"Form Ever Follows Function; Form Ever Enhances Function"

In my experience as an architecture student and through the many design projects I have completed over the past three years, I have developed a certain design method of my own.  It serves as a sort of design formula per se for most projects I approach.  The well-known phrase embraced by many architects of the modern movement “form ever follows function” is a good starting point to begin to describe my design method, but for a more accurate description I would alter it slightly—“form ever follows function; form ever enhances function.”

            The basis for all of my designs is the function that will be supported by the building.  As this is the most basic goal that must be reached by a design, I believe it is the obvious place to begin designing.  The program of the building is analyzed, and various studies are produced to offer diverse solutions.  The actual human use of the building is taken into high consideration.  Ease of use, efficiency of space, and high functionality are all priorities in the programmatic planning stage of design.  Simultaneous to the programmatic planning of the building, the context and location of the project are also analyzed and contribute to the initial design.  As suggested by the Indian architect and planner Charles Correa regarding his low-cost residential designs, simply providing an enclosed box in which to perform a specific set of functions and placing that box into a specific environment is not a viable design solution.  The climate and the desired relationship between indoors and outdoors, the location and the desired hierarchy of privacy, and the context and the desired relationship with neighboring architecture and landscape features are all factors which influence and go hand-in-hand with the spatial planning of the building.  It is through the guidance of all of these criteria that an overall building form is reached, serving as a blank canvas for the next phase of design: aesthetics.

            Designing for aesthetic quality has long been a topic of controversy among architects.  I believe aesthetic quality is as integral to the success of a design as is a roof or a floor.  Any building could have a wonderfully planned and constructed set of spaces that support function fantastically; it is my belief, however, that to be truly successful, architecture must evoke feelings in its occupants that correspond to the nature of the space and the function that happens within it.  This is not to say that the aesthetics of a building should govern or trump its function begotten form.  No, I believe that style is suggested by function as well, and that the preliminary building form is like a clean block of clay, ready to be sculpted into something spectacular.  The programmatic housing of functions is turned into architecture through sculpting and improving the building form to achieve a desired feeling, which in turn enhances the human experience and the way in which the space is used.

The Free Plan - Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe

                Of the architects we have studied recently who embraced the concept of the free plan, two whose design methods are quite interesting when directly compared are Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.  While the two shared some fundamental values and an affinity for the free plan, their individual definitions of free plan and other points addressed in their designs differed substantially.  The work of both Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe can be recognized largely by their free plan spatial organizations.  The building plan had moved from segmented spaces enclosed by intrusive, heavy structure to a now flexible structure which allowed spaces to be arranged in any way desired to best suit function and context.  Building structure was organized on a grid, and partitions became freed from any load-bearing responsibility.

Villa Stein - Le Corbusier

While flexibility was the main objective of the free plan for both Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, its purpose and the manner in which that flexibility was utilized differed between the two.  Le Corbusier approached his projects with a very scientific mindset.  His five points of architecture—pilotis, free plan, free façade, ribbon windows, and roof gardens—and his modular, repeatable structural systems became the interchangeable building blocks for nearly all of his projects.  Houses designed by Le Corbusier became like products of an assembly line, each having its own variations on the design formula and its own identity, but pieced together from a definitive set of components.  Free plan allowed him to do this with ease in his projects, such as Villa Stein or Villa 

Villa Savoye - Le Corbusier

Savoye, in which the domino skeleton system essentially created a structural box into which Le Corbusier could freely insert his architectural components in any arrangement that the specific context required.

Mies van der Rohe approached his projects with the same enthusiasm for free plan as Le Corbusier; however, Mies van der Rohe took the “free” quality of the free plan to another level beyond that of Le Corbusier.  His designs were much less rigid than Le Corbusier’s, and they allowed for much more flexibility and multifunctionality.  He dissolved the building center and the conventional four-walled room as spatial organizers.  Instead of the rigid, heavy boxes of defined space acting as a container for a specific function as seen in prior architecture, including that of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe opened everything that could be opened and then some.  He completely liberated the plans of his buildings, providing minimal division where absolutely necessary for issues of privacy.  Many times it was as though he started with a block of open space, conservatively carved out small pieces for service space, and what was left was a large, light, airy volume of space which promoted ease of flow and felt far less claustrophobic than the traditional

50x50 House - Mies van der Rohe

room.  The 50x50 House, for example, or the Farnsworth House, redefined the idea of a house, opening the spaces within the house to each other, and the house to its environment.  Aside from the grid used to create structure, which itself was often unconventionally arranged, Mies van

Farnsworth House - Mies van der Rohe

der Rohe’s buildings were “free” in every sense of the word in relation to free plan and liberation of spaces.

Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe both valued the concept of free plan in their designs, but for seemingly very different reasons.  While Le Corbusier was very scientifically minded, his approach to spatial design was much more regimented than that of Mies van der Rohe, and the freedom of his free plans largely related to his freedom in design as opposed to Mies van der Rohe’s freedom of function and use in the free plan.  Both approaches, however, allowed the architects to design buildings to the best of their ability that they believed would support the needs of occupants in a unique way.

Works Cited:

http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Villa_Stein_-_de_Monzie

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/Corbu.html

http://www.architakes.com/?p=5801

http://www.farnsworthhouse.org/photos.htm