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Form

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  • Nothing that nature does not seek

    Nature tells us the shape and pattern a material should assume, and nothing good can be achieved by ignoring its dictates. A good artisan seeks nothing that nature does not seek.

    Yanagi Sōetsu, The Beauty of Miscellaneous Things
    • nature
    • form
  • It's cold outside, but this room is quite cozy

    Screen Shot 2020-10-09 at 9_18_06 PM.png

    Did you know that Junkers makes these radiators too? Funny, they look just like his planes. Such strong parallel lines.

    Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises
    1. ​​We need an object for our affections​​
    • heat
    • form
  • Time turned into shape

    A pebble polished by waves is pleasurable to the hand, not only because of its soothing shape, but because it expresses the slow process of its formation; a perfect pebble on the palm materializes duration, it is time turned into shape.

    Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
    • time
    • touch
    • form
  • The element becomes a sign

    Each unit can be seen purely as form, as what it is. Or it can be viewed as having a function. Its function is only understandable within the next higher level of organization. And in every case, function must succumb to the constraints of form. Once this worldly function is assigned, the element becomes a ‘sign’. It falls into the realm of concept. There is a mapping from one thought system to another.

    Margaret Magnus, Gods of the Word
    1. ​​Form follows function​​
    • form
    • function
  • The principle of parallel construction

    This principle, that of parallel construction, requires that expressions similar in content and function be outwardly similar.

    Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs in the kingdom of Heaven.
    Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.
    Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.

    William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White, The Elements of Style
    1. ​​Structural parallelism​​
    • form
  • The senses of form and tone

    Man painted and danced long before he learned to write and construct. The senses of form and tone are his primordial heritage.

    Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Pedagogical Sketchbook
    • art
    • form
    • dance
  • Form and figure

    Form applies to “a configuration with natural meaning or none at all,” whereas figure applies to “a configuration whose meaning is given by culture."

    Peter G. Rowe, Design Thinking
    • form
  • Apparency

    Half a century ago, Stern discussed this attribute of an artistic object and called it apparency. While art is not limited to this single end, he felt that one of its two basic functions was "to create images which by clarity and harmony of form fulfill the need for vividly comprehensible appearance." In his mind, this was an essential first step toward the expression of inner meaning.

    Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City
    • art
    • meaning
    • images
    • harmony
    • form
  • A certain plasticity

    There are dangers in a highly specialized visible form; there is a need for a certain plasticity in the perceptual environment. If there is only one dominant path to a destination, a few sacred focal points, or an ironclad set of rigidly separated regions, then there is only one way to image the city without considerable strain. This one may suit neither the needs of all people, nor even the needs of one person as they vary from time to time. An unusual trip becomes awkward or dangerous; interpersonal relations may tend to compartmentalize themselves; the scene becomes monotonous or restrictive.

    Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City
    • cities
    • form
  • Strength from both mass and form

    IMG_3413.jpeg

    Hoover Dam has the shape of an arch dam, but it is actually a hybrid structure, gathering strength from both mass and form. The dam is often ranked as one of the most exquisite of all engineered structures. It is fitted to its site so well that the gnarly canyon wall looks like an organic growth engulfing the mass of concrete.

    Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape
    1. ​​Deep Interlock​​
    2. ​​The Nature of Order​​
    • engineering
    • architecture
    • form
  • Notes on the Synthesis of Form

    A Book by Christopher Alexander
    www.hup.harvard.edu
    1. ​​I could do better than that​​
    2. ​​This small internal quaver​​
    3. ​​Their wrongness is somehow more immediate​​
    • math
    • design
    • architecture
    • form
    • problems
  • The Evolution of Useful Things

    A Book by Henry Petroski

    Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, ingenuity.

    1. ​​Spike and spon​​
    2. ​​Shaped and reshaped​​
    3. ​​Form follows failure​​
    4. ​​Their wrongness is somehow more immediate​​
    5. ​​A small corner of the world of things​​
    1. ​​The evolution of devices​​
    • form
    • function
    • invention
    • progress
    • failure
  • Inheriting Froebel's Gifts

    A Podcast by Kurt Kohlstedt
    99percentinvisible.org
    Image from 99percentinvisible.org on 2022-05-24 at 4.32.53 PM.jpeg

    Froebel’s Gifts were meant to be given in a particular order, growing more complex over time and teaching different lessons about shape, structure and perception along the way. A soft knitted ball could be given to a child just six weeks old, followed by a wooden ball and then a cube, illustrating similarities and differences in shapes and materials. Then kids would get a cylinder (which combines elements of both the ball and the cube) and it would blow their little minds. Some objects were pierced by strings or rods so kids could spin them and see how one shapes morphs into another when set into motion. Later came cubes made up of smaller cubes and other hybrids, showing children how parts relate to a whole through deconstruction and reassembly.

    These perception-oriented “Gifts” would then give way to construction-oriented “Occupations.” Kids would be told to build things out of materials like paper, string, wire, or little sticks and peas that could be connected and stacked into structures.

    1. ​​Gifts and occupations​​
    • learning
    • childhood
    • objects
    • creativity
    • form
  • Form follows function

    A Quote by Louis Sullivan
    en.wikipedia.org
    1. ​​205. Structure Follows Social Spaces​​
    2. ​​Classical absurdity​​
    3. ​​The element becomes a sign​​
    4. ​​The requirements of economy​​
    5. ​​Against form follows function​​
    6. ​​The minimum condition​​
    7. ​​Form follows failure​​
    8. ​​The usages of life​​
    • form
    • function
    • design
    • architecture
  • Against form follows function

    An Essay by Andrea Resmini
    andrearesmini.com

    I cannot get past the fact that any *designer* who throws that phrase around matter-of-factly, as in “of course form follows function”, comes out as a complete ignoramus. An ignoramus who's not just repeating an 1896 “law” without any clues as to what it means but who also, most poignantly, demonstrates to possess no knowledge of what has happened in design and architecture since Sullivan and Adler contributed to inventing the high rise building and, by extension, much of the world we live in.

    1. ​​Useless work on useful things​​
    2. ​​Form follows function​​
    3. ​​Form follows failure​​
    • form
    • function
    • architecture
  • On 'The Master and His Emissary'

    A Quote by Ian McGilchrist
    www.ttbook.org

    People who make works of art, whatever they might be, have gone to great trouble to make something unique which is embodied in the form that it is, and not in any other form, and that it transmits things that remain implicit

    ...Works of art are not just disembodied, entirely abstract, conceptual things. They are embodied in the words they’re in or in paint or in stone or in musical notes or whatever it might be.

    1. ​​The work is what it means​​
    2. ​​The meaning of music​​
    3. ​​If a book can be summarized, is it worth reading?​​
    • art
    • material
    • meaning
    • form
  • How am I doing, wonder?

    A Quote by Louis Kahn
    understandinggroup.com

    Form comes from wonder. Wonder stems from our 'in touchness' with how we were made. One senses that nature records the process of what it makes, so that in what it makes there is also the records of how it was made. In touch with this record we are in wonder. This wonder gives rise to knowledge. But knowledge is related to other knowledge and this relation gives a sense of order, a sense of how they inter-relate in a harmony that makes all things exist. From knowledge to sense of order we then wink at wonder and say How am I doing, wonder?

    1. ​​Ruins, Rub-outs, and Trash​​
    • form
    • curiosity
    • knowledge
    • order
    • understanding
    • making
  • Material tour de force: The work of Eladio Dieste

    An Essay by Eladio Dieste
    archleague.org
    Image from archleague.org on 2020-12-24 at 1.20.49 PM.jpeg

    I have explained, and supported with evidence, the concern for rationality in construction and economy understood in, I dared to say, a cosmic sense rather than a financial sense. However, this is not the whole thing that has guided me. I have also been guided by a sharp, almost painful, awareness of form.

    • form
    • material
  • The resistant virtues of the structure

    A Quote by Eladio Dieste
    en.wikipedia.org

    The resistant virtues of the structure that we make depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable and not because of an awkward accumulation of materials. There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this; resistance through form.

    • form
    • structure

See also:
  1. function
  2. architecture
  3. art
  4. meaning
  5. design
  6. material
  7. images
  8. harmony
  9. cities
  10. engineering
  11. math
  12. problems
  13. dance
  14. time
  15. touch
  16. heat
  17. structure
  18. nature
  19. curiosity
  20. knowledge
  21. order
  22. understanding
  23. making
  24. invention
  25. progress
  26. failure
  27. learning
  28. childhood
  29. objects
  30. creativity
  1. Kevin Lynch
  2. Eladio Dieste
  3. Margaret Magnus
  4. Brian Hayes
  5. Christopher Alexander
  6. Peter G. Rowe
  7. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
  8. Louis Sullivan
  9. William Strunk Jr.
  10. E.B. White
  11. Juhani Pallasmaa
  12. Hayao Miyazaki
  13. Yanagi Sōetsu
  14. Louis Kahn
  15. Andrea Resmini
  16. Ian McGilchrist
  17. Henry Petroski
  18. Kurt Kohlstedt