Programming Asking the right questions Information gathering
Solving Towards Design ‘Building the diagram’ vs.‘finding the fit’
Building grain
Programming and program/brief analysis
Form Finding from the Inside Out. Programming is the art and/or science of deter-mining the fundamental functional requirements of a designed object.We often assume that this is a simple task, and for well-known building types (single family residences, speculative office buildings, etc.) this may be the case. However dis-cerning the essential requirements for more complex or less deterministic building types (e.g., hospitals or retail shops) may be more difficult. What, for example, is the exact function of an art museum? Certainly we could list a set of rooms with suggested areas, but it is unlikely that this process would set the problem up correctly.The ‘function’ of an art museum according to Louis Kahn was ‘a set of spaces that are good for the viewing of art’. Even this usefully vague description, however, doesn’t address the civic, commercial, and educational requirements that today’s art museum might face.The building housing such an institution would include functions – branding, public spaces, a civic image – that couldn’t be included in a traditional areas schedule.
Programming is, therefore, both an objective and a subjective process. Discerning what our clients need (or want) will invariably involve discussions about square footage/metrage and relationships between spaces. However, it is the architect’s task to also figure out the larger issues that underlie our clients’ needs, and to see whether those can be addressed architecturally.Typically, developing a pro-gram is an additional service for architects in the US and UK, but it does happen frequently. As often as not, we will be confronted on a new job with a pro-gram/brief written by a client or a space planner. Even if this is the case, however, good practice suggests that this document be thoroughly questioned.
When architects are asked to prepare a program or brief, we typically rely on several sources of information regarding what elements are necessary in a typ-ical building of the type being designed: how much space each of these may take up (either in absolute or relative terms), what services or qualities these spaces require and what relationships each space should have to one another.This is
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a process of ‘problem seeking’, not ‘problem solving’ in the words of the Texas architectural firm Caudill Rowlett Scott, who pioneered systematic approaches to programming in the 1960s and 1970s.To gain reliable information, architects will often interview clients and users, using existing facilities as a benchmark.
Are the spaces being used now large enough? Are there services that should be provided? What does or does not work with the current arrangements, and what suggestions might the day-to-day users have for improving their environ-ment? We may also study other installations of the type, either through a liter-ature search or site visits, to glean information about current space and functional standards. In some cases (for instance, health care) there will be well-published standards that will list much of this information. However, it is almost always beneficial to see these standards in action, and to decide whether good practice will rely solely on these, or whether inherent problems or shortcom-ings in standard design need to be addressed (Fig. 1.1.1).
Information from this exercise will typically be tabulated in the form of an areas schedule (or program/brief) that lists the space requirements for the proposed design (Table 1.1.1). Usually this will break down required uses into individual rooms, grouped according to how the client sees their functional relationships.
The schedule will list room titles or uses, area in square feet or square meters, and may include further information about required proportions, qualities (e.g., daylight), or services. Areas schedules are usually drawn up using spreadsheet software (i.e., Microsoft Excel), which allows users to enter data cells for room names, areas, and qualities, as well as programmed cells that can manipulate, compare, or sort this information. Using spreadsheets we can easily subtotal building areas, compare sizes, or later in the process estimate how close to the original program/brief our developing design may be.
Several rules of thumb for estimating space requirements are shown in Table 1.1.2.These are drawn from daily experience and are thus not universally applicable, but they give a good idea of where a programming exercise might start. All of these assumptions deserve to be tested with any client – for example, a common exercise in an early program/briefing meeting is to tape out on the floor an assumed office size, allowing users or clients to get a sense for what a 10 m2 office actually looks like. Also included are typical ‘net-to-gross’ ratios.‘Net’ space in a building includes all rentable, or assignable areas, such as offices or apartments, clerical spaces or meeting rooms.‘Gross’ space includes all ‘house’ or non-assignable spaces such as hallways, bathrooms, lob-bies, and service rooms. Generally the rule of thumb is that any space in a building that could be rented is considered ‘net’, while any space that cannot be rented is considered ‘gross’. Net-to-gross ratios are taken perhaps too seri-ously by developers, especially considering the qualities that ‘gross’ spaces such as atriums, cafes, or lounges can add to a building’s function. Nonetheless, they are so universally used as benchmarks of efficiency that they are worthy of study. A third type of area, ‘construction area’ is often assumed or calculated to arrive at a total figure for the ‘footprint area’ of a building.
Program/Brief Analysis. No matter who creates the program/brief, the first step in our design process is almost always to analyze its implications. Here we are 1 Pre-Design
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1.1 Programming and program/brief analysis
Figure 1.1.1. The programming and program analysis process is one of asking ques-tions, comparing standards and precedents, and rigorously assessing the results.
Table 1.1.1. A typical areas schedule, with space names, required areas, and a matrix of requirements.
Net
non-Net assignable assignable Gross
square feet square feet square feet Level Daylight Public/private Plumbing
Living room 300 1 1 1 0
Downstairs bathroom 60 1 2 3 1
Upstairs bathroom 60 2 2 4 1
Playroom 300 0 3 4 0
Furnace room 120 0 4 5 1
Storage
First floor closet 20 1 4 5 0
Second floor closet 10 2 4 5 0
Basement storage 110 0 4 5 0
Circulation
looking for ways to translate a list of requirements into a strategy for form (archi-tectural, landscape, engineering, etc.) As such, architects typically rely on several graphic conventions to help ‘spatialize’ a program/brief.While these may give the appearance of objective problem solving, they should be approached with great caution. Ideally, these exercises should be seen as ways of questioning and under-standing the data in the program/brief. It is very rare that a satisfactory form will
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emerge solely out of a diagramming process – more often this process will help us understand the problem in spatial terms, and our concepts will emerge from this understanding. It is important to remember, too, that program/brief analysis is an ‘inside out’ method of strategizing. More often than not, we will also be ana-lyzing our site (see Section 2.2) during this phase, and any solutions that emerge will need to be holistic, balancing what we discover from the internal organiza-tion and from external forces.
Nonetheless, diagramming is a useful exercise, provided that we understand its limitations. Traditionally, architects begin with ‘bubble diagrams’, or very loose representations of areas drawn to scale from the program/brief with relationships between these areas noted by lines indicating connectivity.The areas themselves are often color-coded, labeled with names and areas, and typically drawn as ovals or rectangles with curved corners. These shapes remind us that we are not yet designating ‘rooms’ – we are rather interested in the area that a given activity is likely to take up.
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Table 1.1.2. Rules of thumb for estimating space requirements during preliminary design phases.
Allowance, Allowance, Square meter Square feet
Use per person per person
Standard office 12 125
Clerical office 5 50
Manager’s office 14 150
Conference room 1 15
Dining rooms – banquet 1 13
Dining rooms – cafeteria 1 12
Dining rooms – table service 1 16
Retail – ground floor 3 30
Retail – department store 4 40
Library – reading rooms 3 35
Overall 5 50
Museums 1 15
Theatres – fixed seats 1 8
Theatres – movable seats 1 15
Lobby 0.5 3
Backstage is typically as large as seating area
Elementary classroom 2 20
Secondary classroom 2 25
Large secondary classroom 1 15
Gymnasium 12 125
University classroom 1 15
University seminar room 2 20
University lecture hall 1 12
Apartments 23 250
Hospital 93 1000
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1.1 Programming and program/brief analysis
Table 1.1.3. A data sort of the areas schedule in Figure 1.1.2 based on daylighting. Note that other important aspects of the spaces (private/public in particular) align with the daylight sort.This may be the start of a possible design strategy.
Net
non-Net assignable assignable Gross
square feet square feet square feet Level Daylight Public/private Plumbing
Living room 300 1 1 1 0
Dining room 150 1 1 1 0
Kitchen 150 1 1 2 1
Office 100 1 1 3 0
Bathrooms
Downstairs bathroom 60 1 2 3 1
Upstairs bathroom 60 2 2 4 1
Bedrooms
Basement storage 110 0 4 5 0
Connectivity is often indicated in one of two categories – adjacencies and affinities (Fig. 1.1.2). Adjacencies represent relationships between activities that require direct circulatory access. A typical example in residential design is the relationship between a kitchen and a dining room. Here, there are good reasons to locate areas adjacent to one another to enable quick, efficient movement of
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people or goods from one to another. Affinities, on the other hand, indicate activities that share something besides circulatory convenience, and thus may tend toward one another in a building for reasons of performance or con-structability. Here, a good residential example is kitchens and bathrooms.While there is no pressing need for circulation between these two spaces, they share a requirement for plumbing. To save the costs involved with excessive piping,
‘wet’ activities are often grouped near one another, sharing plumbing stacks and drains (see Section 6.4). Other affinities may include the need for daylighting, security, visibility, privacy, fresh air, or sound attenuation.
A useful bubble diagram will often show adjacencies as solid lines connecting one program/brief element to another, while showing affinities as an outline sur-rounding like elements. In Figures 1.1.3 and 1.1.4, note how spaces relate in terms of circulation (adjacency) and servicing (affinity). In the former, the kitchen and dining room are connected by a solid line, while in the latter the kitchen and bathrooms are circled by a dashed line. These indicate the need for physical proximity due to circulatory and functional reasons, respectively. Through an 1 Pre-Design
Figure 1.1.3. A first layout of adjacency requirements for the areas schedule in Table 1.1.2.
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