Designing is composing and inventing

Naturally, at Delft University of Technology technical ingenuity scores high. The previous Chairman of the Board dr. Nico de 9RRJG LQWHQGHG WR WUDQVIRUP WKH 78 'HOIW LQWR D µUHVHDUFK

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of design as a result of designing at the TU Delft is: “The (technical) design is a record of principal and/or eventual working method and/or shape of a technical and realistic VROXWLRQIRUDGHVFULEHGSUREOHP´7KH)DFXOW\RI$UFKLWHFWXUHLV

proud of its focus on design. A couple of dozen years ago, the Faculty of Architecture in Delft and the Faculty of Architecture in Eindhoven agreed that Delft would focus on the design process, whereas Eindhoven would focus on the realisation process. Well-known Dutch architects like Jo Coenen, Sjoerd Soeters, Rudy Uytenhaak and Frank Wintermans were all educated as architects in Eindhoven and therefore seem to be lost and an exception to this rule.

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to be found. So let us considers design from different points of view:

x Functional: The goal of design at the faculty of Architecture is a material solution by inventing an architectural composition for a posed architectural problem.

x Composition: Design is composing parts into a larger whole (artefact). Architectural design is composing elements and components into a material artefact. Depending on the three levels this could be: city planning, a building or components of the building.

x Artistic: Design is creating an original spatial composition. The material and immaterial means are usually familiar; the position of matter in space transforms a building into a piece of applied art.

x Technical: Design is inventing and ingeniously developing new material elements, components, systems and products for city planning/architecture/

building technology and the integration of those parts into an artefact.

x Process: Design is the process of analysis, synthesis and development starting with a problem statement and ending in a material solution.

x Philosophical: Design is seeking an optimal compromise between ambiguous demands and desires.

x Economical: Design is seeking a balance between demand, formulated in many wishes and requirements and supply of a possible technical H[HFXWLRQZLWKWKHUHTXLUHG¿QDQFLDOPHDQV

Every designer will describe design in a different manner.

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in 1998¹ I have described design as: “The applied technical design is an original, ingenious and material solution for a WHFKQLFDOSUREOHPDFTXLUHGE\PHDQVRIDQHI¿FLHQWSURFHVV

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been interested in design as a collection of activities with a path-breaking result. Novelty is at top of the list. Not only IRU\RXUVHOIZKLFKLVTXLWHFRPPRQZKHQ\RX¶UHDVWXGHQW

and still learning) or for the national group of architects and technical designers towards a patented world-novelty.

Novelty for yourself, your friends, the Dutch scene and the world are entirely different concepts. These environments could be compared to arenas with different rules of the game and different rewards. Confusing these arenas can cause disillusion. If you, for example, admire your heroes and even identify yourself with them, you skip several arenas and an XQQHFHVVDU\FRQIXVLQJLGHQWL¿FDWLRQDULVHVZLWKXQDYRLGDEO\D

big disappointment and a qualitative goal and recognition that will never be attained.

Design with a path-breaking result is in many cases just a µIDWDPRUJDQD¶LIWKHGHVLJQHUJHWVWUDSSHGLQGLFKRWRPRXV

demands and desires, as a result of which only a meagre compromise can be achieved. Design is often seeking the best compromise. Young and ambitious architects, who primarily strive to attain the maximum amount of novelty in their design and at the same time enhance their own fame (as an archetype: Erick van Egeraat), have their own idea of the concept of compromise. They have to win design competitions. You cannot win those competitions if you blindly obey all dichotomous demands and desires. The design should have something bold, exceptional, and reckless in order to be noticed by the jury of the competition. So a certain balance between character and compromise is necessary. Character to EHQRWLFHGDQGFRPSURPLVHWRIXO¿OPRVWRIWKHGHPDQGVRI

the client.

I take pleasure in composing as an interpretation of design (which is essential and unavoidable for architects) but from P\ ¿UVW GHVLJQ VNHWFKHV DV D VWXGHQW DW WKH )DFXOW\ RI

Architecture I feel more like an inventor. My previous senior OHFWXUHU-DQYDQGHU:RRUGRQHRIP\PHQWRUVLQP\¿UVW\HDU

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walls and roofs for a gatekeepers building at the Calvé factory, which was an exciting technical adventure. Recently I have designed GRP shells again with a huge span (30 meters) on a core of foam for architect Moshe Safdie from Boston, which is described in another article.

I alternate between composing and inventing. But I get the most pleasure from inventing, maybe because so few people can do it. I consider myself more as an inventor-architect than

as a composer-architect. In that respect I would be called an architect-engineer in Belgium.

In the city-hall of the Frisian town of Bolsward (build between 1614-1619) a text on the entrance portal of the council room VD\V³JHLMQYHQWHHUW´ZKLFKLVD^th century reference to the entanglement of the notion of invention and design. Nothing new under the sun. Perhaps the Ecole de Beaux Arts stressed composing too much two centuries ago, as a result of which WKHZRUG³LMQYHQWHUHQ´PRYHGWRWKHEDFNJURXQG,QDQ\FDVH

the technological designers we educate in the department of Building Technology should be able to become designer-inventors.

Many inventions can only come to existence by prompt but most of all in-depth and methodical work without the fear RIIDLOXUH7KDWNLQGRIGHVLJQLVPRUHVFLHQWL¿FFRPSDUHGWR

the more artistic component that composing possesses. This SURFHVVRIGHVLJQVKRXOGEHWUDQVSDUHQWVRLWFDQEHYHUL¿HG

for yourself or your team, so you can discuss it and make the right decisions at crucial moments. Design as a science is hard to achieve, whereas composing primarily requires intuitive GHFLVLRQV 6FLHQWL¿F GHVLJQ FDQ EH DFKLHYHG LQ VRPH FDVHV

and in other cases a part of the entire design and engineering SURFHVVFDQEHUHFRJQL]HG,QWKHµ.RQLQNOLMNH1HGHUODQGVH

Fig. 3. Hoisting of one of the roofs for the Yitzhak Rabin Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

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subsequently gain understanding for design as a process of composing.

Many Dutch architects argue that a composer should be FUHDWLYHEXWGRHVQ¶WQHFHVVDULO\KDVWREHDQLQYHQWRUVLQFH

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have to invent music-notes in order to make a composition, DQDUFKLWHFWGRHVQ¶WKDYHWRLQYHQWPDWHULDOVµPXVLFQRWHV¶ RUFRQVWUXFWLRQVµPXVLFEDU¶LQRUGHUWRPDNHDJRRGGHVLJQ

Composing alone is already enough. The attitude of Dutch architect Jan Benthem is derived of this position: take smart materials and systems that have already proven their quality and reliability and subsequently use them to compose with.

That attitude resulted in a respectable portfolio.

But there are also architects who see it as their job to design, research and develop the means (elements, components, systems, products) with which they shape their buildings according to their design. The interest of these architects is both focusing on innovation in architecture and in technology.

They are focused on both the development of material means to build, as composing a surprising artefact into a building.

These designers position themselves both at the producers-side as the consumer-producers-side of technology. Think of British high-tech architects, Renzo Piano and Santiago Calatrava for example. In the past decade Piano and Calatrava received an honorary doctorate at the TU Delft and were therefore acknowledged for their professional quality in Delft.

Fig. 5. City Hall of Bolsward, The Netherlands

Fig. 4. Plate explaining the word

“geijventeert„

inside the City Hall of Bolsward

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Amsterdam, where the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts &

Sciences is housed.