Importance: 30%
The Big Idea
Good design can be analyzed and learned using foundational principles.
The Purpose of good design is not just to look nice but to actually have a space function well and offer a space for healthy living.
Related Notes: Our Savior’s Church and School Painting Guidelines, Our Savior’s Church and School Selection Criteria 2023, Christopher Alexander (Architect, Author)
Perspective Laid Out By Christopher Alexander
Looking to history and nature are two places to help find inspiration as well as learn about what makes a good design.
Principles are a framework to help refine and analyze not a blind checklist
Basic principles from Frank Jackson
Contrast - color differences. The most stark being black on white
Variety - circle example of no variety, oval example of shape with variety
Repetition - taking the same line or shape and repeating it
Symmetry - the same thing on both sides of a base line
Radiation - lines or shapes spreading out from center point
Use of grid to help keep track of placement of shapes and lines in a pattern
Decorative Design is not a degradation of natural forms but inventive forms in and of themselves that are enriched by the study of nature
Balance of imitative principle of copying things from nature and the inventive principle of using abstract forms creatively
Principles explained in Lessons on Decorative Design by frank jackson
Built environment education in art education
From Architecture as Pedagogy by David Orr
Basically makes the argument that building teach us about what we think about the earth and the world around us and how we relate to other humans
From Mapping a sense of place by hicks and king
Mapping experiences are a way to think through the meaning embedded in the natural and built parts of our environment and see how it differs from others
From Personal and Public Place by Guinan
Hearing and learning about the stories of people who have built or live in a place helps make architecture more meaningful and helps us be more empathetic**