Application of Geometry in The Design Process
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1. Introduction
You have to be very practical in measuring, knowing for this the part that
concerns Arithmetic and Geometry, to measure the works and reduce the
bodies according to their quality, due to the great difference that is offered in the
factories, since not knowing this with great "Intelligence cannot know what is
necessary to adjust the truth..."
(Juan Gómez de Mora, Senior Master and Layout of the royal works in a writing
addressed to the board on the occasion of the vacancy of Senior Surveyor of
the works of the Alcázar of Madrid, 17th century) (1)
Geometry is a tool that allows two-dimensional graphic operations through
which three-dimensional spatial forms can be constructed and controlled.
It plays an important role in the definition of form in the field of architecture in
the different phases of the design process, from ideation to construction.
From the point of view of architectural ideation, different objectives can be
identified (2):
Serve as a generating principle and frame of reference, an instrument to
support and control the project idea;
Serve as an ordered substrate or general organizational guideline for the global
configuration of the architectural object within a system of elements and
relationships in which geometry guarantees, sustains and demonstrates the
level of order based on dimensional guidelines (regulatory layouts, grids, of
proportions, etc.) and articulators (symmetries, rhythms, etc.) (3).
There is a large body of widely used and versatile formal schemes from a
geometric point of view that set in motion compositional mechanisms and
establish or are supported by different specific proportional systems. (4)
Ludovico Quaroni points out in his now classic "architecture lessons" the need
to have a graphic projection instrument that, as a whole, he affirms, can be
traced back to geometry and that can be called geometry: a geometry of
"architectural design", in the double aspect of invention-projection (ideation) and
graphic operation (analysis) for the construction and communication of the
invention itself. (5)
(1) Cited in: GARCIA MORALES, Mª Victoria, The craft of building: origin of
professions. The surveyor in the 17th century. Culture Commission of the
COAAT of Madrid, 1990, p. 170.
(2) OTXOTORENA, Juan M., the construction of form, ETSA Universidad de
Navarra, Pamplona, 1999, p. 65.
(3) ARAUJO, Ignacio, The architectural form, Ediciones Universidad de
Navarra, Pamplona, 1976, pp. 95 et seq.
(4) OTXOTORENA, Juan M., Ibidem, p. 65
(5) QUARONI, Ludovico, Designing a building. Eight architecture lessons,
Xarait, Barcelona, 1980, p. 134.
Geometry would therefore be for this author the "instrument that serves us to
delimit, cut, specify and shape space, the base material of architecture." We will
carry out a brief analysis of the existing relationships between geometry and
architecture and the role of the latter as an instrument of projection and
configuration of an order on which to structure the architectural project.
2. GEOMETRY AND ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN "
Primitive man has stopped his chariot, he decides that this will be his soil.
Choose a clearing, cut down the trees that are too close, level the surrounding
terrain, open the path that will join you with the river or with the tribe you have
just left. He plants the stakes that will support his tent and surrounds it with a
palisade, in which he puts a gate. The path is as straight as your tools, your
arms and your time allow. Your tent poles form a square, hexagon or octagon.
The palisade forms a rectangle whose four angles are equal and right. The door
of the hut opens in the axis of the fence and the gate of the fence is in front of
the door of the hut. [...] There is no primitive man, there are primitive means.
The idea is constant and powerful from the very beginning."
Le Corbusier, Towards an Architecture, Poseidon, 1997, p. 53.
The cited text by Le Corbusier reveals to us as an evident fact the perception of
the importance that geometry plays in architecture from its most remote
beginnings to the present day.
Professor Simón
Unwin in his
didactic work
"Analysis of
architecture" dedicates a chapter of it to the relationships between geometry
and architecture (6) and in it he points out that the analysis of the use of
geometry in architecture can be carried out in based on the criteria of
willingness to change and control (domination) or attitude of acceptance and
receptivity (submission), which are the different postures of interaction with the
world that the designer can adopt regarding the different aspects involved in the
project.
Thus we would have ways of using geometry that arise from the conditions of
being ("geometries of being"), and others that are imposed or superimposed on
the world ("ideal" geometries).
3. THE GEOMETRIES OF REALITY OR "BEING"
First of all, the word geometry suggests the presence of abstract concepts
(circles, squares, triangles, pyramids, cones, spheres, diameters, radii, etc.) that
play an important role in architecture and belong to the category of ideal
geometries. , in such a way that its "perfection" can be imposed on the physical
fabric of the world as a means of identifying the place.
But we cannot forget that geometry can also arise from our relationship with the
world, in such a way that the geometries "of being" are inherent to the
identification of places.
In this sense, the concept coined by Unwin of "circle of presence" (7) is
interesting, which consists of the interrelation that occurs between different
bodies by the mere fact of existing and that contributes to their own
identification 1 of the place.
The widest of these circles would be the visual one (distance from which an
object is visible), and it could widen to the horizon or be limited by a certain
element such as a forest or a wall.
Another variable that would define these circles of presence would be the sound
and also any factor related to its perception through the different senses (this
"sensoriality" would define the so-called soft elements of architecture), the
smaller circle being the one related to the tactile aspects (intimate circle).
The circle of presence intermediate between the visual and the tactile would be
the most difficult to determine and is the one that delimits the place of the body,
the one that makes its "presence" manifest (circle of place).
. The task of architecture has traditionally been to affirm, define, widen, shape
or control the characteristics of these circles. (8)
An interesting characteristic to highlight is that these circles are rarely perfect,
being conditioned by the references of the place and the topography, and by the
superposition and interference of the circles of presence of the various bodies
and objects that relate to each other.
Plan of the Acropolis of Athens
The manipulation of place circles by architecture has been carried out since
Antiquity by various methods.
The conception of space in
classical Athens with the
example of the Acropolis
complex and the relationships
established between the sacred
site and the topography of the
hill, as well as the relationships
generated between the two
important statues of the goddess
Athena, They illustrate the means used to articulate the role of circles of
presence in architecture.
Reconstructed view of the Acropolis
A second concept to consider within the geometries "of being" would be that of
visual axes, which is based on the fascination that human beings experience by
seeing in a straight line. This
translates into a fascination with
visual axes that is evident in
architecture.
Tower of Hercules Sculpture
Park, A Coruña
Any alignment of three or more
objects (one of them being our
own eye) takes on a peculiar meaning. Alignments give meaning to both the
distant object and the observer and imply a line of contact - an axis - between
the observer and the distant object, which provokes a feeling of recognition of
the link.
If architecture is considered as
identification of the place, a
visual axis establishes contact
between places, being an
instrument to connect places
with the environment, defining
them as elements of a matrix
centered on certain singular
elements, for example, sacred places.
The concept of route also belongs to this area of the geometry "of being." The
routes are considered straight unless there is the presence of some "force" that
deviates them. Architecture, by organizing the world into places, establishes
itineraries that are integrated into a sequential experience.
LE CORBUSIER, Center for Visual Arts, Cambridge, (Mass.), USA
The circulation axes are usually related, although not always, to the visual axes.
Thus, a route can consolidate or reinforce an axis by aligning the itinerary and
visual axis (for example, the nave of a church), but in other cases the route
deviates from the visual axis, departing from the straight line.
Other times, the visual axes lack
an obvious objective, producing
sensations of mystery that help
increase the interest of the
architectural experience due to the
interrelation between visual and
passage axes.
Another element inherent to our relationship with the world around us is the
imperative need to compare the information received by the senses with a
certain reference element.
Measurement, which is at the very origin
of the term geometry (geo: earth, metron:
measurement), is an essential aspect for
the development of life. We measure the
world around us constantly, with our own
body being the most immediate
measurement tool.
We establish the scale of an architecture
by comparing it with that of human beings
and in relation to their bodies in motion. We establish the size of the buildings
we use, but at the same time the buildings determine the size (scale) of the life
that takes place inside them.
Vitrubian Man. Leonardo da Vinci
The scheme of the Vitruvian Man, developed by Leonardo at the end of the 15th
century to describe the system of proportions of the ideal human body,
suggests that it conforms to
geometric proportions, as well as
the linking of the measurements of
the human body to those of nature
and of the universe.
Le Corbusier. Modular
In more recent times, the developments of Le Corbusier that gave rise to the
Modulor system or the experiences of Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus, in
which the human body in movement measures the world and projects its
measurement to the space around it, would be examples of this. geometric
vision of man in his relationship with
space.
Oskar SCHLEMMER, Egocentric
Spatial Delineation
Another important consideration in man's relationship with his environment is
the existence of a set of six directions defined by the human body that,
basically, would coincide with the projection directions of conventional
representation systems.
These six directions (up, down, front, back, left and right) condition our
relationship with the world and condition our perception of architecture, also
intervening in the project to which they provide a matrix (box).
When we face a space, the agreement between the two sets of axes and
centers (that of the user and that of the space in which it is located) can become
a powerful identifying element of the place, especially when the architecture
establishes a "center" that the person (or a significant element) can occupy.
Thus, the predominance of one of the directions (directionality) appears, which
can be reinforced through the combination of itineraries, visual axes, etc.
The six directions are present in the natural world as an expression of physical
reality (sky, earth, cardinal points) and the cycles of the movements of the stars.
foundation of the Roman city. choice of origin, crossing point between
cardo and decumans
Thus, a duality of axes appears that influence the orientation of architectures
built by man: terrestrial axes and anthropomorphic axes, making the geometry
of buildings an intermediary between human beings and their situation in the
world. Geometry thus becomes a kind of primary interface that allows man to
perform his function of inhabiting the world ("...poetically, man inhabits..."
Holderlin would say). This geometry of axes and centers can be seen on three
levels: - a first anthropological level, of the human being - a second architectural
level - a third natural or environmental level The second level, the places
created through architecture acts as a mediator between the other two.
Architecture thus also becomes a secondary interface that allows us to relate to
the natural and cultural environment.
We must also consider the geometry of social interaction between people or
social geometry. It is a geometry that superimposes the space in which it is
located. As a mechanism for identifying
the place, it would be architecture, but
since it is an interaction between people,
its existence is ephemeral. However,
architecture can respond to social
geometries, order them, and make its
physical definition permanent (tertiary
interface).
Another aspect to consider, of great
relevance in the field of construction,
would be the so-called manufacturing or
constructive geometry, which is that
which is derived from the way the objects are manufactured. Thus the circular
shape of a vase depends on having been molded on a potter's wheel and would
be the result of a circular rotational movement.
In construction, the materials and the way they are assembled can impose or
suggest a geometry. This manufacturing or constructive geometry and social
geometry can, in turn, have a reciprocal influence.
Social geometry conditions the measurements and distribution of spaces, but
the shapes of these spaces are also conditioned by the available materials and
their intrinsic qualities or the available construction technologies. This is clearly
seen in the case of traditional or vernacular architecture, the so-called
"anonymous architecture" or "architecture without architects" from which we can
extract so many contemporary teachings from the point of view of constructive
and ecological rationality.
4. THE IDEAL GEOMETRIES
The circle and the square can arise from
social geometry (gathering of individuals)
or from constructive geometry (brick
construction) but they are also abstract
figures that respond to elementary
geometric concepts. They are also
attributed aesthetic or symbolic
components (or both), being used in some cases to provide the architectural
work with a discipline independent of the various geometries of reality.
This ideal geometry includes, in addition to the elementary shapes and their
three-dimensional derivatives, special proportions, such as the simple
relationships 1:2, 1:3, 2:3, or more complex ones such as 1: or the so-called
golden section? = 1: 1,618. (9)
Rudolf Wittkower in his work Architecture in the Age of Humanism (1952)
explores the uses that Renaissance architects made of ideal geometric figures
and relationships and analyzes the reasons that led them to believe in the
power of such figures and proportions.
One of the fundamental arguments was that, for them, natural creations - such
as the proportions of the human body, the relationships between the planets or
the intervals of musical harmony - obeyed geometric relationships, and
therefore the works of architecture had to be projected using perfect figures and
harmonic mathematical proportions.
The use of geometry thus becomes the ideal means to achieve the degree of
perfection to which the theorists of Renaissance humanism aspired,
Through this ideal geometry as a means of imposing order on the world,
Renaissance architects made use of "perfect" figures and geometric proportions
in their buildings.
Scheme of the facade of S. Maria Novella, Florence
Wittkower's diagrams of the geometric composition of the façade of the church
of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, designed by Lean Battista Alberti and built
in the 15th century, are a good example of this. The composition of the
building's façade is modulated from the square, regardless of the manufacturing
geometry of the building, this geometry
appearing superimposed on the main façade as
a filter.
Many architects have designed buildings whose
floor plans were inscribed in perfect squares.
This type of floor plan conceptually differs from
the composition of a façade as a two-
dimensional matrix of squares, in which the third dimension and even the fourth
dimension intervene: time.
The designer looks for ideas that help him give shape to his work and direction
to his project, and among them, geometric ones are among the most seductive.
From this point of view, the idea of projecting inside a square is easy to grasp
and although it is initially presented as a restriction, it is susceptible to infinite
variations. This solution, rare in ancient architecture (except for the example of
the Egyptian pyramid) and medieval architecture (more inclined towards "ad
triangularum" construction), is instead part of the repertoire of Renaissance
architecture.
As an example of the choice of the square as the generating figure of the plan,
the famous Villa Rotonda, designed by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio, is
presented as paradigmatic. In it the four main directions converge at one point,
the center of the circular hall that occupies the core of the floor plan and whose
shape the villa owes its name.
Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotonda
The plan is not made up of a single square, but is made up of five concentric
squares whose size is determined by the radius of the circle circumscribed by
the square immediately below. The smallest circle is that of the rotunda itself
and each square (except the second smallest) determines the position of some
important element of the building. The largest square fixes the position of the
start of the stairs that ascend to the four porticos of the facades, while their
length is determined by the square immediately below and the intermediate
square defines the position of the four facades of the villa. Regarding the
consideration of three-dimensionality, the section of the Villa Rotonda is also
obtained from the combination of various circles and squares, although in a way
not as clear as in the case of the plan.
Mario BOTTA, Single-family home in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland
There are countless examples of the use of simple geometric figures as the
basis of architectural design. Architects
like Mario Botta base most of their projects
on the composition of squares and circles,
cubes and cylinders.
Mario BOTTA, Single-family home in
Stabio, Switzerland
This type of action is combined with the
use of the rectangle based on the golden section to decide and organize the
distribution of the architectural organism in plan.
It thus collects the modern heritage of Le Corbusier who used the golden rule
to provide geometric coherence to his works. Already in his work Towards an
Architecture (1927) he illustrates his geometric analyzes of known buildings and
the regulatory geometric layouts on which he had based some of his projects.
Not only did he use the golden section, and sometimes its "regulating layouts"
(tracés regulateurs), but he also used complicated plots of lines in which the
geometry was superimposed on the elevation of the house like a filter, collecting
the Renaissance heritage. studied by Wittkower.
LE CORBUSIER, Villa Stein, Garches
Finally, we should point out the contemporary
processes that (with the invaluable help of digital technology) lead to the use of
complex and overlapping geometries.
The use of ideal geometries to confer rationality
or coherence to floor plans in 20th century
architecture has led to experimentation with
complex organizations in which geometric
superposition phenomena occur.
Some of the house projects by the American
architect Richard Meier respond to a complex
interrelation of orthogonal geometries that
determine the spaces of the home, through turns
and geometric operations based on diagonals
and the complex matrices of lines created by the
geometry of rectangles.
We would be looking at the use of geometry as the structure of the project, a
hybrid of what Alberti and Palladio did. Geometry is used to suggest formal and,
perhaps, aesthetic identity. With his overlapping geometries, Meier adds an
additional dimension, complexity, to the quality of the spaces that are created.
In this process we would arrive at the experimentations of the so-called
architectural neo-avant-garde in which Peter Eisenman would be the initiator of
this path in which the creation process will be important in which the form will
explain how it has developed, which can only be fully expressed. through
representation ("explanatory" geometry vs. "descriptive" geometry)?
The line will continue with a series of bolder architectural positions that will
emerge in the seventies, represented by architects such as Bernard Tschumi,
Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid, to which we should add the more
contemporary proposals of Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Coop Himmelb.
(l)au.
LEBBEUS WOODS, "The Zagreb Free Zone", Drawing,
A characteristic of the current moment is the particular attention paid to formal
complexity based on the topological definition of curvilinear or broken surfaces
as opposed to the geometric definition of the orthogonal grid or the repetition of
uniform frames.
These topologies are easily mastered through NURBS surfaces (Non-Uniform
B-type Splines curves), isomorphic poly surfaces, hypersurfaces, etc., whose
promoters are, among others, Greg Lynn, Marcos Novak, Kas Oosterhuis, Mark
Goulthorpe, Bernard Cache , etc. (1 O)
Given this new technological fascination
with formal complexity, perhaps we should
remember here the wise reflection of
Ludovíco Quaroni who points out in his
"lessons" the dangers and risks of
geometry in the activity of architectural
ideation:
"During project development, research
tends to construct the "spaces" that represent the goal of the work; but
inevitably, during the often complex graphic operations necessary to achieve
that final objective, it can be verified, as is often the case, It verifies that the
geometric means of the design is mixed and confused, until it replaces it, with
the geometric end of the design process. We must be very careful that this does
not happen and it is necessary for the architect to be very careful not to allow
himself to be enslaved by the deep fascination of geometry in itself, which is
something different from architecture." (11)
5. THE CONTROL OF THE FORM "
Japanese zen calligraphic
drawing
Geometry is motionless music."
Goethe The reception of the
architectural message is based on
the recognisability of the forms,
which will be more perceptible and recognizable the more characteristic and
unmistakable they are, that is, the more simple and regular. Furthermore,
geometric figures generate instinctive and immediate symbolic references in
man.
The square (and its three-dimensional
extension, the cube) gives the idea of
stability; The circle (sphere) leads us to
the idea of continuity, movement,
eternity, perfection; The equilateral
triangle (tetrahedron) is linked to the
idea of energy, instability, although it
may have other associated meanings as we will see later.
The "regular" deformations of the base figures (rectangles, ellipses, non-
equilateral triangles) represent variations with which complex architectural
systems are configured in which several of these figures intervene
simultaneously.
Frank Lloyd Wright made frequent use of
combinations of geometric systems and
double geometries in his compositions:
square and circle, rectangle and right
triangle with 60º and 30º (bevel), square
and hexagon, rectangle and equilateral
triangle, etc.
Frank Lloyd WRIGHT, Russell Krauss House, Kirkwood, Missouri.
The hexagon had been applied to architecture in few examples, and always in
emblematic buildings built on a wall that followed the shape of a single regular
hexagonal polygon. Wright's use of it is very different, since the module is a
small unit that allows open and flexible floor plans, where the rigidity of the
polygon is lost to only preserve the angles of 60º and 120º .
Frank Lloyd Wright, HC Price Company Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
The geometry of the hexagon - by the way, a geometry of inert matter and not
of organic matter, as Professor Joaquim ESPAÑOL points out in his recent work
The fragile order of architecture -, despite its possibilities of forming flat
networks, is noticeably more rigid than that of the right angle, and tends to be
exclusive and not inclusive. (13)
Sometimes for certain architectures it has been desired to choose a "pure" form
with which to give strength to a reality-myth such as, for example, death. Thus a
funerary architecture of conical mounds, pyramids, etc. emerges.
6. CONCLUSION
LE CORBUSIER, Growth scheme of the Museum of Contemporary Art
We will conclude this brief reflection on the role of geometry by quoting again
the words of Ludovico Quaroni (14) when he summarizes its function, stating
that it constitutes for the architect a basis and a disciplinary means, an
indispensable instrument in the "treatment" of the forms that enter into the
"composition" of the spaces. This relationship between geometry and
architecture is structured from three points of view: - as a system of real forms
resulting from the spaces and configurations of the building, endowed with
symbolic and psychological meanings as a complex graphic-mathematical
system used to materialize on paper ( nowadays support of any type, mostly
digital) the defining geometry of the spaces and configurations of the building as
well as the self-communication necessary for the continuous control of the
project by the architect - as a graphic means to transmit and communicate the
project idea and the architectural structure of the building in any of the phases
of the process from ideation to final construction.
During this process, the geometric medium of the design is often mixed and
confused, until it replaces it, with the geometric end of the design process.
Quaroni points out the need to avoid falling into the networks of the deep
fascination that geometry in itself exerts but that is configured as something
different from architecture itself.
The possibilities offered by new digital technologies when it comes to
representing and materializing the complex geometries that we have referred to
in another section of this article, confirm the validity of these considerations that
invite the technician to a serene reflection far from mere technological boasts. -
digital in which geometry becomes a means and not an end.
Source of information.
