The Mind-boggling Building ‘Concept’
“What is your concept?”
“Can you collaborate your concept with the design?”
“My concept is…”
“So the concept of the furniture layout is..”
“Conceptually..”
“You explained earlier about the complex long concept but I don’t see any in your design?” — “Yes, because my concept acts as a philosophical foundation of the design process” — “So is it the design concept, or the design process concept?” — “Is it really matter, sir? The building fits and responds the TOR correctly I think that’s what matters”
Concept; it is a mind-boggling term, which has been taught and prioritized since we started to draw a line in an A3 paper in our first studio. It is quite obscure and baffling, because it is conceptual, and it gets more confusing when one tries to create a systematic, rigid instruction on how one should conceptualize. In this writing, I tried to explore the term and approach of Concept in architecture, historically and practically.
The debate on how a designer in general should produce a design had its own scene between the ‘rationalist’ rational model and the action-centric model, which opposes each other. The rational model(er), based from the rationalist philosophy developed ‘stages’ on how a designer would design a product, it consists of pre-production, design-during-production, and post-production phases. The pre-production phase has substages that are quite familiar and commonly be taught that includes Design Briefing, Analysis, Research, Problem Solving, and Presentation. It continues with the design-during-production phase which is the development of the design from the analysis and researches from the previous stage, and it will end up on the post-production phase to gather feedback for future designs by running a series of implementation of the design, and evaluation or post-occupancy evaluation.
The second one, the action-centric model, insisted more on the use of improvisation, creativity, and emotion. The design will bear interrelated concepts, that will generate the possible final product through a series of trial-and-error activity. It posits that the designer should use creativity and emotion to make design candidates, while the process to produce the candidates (the design process) is improvised (quite the opposite of the first model of rationalist), because the model believes that there is no universal sequence of stages. This model is based from the empiricist philosophy, a philosophy that states that knowledge comes only from our own experiences. It has a reflection-in-action paradigm, meaning that the designer will alternate between framing (conceptualising), making moves, and evaluating moves from the experience of the design process, and continually jump from each states and modes.
Both model though have two similarities. Firstly, both model believe that design is supported by research and knowledge, so the activity of analyzing and precedent-study are useful and necessary in producing a coherent product. Secondly, they implicitly or explicitly recognize the term ‘conceptualizing’. The rationalist has problem solving and presentation stages, which are the ways to present the proposed ideas or concept on solving the founded and recognized problems from the previous analysis phase. The empiricist also do the framing activity which conceptualizes and compromises a set of concepts and ideas to respond towards the design problem, and will end up to the reality by making moves stage.
Long time ago before those complicated ‘terms’ about the design process, ancient people had conceptualized almost every major buildings. It also could be said that their level of conceptualizing was far more deeper and meaningful than the contemporary time practice, as many ancient buildings had their conceptual and spiritual purposes. Endless examples could be studied, starting from the Ziggurat from the Ancient Mesopotamia period that resembled the connection between earth and heaven by its stepping mud brick structure, to the Taj Mahal that illustrated a love story as the design foundation and the main motive for its construction. Endless ancient buildings were constructed because the collective people bear ideas and concepts, and chose physical architecture as their path to channel and represent those ideas in the real world. Whether it was religiously connected, or politically connected, people have been conceptualizing before and during designing, consciously or unconsciously.
Religious, deep, and profound conceptual architecture did not stop on ancient architecture. We could take a look at Peter Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel which was designed to honour and replicate the spatial and sensuous journey of Bruder Klaus, the patron saint for the local farmers that constructed the building. It is a very metaphorical building, a building that tries to conceptualize a real-life journey, stitching a connection between the structure and story, delivering the experiences to the occupants. Started from a sketch, it ended up with a striking construction method of wooden frame, made up from 112 wooden trunks, and enclosed by layers of concrete frame for the exterior. The wooden frame then was set on fire, leaving blackened cavity and charred wall, producting a unique sense of smell from the material to represent the tactile concept reimagination of Bruder Klaus’ life journey.
More practical concepts could be seen in early modernist works which emphasized mainly on more practical goals; Le Corbusier’s five points principles that regulate the building explicitly, focusing on the function of the building. Like the term ‘Machines for Living In’ that he described, produced the former rigid mentioned five points principle, regulating on how one should deal with the first floor of the building, to the horizontal window that will span along the length of a facade to distribute lights equally.
So what is a concept? Etymologically, it came from the word conceptum (Latin) which means “Draft, abstract”, where in classic latin “(a thing) conceived”. It can also mean “a general notion, the immediate object of thought” (1550s). In architecture, it can be understood as a notion, an idea, an abstract draft, that acts as a profound backbone of a building/design. It doesn’t stop at the abstract conversation in a pre-schematic stage, but it drives forward the design process, adapting to changes and improvements without losing its anchor from the concept itself.
Commonly, every design starts with a concept. If we perceive Design as a process of problem solving, the concept is the endless type of weapon that will be used for a bullseye hit on the problem (target). It is up to the designer on which weapon/customized weapon they will use. That analogy makes an endless variety of concept productions. The concept wanders on the paradigm realm, in the abstract thought, having/not having an explicit described-correlation with the future physical product. It is that idea that will be the starting point of a building’s storytelling. It tells, drives, and directs the building design process journey; starting from the blank page of the architect’s sketchbook, to the last piece of a facade element that will be installed. It can also be perceived as a reason-er, something that gives meaning and reasoning on every decision the building will take.
So how one creates a concept? Is it crafted structurally right before the practical design process, or is it made-up later on to fill the void in our presentation?
There is no magical answer here. We can see many opinions on how one should approach a concept. This includes the famous Black Box vs Glass Box, which is very technical, so it would be better if we take one step higher in our paradigm to see how we can approach concept from a more conceptual (pun unintended) perspective. We can craft a concept that focuses on physical architectural elements (the building form, building facade, or maybe spatial configuration) right before the designing phase. It could be crafted post-analysis, but right before the forming of the physical form. It is amore commonly accepted approach as it lays strong foundation for the future design process; it gives influences and decisions on how the architectural elements will be designed later on.
On some occasions, the contrary approach is also common. The concept that is made-up (or maybe not) right after the design is completed. In this scheme, the concept puts its role of the reason-er, giving ‘reasonable answer’ and explanation for the curious and confused spectators, telling the story that seems not visible from the first glance of the building. It could also be said that it is a scheme to justify a building to fit a certain situation and context. It may be quite uncommon and unacceptable. But in my opinion, as long as the building functions and fits the contextual aspect of the location, problems, and spaces, it’s not a problem. Or maybe, it could be mandatory if the building has caught attention for its successfulness but the structurally-crafted concept had not been made yet, as the spectators and curators could have demanded some sort of ‘reasons’ and ‘answers’ to justify the design.
One interesting aspect of concept is that it can be varied wildly ranging from the architect, the designer, and the viewer. It can be seen as a dynamic, moving abstract thing that can transform its form according to each unique perspectives. This also supports the fact that the concept could be made by the spectators and occupants itself without knowing the explanation from the architect beforewards.
By stitching those terms and Concept concepts (pun again) above, I really like to visualize Concept as a language of communication between every parties that are involved in the design; the designer, the users, and the spectators. It can be delivered first by the designer, and led the journey of the process, or it can be created by the designer/users after completion; to justify and write the ‘autobiography’ of the building, rewarding the functioning building a reasonable history of its own on post-construction. As mind-boggling as it seems, it is up to the architects. How will they bring the concept to the game, can or cannot be in parallel with how the building will function and serve the society. Schrodinger’s Building Concept.
