Architecture is a combination of art and mathematics (engineering). Feeding on both sides, which are generally opposites, makes architecture interesting for many people. These assumptions about architecture are correct at some point. Because an architect can get his inspiration from many different places, it should also be.
For this reason, in the first years of architectural education, students intensively work on abstract works. An engineer, builder, or contractor can master all the building details, just like an architect. However, architecture is not just technical drawing.
Conceptual Thinking
An architect has a vision that appeared in his mind when he started the project. It is this prediction that motivates the designer to start work and continue the design. This prediction is not the finished project. Instead, it is an abstract reflection of the last image of the work in hand.
The designer takes the project, examines it, and digests it slowly. There are demands to meet, certain limits, and, of course, problems to solve. Something starts to come to life after he has a general command of the work’s tangible side.
As some certain design characters and small details of the result come together, a light shines in the designer’s mind. Here it is decided what it should feel like when the work ends. As long as space or product’s atmosphere is in the architect’s mind, he will also have motivation for design.
So, how does an architect learn about this process, which you cannot even describe exactly?
It is the ability of abstract thinking that distinguishes architects from other professions in the construction industry and places them at a designer’s point. They learn to base their designs on conceptual grounds in the early years of school. When an architect starts a project, the first thing he does is never to create the four walls. Each project has four walls, windows, doors, and cabinets. The important thing is to reconstruct these elements worldwide to create a new experience for the user.
Taking Lessons From the Past
Learning from the past is a tactic that works well both in professional and personal life. But when it comes to the design process, an architect has to do it literally. Because every designer, whether in the architectural sector or not, has to investigate the idea in his mind. Before revealing and promoting the final product, it is essential to do a useful literature review, especially for the designer’s image.
After all, people can have similar ideas. And an idea that excites you very much today may be brought to life a century ago.
Understanding the Process
An architect must absorb the past while learning from it. With every point, it should feed on history and internalize ideas. What we mean here is not to be stuck in the past while creating the design character.
Architecture is, after all, a cultural accumulation. Over the centuries, people’s ideas have come to life in architecture just as they came to life in painting or sculpture. In other words, a building is not just about stone walls, openings, and decorations. These should not be the only ones that concern an architect. Any architect needs to know how the great architects of the past viewed their profession because of the architectural ideas of someone who lived a long time before you could lead to developing a brand new understanding of design in you. Architecture has developed in this way until today.
The way architects think, of course, cannot be limited to these headings alone. Every designer certainly has a unique process. However, these titles can guide at least one architect candidate at the beginning of the profession. Having the features in the titles mentioned above does not guarantee designs that have never been seen before. But it can help you gain confidence in the profession.