COMPOSITIONAL RULES

As designers, we try to make something new and unique. Sometimes breaking a rule is the way to do that. It’s ok to break a rule, but you must know that you are doing so and you should know why.

REALITY IS DIFFICULT
Architects are profoundly different from all other artists and creators. We can’t pick what parts of the scene we want to detail. A novelist almost never mentions the bathroom and that’s ok. Painters can gloss over the window trim. Architects cannot leave anything out. If we leave anything out, the contractor and reality fill it in for us, often with disastrous results. And we can’t cheat reality. Creativity and persuasion don’t compel reality. Reality has its rules and those rules are inviolable. The successful practice of architecture involves respecting reality's rules.

THE GERALD FORD RULE
Never try to do two things at the same time.
This is actually two rules in one so maybe it’s a violation of itself.

First of all, this is an acknowledgment of one of reality’s fundamental rules. If you try to do certain things at the same time, lines converge and the dimension becomes zero. But architectural elements always have thickness. The solution is often to separate transitions. Make sure the roof valley does not happen at the same place that the eave becomes a gable end. At handrails and guardrails, separate the transition from diagonal to horizontal from the change in plan direction.

The second part of this rule has to do with architecture as tool. It is almost never a good idea to ask people to do two things at once. If there must be a step between the interior and the exterior, move it away from the door. Do not ask people to open a door and climb a step at the same time.

NEVER DO ANYTHING ONCE, NEVER DO ANYTHING TWICE.
Once I submitted one of my favorite projects for an AIA design award. We did not receive the award. I was told that the reason was that my project lacked a discernible theme. That has lead me to try to understand why a theme might matter. An important characteristic of architecture is that it is recognizably a product of human endeavor. Ruskin believed in the importance of the presence of handicraft in architecture. I believe that doing things more than once in a building is like winking at the occupants. Seeing repeated details tells you that the building was consciously designed.

On the other hand, we never want to do the same thing twice. Partly it's just boring to do so, partly it's because we believe that it's our responsibility to enrich the world with as much genuine diversity as possible, and partly it's that each condition is slightly different. If we listen carefully enough, we can discover the specifics of the condition and modify the design to suit those specifics. So, we never do the same building twice, and we never do the same detail again in quite the same way.

HIT OR MISS A MILE.
This too relates to the way in which a building betrays its human creators. Finishes must either match or clearly be different. Lines and shapes must clearly align or be positively misaligned. When things are almost, but not quite, the same, the condition reads in one of two ways. Either no consciousness was involved in the selection and the building or space, as a result, lacks that reflection of human creation that I think is essential to architecture, or; it is disappointing architecture. The person who made the selections tried to match or align and failed.

If one thing would do, use one thing. Fine architecture is always elegantly economic. I think this is because, deep in our genes, we know that waste damages our possibility of survival. If the situation requires more than one thing, make sure the sensual messages are clearly different. We seek clarity. We don't enjoy being confused, except maybe at an amusement park. If things are different, but don’t read (through whatever sense is operating) as different, the architecture is sending a mixed message. There are certainly times when you might want to send a mixed message, but you must positively decide to do so – for a reason. Otherwise, one of the sheltering aspects of architecture can and should be the clarity of its sensual messages.