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Summary
Theories are basically a medium of informing the people about a particular thing written by
a person about which he/she has derived from his own experiences and results into
notional ideas, which are made so as to transform the views of the reader about various
things in the world.
Architects use these theories in their design knowingly or unknowingly, not just because
their design must show how good they understand the application of their subject across
the globe but also because architecture is all about discovering new forms which are not
defined but evolved through the course of various experiences in life and does not means
designing in the ritual pattern.
After stating the above Hillier has then raised a question in this article as to what are these
architectural theories like are these hypothetical theories which are not exactly related to
architecture and are misleading us or do these theories actually make some sense and are
specific to architecture which show us some direction in which we need to proceed or
whether these theories are just random theories which are forced fully applied in
architecture.
To the above stated question Hillier says that architectural theories do exist but these are
not found in the views of various intellects but it is something which we conclude from our
own experiences and practical applications which then lead us to the answers of our
questions while we are designing something. He then adds that the only way to understand
what is architecture theory is by understanding all the aspects of architecture properly and
then processing it and not just by getting influenced by something very fascinating.
According to him architects and builders use their preconceived notions in creating built
space and so he wants to tell them that they can create much better built spaces which
relate to its use and helps in shaping forms and can also prove the preconceived
notions/ideas wrong. He adds that such theories may challenge the architect but these are
not to act as barriers but to give everyone the equal set of ideas to look at and broaden their
horizon of views .
Hiller then says that first we should understand the meaning attached to architecture. He
refers to architecture both as an activity (process and various stages of designing a
building) and a thing (application in various forms ), architecture is not just about buildings
it is a vast field and one can relate anything to architecture as it is a process of designing a
thing which is a mixture of science and arts. He further adds that we need to find out
THEORY OF DESIGN
ASSIGNMENT I
TOPIC STUDY OF SPECIFICALLY ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
BY BILL HILLIER
PROGRAM B.ARCH
BATCH 2013 - 2018