Conceptual Design

and Diagrams

Christiane M Herr

Course Overview
0: Introduction Course
1: Introduction Diagrams and Conceptual Design
2: A Brief History of Diagrams
3: Explanatory Diagrams
4: Generative Diagrams
5+6: Digital Diagrams
7: Diagram Architecture
8: Architectural Design Without Diagrams
9: Review & Summary
10: mapping and site analysis quick introduction
10-14: diagram-based conceptual design project
15: presentation of conceptual design projects

OMA: Museum Plaza

Diagram Architecture
What is it?

Diagram

Architecture

diagrams for generating

architectural ideas

OCEAN Michael Hensel

Diagram Architecture
What is it?

Diagram

Architecture

diagrams for explaining architectural ideas

Diagram to Architecture
Diagrams are abstract. To become architecture, they are translated into form.

Conceptual Design Process:

Separation of Idea and Form

OMA:
Seattle Public Library:
Programme driven design

Diagrams Become Architecture

Translating into plain form

OMA:
Seattle Public Library:
Data driven design

Diagrams Become Architecture

rational cause and effect translation: the diagram is the architecture

OMA:
Seattle Public Library

Diagrams Become Architecture

the diagram is the architecture, the diagram is a translation of the brief

OMA: Museum Plaza

Diagram Architecture
What is it?

Diagram ? Architecture
Diagram
Architecture
Form merges with diagram

Diagram to Architecture
Need for translation process?

??

Is it a diagram? Is it architecture?
Suspending translation

?
?

Extending the Conceptual Design Process:

No Separation of Idea and Form

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
21 st century museum
Kanazawa, Japan

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
21 st century museum
Kanazawa, Japan

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
New Museum of Contemporary Art
New York

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
Glass Pavilion
Toledo Museum of Art

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
Rolex Learning Centre

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Shigeru Ban
Curtain Wall House

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Toyo Ito
Sendai Mediatheque
Sendai, Japan

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Toyo Ito
Sendai Mediatheque
Sendai, Japan

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Toyo Ito
Sendai Mediatheque
Sendai, Japan

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Junya Ishigami

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
Serpentine Pavilion

Diagram Architecture
Architecture of Thinness

Sejima & Nish izawa

(SANAA):
Barcelona Pavilion: Installation

Diagram Architecture
Architecture of Thinness

Superflat
Art and Architecture of Thinness

Ryue Nishizawa:
Historically, architects must relate to aspects of the surroundings, but that has always focused on real
things such as material or shape. I think that today, almost half of our daily life is occupied by information
society, and although information society is invisible, I think that architecture must have some sort of
relationship with such a society. And I don't know what type of answer there might be, but I think that
there must be some intersecting possibilities for change.
I: Is there a relationship between the information society and the idea of thinness?
Kazuyo Sejima:
Yes there is, but I don't know exactly how. In order to think about the information society there seems to be
a relationship to the idea of dimension or the effect of the mass or the volume on us. But it also relates to
the reflective quality of glass as well, as opposed to its transparent quality.

Takashi Murakami
Rin Nadeshico

Superflat
Art and Architecture of Thinness

Superflat: art movement founded by Takashi Murakami

Superflat is a forthright embrace of a non-ideological future of small things of desire and fascination

Chiho Aoshima

Superflat
Art and Architecture of Thinness

Diagram Architecture
Suspending translation

Ito and Sejima approach the discourse of the diagram in a way that goes beyond the confines of its dualistic
constructions. With no regret, Sejima confronts the fact that her architectural drawings have become
diagrams.
When the diagram is approached as the necessary product of an idea, it perpetrates a betrayal. For the
moment the diagram is materialized, it is unable to keep the promises of its originating program. Subjects
constantly see, do, and say things unpronounced in the program, using the architecturla instruments for
purposes contrary to its 'idea'.
Hyungmin Pai, Discourse of the Diagram

MAD architects:
Contemporary Chinatown

Diagram Architecture
Reading form as diagram

MAD architects:
Contemporary Chinatown

Diagram Architecture
Reading form as diagram

Diagram Architecture
Suspending Translation

Concept > Diagram > Architecture

Diagram
Architecture
All form can be read as diagram!

Brief for design project:

Create a (conceptual) design proposal for

The NCKU university campus as a
garden for cultivating minds
1. Site analysis
2. Concept proposal