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Unified Architectural Theory: Chapter 4

We will be publishing Nikos Salingaros’ book, Unified Architectural Theory, in a series ofinstallments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world.The following chapter discusses the complexity of form languages and describes how to usethe form language checklist to measure these complexities. If you missed them, make sureto read the introduction, Chapter One, Chapters 2A and Chapter 2B, and Chapter 3 first.

There exists a volume of writings by architects in the early 20th century, and we can lookthrough them for the form languages of Modernism. Unfortunately, the useful material turnsout to be very little, most of it describing not a form language but rather marketing anddeclarations of a political nature. Moreover, those pieces of very personal form languagesare presented as normative theories: a prescription of what to do and what not to do, withthe weight of universal ethics, even though they are based solely on opinion, not empiricalobservations or systematic study.

Here are some practical lists of rules I have found by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner,Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier.

By the brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, 1920: “Reject closed mass andvolume, and model space from within outwards. Reject color, and use only the naturalcolor of the building materials. Reject all ornament.”

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1923: “Open plan for interiors. Materials are limited toconcrete, iron, and glass. Use only curtain walls and reinforced concrete — no load-bearing construction.”

Le Corbusier, 1927: “Lift the building from sitting with its basement in the earth, tobeing suspended on posts (pilotis). Only curtain-wall construction is allowed. Roofshave to be flat. Windows can only be horizontal and will extend from one load-bearingpillar to another, which makes them very wide (narrow and long).”

These three sets of rules for a modernist form language do contrast with traditional formlanguages, so that of course the product looks markedly different from a traditional buildingerected prior to the 20th Century. This “new look” was part of the modernist form language’sappeal when it was first introduced.

Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye manifests his "rules" for architecture: “Lift the building fromsitting with its basement in the earth, to being suspended on posts (pilotis). Only curtain-wall

construction is allowed. Roofs have to be flat. Windows can only be horizontal and willextend from one load-bearing pillar to another, which makes them very wide (narrow and

long)". Image © Flavio Bragaia

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Without discussing the merits of the modernist form language and its variants here, there isan appeal to universality, and thus a rejection of regional adaptation. There is also a strongmotivation to reject elements simply because they belong to traditional form languages:turning against one’s cultural tradition for the sake of innovation.

Our society adopted the modernist form language for an enormous number of buildings, andso we have forgotten the store of older and traditional form languages. Thisrepresents a great loss for the knowledge base of the architectural profession. Norational society should throw out practical information, unless that body ofknowledge has been proved wrong, or is no longer useful.

Nothing wrong was ever discovered in older form languages: indeed, they have a greatnumber of adaptive qualities that create pleasant, functional, and comfortable living andworking environments. We suggest that an architect can learn from all form languages.Some languages are going to be more relevant to the location than others — a welcomereturn to valuing regionalism because this leads to sustainability.

When deciding to employ an older form language to design a building today, the architecthas an option. He or she may use the form language in its original form. Otherwise, thearchitect may choose to upgrade it by introducing improvements or savings through morecontemporary materials. Architects also have the option to add individual innovativeelements of their own, unless commissioned to design in a particular form language.

A form language evolves in time, just as a written and spoken language does, so change isnatural. What is not natural is drastic reversal in a form language. The crucial concern hereis to modify an architectural form language so that it does not lose its adaptive andexpressive power. In order to achieve this, the architect must begin from a deep respect ofwhat evolved traditional form languages represent.

An in-depth study and analysis of a particular form language prepares you to use it as adesign tool by understanding how a design arises from the combinatoric “linguistic” structureof forms. If the student properly and accurately documents a form language, then it could beused to design an entirely new building. The measure of success is if an observer thinksthat the new design resembles an original building enough to be considered as arising fromthe same language. I want to end the common practice of students copying buildings asimages directly, which is both unintelligent and uncreative. The proper way to design in aparticular language of choice is first to extract and document that form language from one ormore examples, then use the form language to design a new building.

Documenting a Form Language

Going through the process of documenting a form language is an educational experience.First, it reveals the complexity of the language: how many words (and diagrams) arerequired to describe it so it can be applied to design something. There exists a very simplemeasure of complexity that we can employ here. The Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexitymeasure is the minimum length of a system’s descriptor. It’s the “length of code” withoutredundancies. For a form language, it would be the word count of your completed “formlanguage checklist” [template provided later in this book].

This first measure of the complexity of a form language opens up new dimensions forunderstanding architecture. Satisfying user needs, adaptations to climate, region, andmaterials should make a form language more complex — with a longer word count. Actually,both highly-ordered and random systems are complex, but in a different way. We will studythat distinction later on. Now we note that complexity of form language does not necessarilyimply adaptation, and will look for a correlation between Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity andregional adaptation.

The model also allows us to compare very different form languages in terms of theircomplexity. Distinct form languages cannot be compared visually, because of the verydifferent images they present, but rather in terms of each language’s overall complexity.

Traditional regionalism involves adaptation to local materials, climate, culture, and societalpractices. (We will discuss later the possibilities of combining regionalism with 20th-centurymodernism.) Using the model of measuring the complexity of a form language through aword count of its verbal description, we can investigate how adaptation to local practicesand building culture requires a longer or shorter description of the design process. Ourintuitive experience would lead us to say that better adaptation to local requirementsrequires a longer description.

A form language is one prescription for creating structural order, and its products will havetheir own characteristic appearance. At the heart of every spoken or written language is a

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set of rules common to all languages. We can look for these general rules in other sciencesto understand the commonality among visually distinct architectural styles.

I introduced some rules for structural order to help explain Alexander’s theory of adaptivedesign, which we study later. These rules are taken from physics, not architecture, andestablish a helpful rubric for analyzing form languages. They represent the means ofachieving coherence of forms.

Three laws for architecture are proposed: (1) Smallest-scale order consists of pairedcontrasting elements. (2) Large-scale order occurs when every element collaboratesto reduce randomness. (3) Small is connected to large through a hierarchy ofintermediate scales, using a scaling ratio around e ≈ 2.7.

Let’s see the consequences of these rules for creating coherent order. The smallest scalewill need to have well-defined components so that they can indeed couple. It cannot beempty altogether. Coupling is achieved through geometric interlock and contrast. It thenfollows that whenever there is repetition, it is a coupled pair that repeats.

Randomness is reduced by using symmetries of all types: repetition, alignment ortranslational symmetry, reflectional, rotational, and glide symmetries (which are a translationplus a reflection). The intention is to be able to experience the structure as a whole, ratherthan to have to account for each individual component separately. Components on thesame scale are related using common symmetries, whereas those on different scales arerelated through scaling symmetries.

These rules, originally given in the context of a specific theory of design, prove useful inwriting down form languages. For example, look for repeating and contrasting (paired)components on the small scales. Pay attention to what is happening at many distinct scales.Look for symmetries, or their absence where they would ordinarily be expected.

We are also sensitized by this framework to recognize frames and boundaries in formlanguages. In traditional building and design, two structural elements rarely come togetherwithout some form of trim, intermediate region, or border. This was eliminated in theminimalist form language we are most familiar with, so we should not overlook theboundaries — which appear in all traditional form languages — now.

Non-adaptive form languages could in fact be generated by rather simple rules. Forexample, “generate a sculptural form with a computer program then build it as a building”, or“crumple a piece of paper then build it as a building”, or “draw a doodle on a piece of paperthen build it as a building”. These are descriptions of only a few words. Yet they rely uponsome industrial form language, say, for warehouses or aircraft hangars, to get the job done— the sculptural model is not enough to make working drawings for the contractor. Briefrules like these work together with a developed form language. The result is a buildinghaving a very complex description.

Another brief rule that can generate a complex form language works by reversing ornegating an existing form language. Again, this requires a developed language to act upon.We can imagine prescriptions such as: “reverse the scaling hierarchies”, or “eliminatestraight lines”, or “smash forms to the point just before they become uninhabitable”, or“slash walls to cut diagonal strip windows”. These simple rules change an existing formlanguage radically, and create complex buildings with novelty appeal. Otherwise, anarchitect can drastically simplify an existing form language with the rule “strip everything offexcept supporting structure”, which reduces its complexity.

Architects are not in the habit of writing down their form languages. Either they feel theyown a design secret that they don’t wish to see copied by others, or they are simply notused to documenting design in this manner. It could also be the case that they aregenerating their form language by a “shortcut”, such as one of the above. Other architectsand researchers usually study buildings afterwards, and these are the people who delve intoa form language. But even those don’t usually document the form language.

Measuring complexity using the form language checklist

Please just fill out the details for your chosen form language as succinctly as possible in thechecklist below. The entries include lists of materials, forms, sizes, etc. For some entries, asimple yes or no indicates whether something (a structural element, or property of thatelement) is present or not. It will be necessary to estimate both actual sizes of components,and relative ratios of sizes among different components. In listing the connections, anunusual element of interest (at least for today’s design thinking) is to look for and documentan intermediate piece that connects two other components. In many contemporarybuildings, this intermediate connection is missing for stylistic reasons, so to perform this

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exercise you will have to change the way you look at structures.

Then, please compute the Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity of your form language by usingthe word count of your completed checklist. The more “wordy” your checklist, the morecomplex is the form language. Also roughly estimate the regional adaptation of your formlanguage on a scale of 0 to 10 (higher for better adaptation). This is the simplest possibleestimate of regional adaptivity of your building, which represents the opposite of anyabstract, formal, or “universal” design method. An “International Style” building willnecessarily rank very low. Finally, look for any correlation.

What is remarkable is that we are able to measure the complexity of a form language at all,and by a simple means such as the word count by a word processor. We now have thebeginnings of a new investigation of complexity in architecture. We will go further andcorrelate this complexity with adaptability and regionalism much better, in our second modelpresented later.

Form Language Checklist

NAME OF FORM LANGUAGE: location, era, name of architect, particular building?

DOCUMENTATION: is there a written description or set of working rules for this formlanguage? (Instructions, not a philosophical or ideological justification).

MATERIALS: titanium, steel, glass, brick, concrete, wood, stone, adobe, thatch, etc.

COMPONENTS: walls, floors, roofs, beams, windows, doors, and their dimensions.

CONNECTIONS: cornices, joins, moldings, meeting points of wall+wall, wall+floor,wall+window, door+wall, wall+ceiling, façade+roof, size of connection compared towhat it joins.

OVERHANGS AND CANTILEVERS: type of supports, placed on top or bottom?

ARCHES: yes/no, type, spacing, height, dimensions.

COLUMNS: yes/no, type, size, width, alignment, inter-columnar spacing, fluting?

COLUMN CONNECTIONS: column+floor = base, column+top = capital, relative size.

RECTANGULAR OR OTHER GEOMETRY: rectangular, diagonal, or curved.

CHARACTERISTIC FORMAL SHAPES: overall geometry of components, their relativealignment, and their variety.

SUBDIVISIONS OF FORMS: yes/no, for walls, for windows, their relative dimensions.

GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX: what components relate to each other (symmetry), orshould not relate to each other (asymmetry). Any hidden rules?

ENTRANCE: relative size to other components, method of definition, change of level?

PORCHES AND BALCONIES: yes/no, depth, roof connections, front grill or solid?

FLOOR PLAN: subdivision of space, order and hierarchy of rooms, circulation.

EXISTENCE OF SCALES: well-defined and usually repeating structure on 1mm, 3mm,1cm, 3cm or 1in, 10cm, 1m or 1yard, 3m, 10m, and other scales.

COLOR: yes/no, which ones? Intensity? Do different colors harmonize?

LARGER SYMMETRIES: formal symmetries on scale of 10m down to about 1m.

SMALLER SYMMETRIES: sub-symmetries from 1m down to fine detail.

DECORATIVE ELEMENTS: non-functional large elements used only for style.

ORNAMENT: yes/no, type and design, scales on which it appears, extent.

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BROWSE THE

SURFACES: materials and textures presented to user, “friendly” or not?

Architectural regionalism correlates with design complexity

After documenting a particular form language, we measure its “complexity” by using theword count of the description according to the completed “Form Language Checklist”,above.

At the same time, we estimate the regional adaptation on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 beingthe least adaptive to locality, building culture, and specific user needs tied to local culture.We are guided in this estimation by what regionalism means in the context of using localmaterials, employing traditional typologies, low-cost methods of energy use andoptimization, historical continuity of design typologies and the use of traditionalornamentation, etc.

Each form language presents an ordered pair of numbers (word count, regional adaptation),and these can all be compared. It is most instructive to plot Regional Adaptation (on avertical axis) versus Complexity of a Form Language as measured by the word count of itsverbal description (on the horizontal axis).

Such a plot does indicate that the regional adaptation correlates with the complexity of aform language. This result is all the more striking because a measure of form languagecomplexity obviously depends on the word count, and is also dependent upon the verbosityof the person describing it! Despite the evident inaccuracies of the method, these resultsopen a very promising topic for more detailed investigation.

During class discussion evaluating each building in the context of all the results, severalstudents said that their choice of building “turned out not to be a good example after all”.Pressed to explain this, they stated that they were originally attracted to their buildingbecause of the usual architectural design criteria, but our analysis showed them that moreimportant qualities facilitating human use and simple economics were lacking. As a result,they understood how to judge whether a form language was adaptive or not.

Further Reading:

Nikos Salingaros, A Theory of Architecture, Chapter 1, “The Laws of Architecture Froma Physicist’s Perspective” (Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, 2006).

Nikos Salingaros, “Kolmogorov-Chaitin Complexity”, Meandering ThroughMathematics, 23 September 2012. Chapter 9 of Unified Architectural Theory.

Nikos Salingaros & Kenneth Masden, “Against Ecophobia”, Philadelphia Society, 8October 2011. Also available in GREEK and ITALIAN. Chapter 10 of UnifiedArchitectural Theory, and we will be publishing this essay online.

Henry Glassiem “Folk Housing in Middle Virginia,” 1975.

Order the International edition of Unified Architectural Theory here, and the US editionhere.