Use and architectural design

This chapter examines how intended use influenced architectural design through time. In the far past there was no differentiation of building forms. Since the emergence of monumental architecture, its main goal was the visualisation of authority; with typical Roman mentality, Vitruvius wanted it to be reoriented towards providing tangible services to people by the application of an almost simplistic logic, an idea that remerged in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, buildings were easily perceivable as serving this or that function, whatever architectural style they were enveloped in, and tall buildings dealt the final blow to styles at large. Modernists wanted buildings configured to serve clearly outlined functions. The “form follows function” principle has been perceived as meaning both the configuration of a building on the basis of its intended use, and the configuration of a building in a way that every structural part thereof is placed so as to serve a specified goal – the latter notion is also evident in designs applying digital morphogenesis procedures.