10 Architectural Design Principles to Take Inspiration from
As designers, we ought to be looking at the world around us every now and then to draw inspiration from.
The field of contemporary and modern architecture has produced some truly appalling monuments to aesthetic sensibility and human ingenuity that are certainly worth taking a good look at.
Here’s a comprehensive list of some of the most inspiring architectural creations of the past two centuries and the design principles each of these structures were built around, the majority of which can be carried over to all creative work.
Principle 01- Test Technology
The invention of steel in the nineteenth century allowed architecture, which was formerly based in stone masonry, to soar to the next level. Sir Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, constructed entirely out of steel and glass in 1854, charmingly celebrated this new potential. Later in 1889, the Eiffel Tower harnessed it to become the tallest structure in the world, at 324 meters.
The Crystal Palace, London
The Eiffel Tower, Paris
Principle 02- Bend the Rules
Skyscrapers had conventionally always been constructed vertical — until architecture firm OMA gave the stereotypes a hard look with China Central Television’s HQ in Beijing. The final product is a groundbreaking structure, which happens to be a loop consisting of 6 parts, 3 of which are horizontal.
China Central Television Headquarters, Beijing
Principle 03- Too much Curiosity sometimes Kills the Cat
Contemporary design hasn’t always been known for fabricating the most cheerful of buildings. The Bauhaus school, which operated between 1919 and 1933 in Germany, espoused strict age-old principles of pure functionality and minimalism, and its practitioners stuck to these basic elements irrespective of how much resistance they had to encounter.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building in Manhattan, erected in 1958, is an exemplar of this so-called International Minimalistic Style.
The Seagram Building, New York City
Principle 04- Make Conceptual Sketches often
There is a growing misapprehension that architecture is a purely rational art, based in engineering and math with the slightest of margin left for aesthetics to set foot in the equation. While this may at times be correct, certain architects depict otherwise, the very proof of which lies in their sketch work.
Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi-British architect, places noteworthy significance on form. Her buildings, like the MAXXI Museum in Rome, often started off as abstract sketches or even paintings.
MAXXI Museum, Rome
Principle 05- Solve Problems
Great creatives more often than not regard designing as problem solving. This is unquestionably true of the unconventional Dutch firm UNStudio. In their work for Brussels Airport, they were tasked with creating a passageway that would:
a) seamlessly connect three disparate structures,
b) accommodate passenger flows, operational as well as security processes,
c) create new room for commercial spaces, and
d) emblematize Brussels’ ambition to become a European transport hub.
Their awe-inspiring design did all this and more.
Brussels Airport Connector, Brussels
Principle 06- Get Noticed
The word “iconic” gets bandied about a lot these days, but for many architectural achievements it seems truly apt. Especially in recent years, distinctive-looking buildings have become a way to identify an entire city or region.
The Sydney Opera House, for example, basically functions as the city’s de-facto logo. Jørn Utzon, a relatively unknown Danish architect, defeated dozens of celebrity architecture firms with his breezy design, which was originally submitted as part of an international design competition.
Sydney Opera House, Sydney
Principle 07- Experiment
There’s no hard and fast rule that conveys an artist must choose a certain style and stick with it. Some of the most thought-provoking creative thinkers have successfully made abrupt shifts in the past. One excellent example would be that of Frank Gehry.
While he’d lately become known for flamboyant, almost painterly masterstrokes like the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, his earlier work was often quite different.
Guggenheim, Bilbao
Principle 08- Be Mindful of your Environment
This principle is pretty straightforward. Architecture always enters a pre existing environment, and in turn affects its environment through energy consumption, among other things. Some of the best architects of the past century have put these concerns in the foreground.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1935 masterpiece, Falling Water, is a rural home built into a hillside without disturbing its surroundings — including a waterfall that runs under it.
Falling Water, Pennsylvania
Principle 09- Repurpose
Designers should always look at transforming the context they have inherited or otherwise been given, rather than simply tearing down and starting fresh.
As of just a few years ago, New York City’s Highline Park was an abandoned rail line overgrown with weeds and shrubbery, slated for demolition. But with the help of a landscape architecture firm and an architecture firm, it has been converted into an immensely popular above-ground park.
The Highline, New York City
Principle 10- Make New and Old Coexist
Hearst corporation wanted to build a skyscraper at its midtown Manhattan site, but did not want to lose the beautiful, historic façade of its former building. Architecture firm Foster + Partners promised to let them have it both ways: they gutted the old building while preserving the façade, and essentially just plopped a shiny new tower right into the middle of it.
Hearst Tower, New York City
The next time you feel lost and need some quick brainstorming, simply go through this list and think about the specifications of your design. Your outlook will have completely changed. Till then, Happy Designing!
