In the Search of Architectural Concept

Abstract

Single family house is the first strictly architectural design in the syllabus at the Faculty of Architecture, Gliwice, Poland. That means that students - usually for the first time in their lives - have to face the issue of designing a space for a specific function. The common knowledge of how an ordinary single family house looks like only makes things difficult, while the student's first, sometimes even not thoroughly conscious impulse is to copy some well-known examples. But designing is creativity, and creativity means walking off the beaten track. The teacher's role then is to question ready-made solutions. As Peter Zumthor puts it:"Practising architecture is asking one self questions, finding one's own answers with the help of the teacher, whittling down, finding solutions. Over and over again".The goal of the paper is to examine the role and usefulness of a draft model in finding and expressing architectural ideas. The basic questions are: what is a "model" in terms of architectural design? What is its role in architectural design education? Are "model" and "maquette" synonyms? What is the difference between manual and virtual model and why is it worth to prepare models in early stages of concept seeking? In what sense may model be an inspiration for design? Searching for answers to these questions is the content of the elaboration, which was inspired by the first year design classes at the Faculty of Architecture.