The architect at work

Architects work with a team that includes town planners,geographers, specialists of building design teams, a quantity surveyor and of course artists with a lot of imagination.

Architects are concerned with spatial ability and, in particular,with his capacity for visualizing, generating the three dimensional forms of buildings, interior spaces and the spaces about building. They have used 4 distinct way of generating the three dimensional forms which are: pragmatic, iconic, analogic and canonic.

Pragmatic design:

One of the earliest types of design. It is found in the Paleolithic era.The basic reason for building was to modify the given climate as offered by wild nature so that certain activities could be carry out in comfort.These kind of building change with the area they are built, as there were modifications.

The mammoth hunter tried to adapted his tent by trial and error, taking available materials and putting them together in a way which seems to work. A buildings purpose is: CLIMATIC MODIFICATION

Iconic design:

After the climate is controlled, the resources available for its control are matched and the three dimensional building has to be proved to work.There are other pressures which lead to conservatism.There is a link between house-form, pattern of living and the way that we live plus house-from.Building is built deep into the tribe consciousness and this meaning and fixed image is passed to the others.By "iconic" it is meant that an artifact reminds us of its object by some kind of resemblance.

Analogic design:

Analogic design is the method of the new generating forms!The use of new forms aroused by analogical process are firstly seen in the funerary complex designed for king Djoser at Saqqara. Mastabas are the primitive form of pyramids and are the only kind of buildings in that time near Nile that had an analogy with the heap of stones which burial shafts had to be covered with a pragmatic device to prevent sand flow away.Imhotep used the analogy extended forms of the buildings themselves to applied decorations, such as capitals carved in the forms of flowers,etc.These drawings were used in translation of known visual forms to new usages and, the drawings itself began to impose conventions on the designer to suggest order and regularity of a kind which he might not have envisaged. Whatever designs we use , the analogue itself will almost certainly impose its own conventions on our design.

Canonic design:

A designer before starting to work should prepare 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.He should choose the proportional system he is going to use for the design to provide the designer with authority for many decisions such as: the shape of the figure, the size and the shape of the façade.These designer get the authority from Greek mathematicians like Plato who based the universe structure on four elements: air, water, earth, fire each made from regular geometric solids as shown in the image. These solids were formed from equilateral or isosceles triangles.

In order to build well we should obtain solidity and unity in our work, units of measurements that are the first condition of all.It should be clear that whatever decisions designer make they should learn from the fathers of modern architecture combined all the designs mentioned above to generate three-dimensional forms.