Lecture 05 | toad

FORM AND FUNCTION

Sullivan said before, :

"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.

and also function follows form (usually this kind of building have a very unique form and shape, to make it as an iconic building in the area. Developer is more concerned about the uniqueness of the building.)

However, for non-big consortium, they can also change the relationship between function and form by minimal cost by renovate / rebuild partly of the existing building, and implement a brand new function to it. By doing this, it not only saving the cost that has to be spent originally, and also minimized building material wastage, and less time consuming, is more economical.

Form should be designed base on the function of the building itself. And for me, the very first criteria that a good architecture need to fulfil with is to ensure it has an aesthetic appearance. But well, to design a building with aesthetic, exuberance façade is not hard; but to design a building with eye-catching form and shape, and yet, internal spaces can be fuliutilized without the appearance of dead space, (minimum of unfriendly-used spaces), is extraordinarily challenging.

Designing a building with form follow function, we really need to have a deep study about the “function” that talking about. Activities that are possible will run in the building need to be take into the consideration while doing the designing stage. Sometimes, it is also guidelines for us to design the building too. Form follow function ensures that every inch of the spaces will be fuliutized and is well designed and friendly used for every activity carries in ever particular spaces.

No doubt, form and function can be defined separately. The concept “Adaptive Reuse” has gradually implemented in today architecture. Many of the developer today adaptive reuse the old building and convert it into a useful space. Through this process, the original function of the building itself has changes, but the new function which newly implement to the building meets the form of the building too. In this case, we call it function follow form.

Building environment today, usually are under the control of big consortium. They will have the ability to build a building with form follow function (have the technologies to build whatever form and shape of the building to follow the function of the building. Developer are more concerned about the functionality of the building). Form follows function, one of the most important criteria of today architecture. This is to ensure that the space can be fuliutilized the space is more preferable by majority of the people. They do not want to waste even 0.5 feet of the space.