101 Things I Learned at Architecture School
blogLast month’s UX Book Club discussed Matthew Frederick’s 101 Things I Learned at Architecture School, a beautifully illustrated little hardback full of gnomic advice for architects. It has been popularised in the UX community via Luke Wroblewski’s post about it.
Anyhow, this is what I learned from it:
- Draw lines clearly (don’t be sketchy, be fluid)
- Consider ‘Ground’ space (negative space) as being where movement takes place
- Positive space is where people tend to dwell (a quadrangle), delimited by solid objects
- Sense of place is important
- Contrast on arrival – give people a sense of arrival
- Accommodate experience and intent
- Plan space for functional requirements first
- The more specific a design idea, the greater its appeal
- Engineers concerned with physical things themselves, Architects concerned with human interface.
- The central idea (parti) should infuse the dna of the design
- Justify design decisions in at least two ways
- Start with general and move towards the specific
- Architect should know something about everything, engineer everything about something
- Reinforce parti with details
- Adapt big idea with new information
- Design has to be an integrated whole not just good ideas
- Understand design problems before starting
- Don’t just use old solutions, look to the new
- Don’t be egocentric
- Ideas are conditional/adaptable
- Ask ‘what if’ even when you’ve decided
- Design grows naturally, logically, and poetically out of conditions
- Develop a good process
- Think about thinking (meta thinking)
- Use counterpoint for emphasis
- Symmetry = power, firmness, authority, permanence (sometimes boring)
- There’s simplicity (child), complexity (adult) and informed simplicity (designer)
- Give your idea a name, even if it is silly
- Just do something
- Limitations are good
- Accessibility should be considered immediately, not as an afterthought
- Think about human universals, like our search for purpose and meaning
- What is the zeitgeist? (you will always embody it anyway)
- Oddities and imperfections humanize a design
- Asymmetrical balance is more interesting
- Beauty = harmony of all elements not the appearance of each of the elements