CONCEPTS

Definitions of CONCEPT
 something thought or imagined

 broad principle affecting perception and

behavior

 understanding or grasp

 way of doing or perceiving something

What is concept?
 A concept is your initial idea.
 A concept is the bases of your work.
 A guiding general principle.
 It is the backbone of your product.
 It is what your product will rely on.
 It is the leading line to all your other lines, the leader
for all your other ideas & inputs.
 It is a solution to your problem.
 It is a synonym that explain your design.

 It is not a literal look; but a literal function

or activity
Why do you need concepts?
 Because it is a sense of reasoning.
 To frame some general design approach.
 To solve a problem during a design process.
 To put in words or familiarize how a design solves a
problem or what the design uses to make the final
product.
Again, not by its exact looks but by the general idea of
how it looks or how the concept works.
How do you come up with a
concept?
1. Clearly know what your design is about and suggest all the
programs that will be incorporated

2. Research and go deep into all the stakes your design: context,
environmental factors, meaning of the design for the
neighborhood or city etc

3. Identify the problem that the architectural design intends to

solve (it might not be a problem but a representation of an idea
magnification of some quality)

4. Devise the solution as an idea

5. Make ideological relation to already known things in all aspects of

life that seem to solve the same type of problem in their own
contexts that you can use in your design synthesis.
How do you use a concept?
1. Play with synonyms for you to have a vast understanding of
the word or thing.

2. Understand how the phenomena you chose for a concept

idea works, what its elements are and why it is needed.

3. Identify the major characters that links your concept and

design issue.

4. Take parts or qualities that you think will solve your design
problem and incorporate it in your design holistically in an
abstract way.
5. Try to make more options on how to use your concept for
better ways to solve the problem,
-use models and sketchs.
Examples…
Simmons Hall student residence at MIT.
“POROSITY”

 Steven Holl (2000) recalls: “Our project

began by rejecting an urban plan that called
for a wall of brick buildings of a particular
‘Boston type’. Instead, we argued for urban
porosity”.
 Simmons Hall student residence at MIT.
Architect: Steven Holl
 “POROSITY”
 Pore (from Greek πόρος) means “a minute opening”.
 In biology and in medicine porosity is defined as: “the
attribute of an organic body to have a large number of small
openings and passages that allow matter to pass through”.

 Imported from biology, medicine and organic chemistry

to transform a “porous” morphology for Simmons Hall,

 Accordingly, the overall building mass of Simmons Hall

was designed to have five large scale recesses, while a
system of vertical cavities creates vertical porosity
allowing light and air to circulate. Moreover, the building
facades have a large number of operable sieve-like
windows.
 “horizontal”, “vertical”, “diagonal” and “overall” porosity
alternatives, characterized by various types and degrees of
“permeability”.

“Sponge”
example to implement what was called “overall urban
porosity”.
Concept applications
Sketches and models
 Guggenheim Museum
Architect: Frank Gehry

•Symbol of the city Bilbao in Spain.

•Exhibition of contemporary art
•Played a key role in revitalization and transformation of the area.
Guggenheim Museum
Gulelea Botanical Garden
Architect: Aba Architects
 Gulele Botanical Garden
• Land filled with Eucalyptus trees
• they wanted to take away all those threes
and wanted to revive the land with a botanic
garden.
• wanted to leave a part of the eucalyptus tree
so they suggested to represent it in the
building.

•Concept: Eucalyptus tree

• the buildings
represent the fallen
leaves under the
tress at random
positioning but
connect them with
flow that comes
from the veins of the
leaves.
 Martyrs Memorial Museum
Architect: Fasil Giorgis

• Form representing the times terror in the city especially for boys who used to be
taken to war unwillingly.
• Concept – the life of a boy