom look back in order to understand what has come to be and why. They apply their knowledge in a pragmatic way, but they are also inclined to ‘bend the rules’ for aesthetic effect whenever they consider it necessary. Such ‘poetic licence’ may be at the root of persistent objections to architectural design and research activity by conventionally inclined academics. However, it is precisely this tension between logical and aesthetic considerations that makes architectural compositions so complex – and therefore so challenging.

The city is an “organism in the making,” an entity in constant transformation, not a complex of immutable elements. The city represents the entire human experiential field of the world, considered as expression of a “fundamental movement of existence” in its completeness and historicity, expressed by the formative structure of tissues and building types, by the urban hierarchies, by the relations with the territory, by the social relations, and by the values and criticalities. This studio aims to establish a consideration for the use of types and precedents as a basis for design.