Scott Davis
2006-12-06, 06:22 PM
Santiago Students:
You are all doing some really nice things with your designs that you are posting. I would like to make a suggestion to all of you as a general comment of things that I've noticed. Each design this far seems to have started with an exercise of laying out the floorplan of a house, and then you have picked an architectural style and tried to "apply" it to your house. Remember that an Architectural Style is not just an expression of decoration. It's not as simple as adding some detailing or ornamentation to a house.
Architectural Styles are holistic in a project. Elements carry throughout the design, inside and out. For example (and I'm not picking on any particular project, just citing examples) Prairie style houses often had a large "great room' at their centers with a grand fireplace that was the gathering spot in the house, as well as the low-slug roofs and spaces that opened up to the outside. Spanish Style houses often were "courtyard" style where an outdoor courtyard would define the center of the house, and all the rooms surrounded the courtyard.
As others have suggested, look in books or the internet for examples, but look beyond just the "exterior look" of the house and into the plans, the spaces, the hierarchy of elements, the colors, the textures, the materials, etc. that all help to "define" the architectural style.
Keep up the great work! You all are getting a great jump on your professions...learning Revit will prove to be very valuable to each of you as you begin to look for jobs in the architectual field.
You are all doing some really nice things with your designs that you are posting. I would like to make a suggestion to all of you as a general comment of things that I've noticed. Each design this far seems to have started with an exercise of laying out the floorplan of a house, and then you have picked an architectural style and tried to "apply" it to your house. Remember that an Architectural Style is not just an expression of decoration. It's not as simple as adding some detailing or ornamentation to a house.
Architectural Styles are holistic in a project. Elements carry throughout the design, inside and out. For example (and I'm not picking on any particular project, just citing examples) Prairie style houses often had a large "great room' at their centers with a grand fireplace that was the gathering spot in the house, as well as the low-slug roofs and spaces that opened up to the outside. Spanish Style houses often were "courtyard" style where an outdoor courtyard would define the center of the house, and all the rooms surrounded the courtyard.
As others have suggested, look in books or the internet for examples, but look beyond just the "exterior look" of the house and into the plans, the spaces, the hierarchy of elements, the colors, the textures, the materials, etc. that all help to "define" the architectural style.
Keep up the great work! You all are getting a great jump on your professions...learning Revit will prove to be very valuable to each of you as you begin to look for jobs in the architectual field.