My Strategy for Developing Architectural Concepts

A concept is the essence of your design, the driver behind all of your design moves, and it's your entire project distilled into a single idea. Today I'm going to show you the process for developing the concept for a library renovation that we're currently working on in my office. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Dami and I am a licensed architect in beautiful Vancouver, BC. On this channel, we talk about architecture and design and also some tools and strategies that can help us have more meaningful and fulfilling careers in architecture. All right, so let's get to the fun part. In architecture school, there's a very big focus on just the development of your concept, the concept itself. And so your project might be a building, but it could also be an art piece or a piece of furniture, as long as it helps reinforce your concept. But when you're working on real projects, the concept itself is of course very important, but the importance actually comes from its use and the fact that it's really a design tool for all the millions of decisions you have to make on any single project. It's also great for communicating why you're doing something to your clients and to your consultants. It's also great for providing an objective reference point. You kind of have to remember that design is by nature subjective, and so when you're working in a team, you might develop an idea, but you have to make sure that everyone on the team is on board with the direction before you move on. Sometimes when we have design reviews, we'll have instances where like every single person in the room will have their own opinions on the design. So in situations like this, it's really helpful to look back at the concept and say, you know, this approach makes sense because it reinforces the concept this way, rather than saying like, well, I think this looks better. In this video, I'm going to show you the process for developing the concept itself, and in the next video, I'm going to show you how to use that concept to develop the design. So this particular project is an interior renovation for a library. So not only are you taking aspects of the site and the program to develop your concept, you're also taking aspects of the existing building. If the existing building is really interesting, that can form a really big part of your building's concept. I personally like having more constraints to work with because the more constraints you have, the more objective reasons you can give to why you've designed something in a certain way. Unfortunately, I can't show you any drawings or actual renderings of the space because it is still confidential at the moment, so I'll just have to show you guys in abstraction through sketches. But I'm really, really excited to show you guys photographs probably in the next couple of months. So the project is the renovation of an existing library, and libraries are going through a huge transformation right now. With the digitization of books, they're becoming more than just a place for books. It's actually becoming a community hub where they have tons of events and workshops and lots of tools for people to come and learn new skills. So for this project, the librarians wanted to take a chunk of the space, which is used to store books, and they wanted to turn it into public spaces like a digital media space and a lounge and a multi-purpose room. The library has this grand entrance, this three-story atrium when you walk in, and we will be blowing out this entire area and turning it into more public space. We're also renovating other areas like this info center, and in the next phase of the project, we're also putting in a new children's library, a new teens library, and a heller upstairs that connects the two different levels. The first step to any design process is gathering and analyzing all of the data on your project. So usually you can divide the research into three categories, the client or the design brief, the site, and the building typology. The client usually includes information about the client and the building requirements, the accommodation, the construction budget, and the site will have information about the neighborhood or the climate, the orientation, views, access, context, history, use, etc, etc. And the building typology is of course the type and use, and in our case it's the library. So the client for us was the city of who is paying for the project, but the librarians are actually our real clients. They're the ones using the space and they're the ones who know what works and what doesn't work. So the very first step of every design process is not developing the concept and it's not even trying to understand what the client wants, it's actually helping the client discover and understand what they want. You like cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake. You like cheesecake. Oh, I guess I do like cheesecake. Have you ever seen Star Wars? What? Obi-Wan Kenobi is talking this Imperial Guards and just making that repeating this sentence all the time. These aren't the droids you're looking for. These aren't the droids we're looking for. He can go about his business. Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen Star Wars? Okay. Usually you need to come in as the expert and inform them on the best practices of that particular building typology. For us, a lot of that was collecting a bunch of precedents from our last project and from projects from other firms and also giving them a sense of where libraries are headed in the future and what kind of programs can kind of future-proof the library. I think libraries are one of the most interesting typologies. I'm probably a little bit biased because I did do my master's thesis on libraries and library renovations, but it's a typology that's a direct reflection of society's relationship with information and knowledge. For example, during the Dark Ages, libraries were just repositories for books. The books would literally be chained to the desks. It would only be accessible to a few people who could read. And now there's less focus on physical books and there's more focus on the services and the real social interactions. They're providing big open spaces rather than small reading nooks. If you're interested in libraries, I would highly, highly recommend the book Library at Night. It's just a beautifully written book on the history and the behind libraries. I'll leave the link in the description below. And I also think librarians are some of the most interesting people and like the best clients. They're very organized. They're very articulated and they would consolidate and gather the comments and we get proper, timely feedback, all typed up in a Word document. During this process, we held discovery sessions where we tried to get as much input as possible from the librarians on how they envisioned the space. We heard things like they want a flexible and adaptable space, accessible and inclusive for everyone, a space that inspires to create, a space to collaborate, a space for intergenerational connections, a space that accommodates the different user activities, flexible spaces, and a space that celebrates the diversity of the community. The library is located in a neighborhood where the population is 62% immigrants with only 45% of the residents actually speaking English at home. The other thing we noticed is that the building's located in a very, very dense area. It's an area that's being heavily developed right now and the library kind of sits in the midst of these super tall skyscrapers. The library has a massive garden so this building gives a bit of a breathing space to this super dense area and it becomes a little garden in this concrete jungle. At the scale of the building, this also reflects the nature of the library. We have all of these super dense programs and we also have this tall three-story atrium that has this solid-void relationship. So one of the strategies that I like to use in coming up with the concept is looking at the information and trying to relate aspects of it back to an original source. It's a little tricky because there's no hard definition of an original source because everything is kind of built on each other but a good original source are icons or visuals that are recognizable across different cultures. When we're talking about architecture specifically, anything that's become widespread enough to become a kind of typology could be considered an original source. I looked at this strong solid-void relationship and the first thing that came to my mind was a cave. There's a lot of interesting material tones that we could pull from this but I scrapped this idea pretty quickly because it didn't really work at a programmatic or functional level. So going back to the analysis, they also kept talking about their desire to build a community hub and to bring indigenous identity into the space and so I thought of the native longhouse which is a traditional typology and it's usually the heart of indigenous communities. They would hold religious ceremonies and have community gatherings and this is also where they have the fire pit and this kind of gives it the opening at the roof which is somewhat similar to our condition. I think there's a interesting programmatic connection but I just felt like there weren't enough architectural elements I could pull from this concept to develop a rich material palette and so I thought about what about a community living room? This is a key phrase they kept talking about. Is there anything I could pull from the typology of living rooms? And so I thought about bringing in some of these more domestic elements like carpets and cushions and area rugs but in this case I felt like there wasn't enough consistency in the type for it to become a strong concept. Then I went for a walk and sat in this little courtyard and spent some time pondering my life choices. What if we included a fountain feature in the atrium space? It could be like an outdoor courtyard. The librarians were really adamant about bringing nature into the space. How feasible would that be? In this case the atrium and the site both had this solid void relationship. Both a void within a solid. A donut? The courtyard is a design trend that is universal across different cultures and throughout history and it's a design element that hasn't really gone out of style while a lot of design trends have come and gone based on changes in living styles. They were originally conceived to control the micro climactic conditions within buildings but their functions have evolved over time being used for social activities like cooking, washing, sleeping, gathering, or socializing. This seemed to fit perfectly with the atrium of the library which is a space that connects a lot of these different distinct functions together and serves as the main circulation corridor. The courtyard works on a programmatic level, it works on a physical level, it works on a contextual level, and at a material level it creates an interesting material palette and it will feed into all of the different areas and elements of the project. So this is one of the strategies that I use to develop a concept and of course the process looks pretty different based on the project because each project is unique. One thing that is consistent throughout all the design phases and all projects is how much we look for inspiration from other sources. You know, I used to think that good ideas come from deep inside your head because I didn't want to accidentally copy something that I'd seen on the internet. But you know what? There's no original creations. Everything is basically a different iteration of another thing. When you think of the romantic image of an architect, you think of them drawing day and night on their drafting board, coming up with these crazy brilliant ideas. But in reality, a huge chunk of our time is actually spent looking at books, magazines, and the internet for inspiration. The internet, if you know how to use it properly, is really like the best place for creating connections and serendipitous connections. Anyways, I hope that was interesting for you guys. I presented this concept to the team and to the client and they were on board. So in the next video, I'm going to talk about how you can translate some of these concepts into the design and how you can use this to drive every little decision in your project. If you enjoyed this video, please give me a thumbs up and let me know if you have any questions. And let me know if you have any other strategies that you like to use for developing concepts. Bye! See you in the next video!