Learning how to design architecture form the Villa Savoye design process

How to design architecture? And what makes a design process an interesting one? For non-experienced designers, it is difficult to understand typical aspects of exemplary design processes, like conflicting constraints, using mixed media, divergent thinking, working iteratively and in a non-lineair way, or integrating, many topics in one solution, balancing between a straightforward concept and ambiguïty, elaborating earlier concepts and learning from history. These characteristics were highlighted in various publications by several researchers during the past decades. And although the Villa Savoye was built before all that research, the extensive documentation of its design process by the Fondation Le Corbusier, makes it an excellent example to illustrate typical aspects of interesting design processes in a retroactive manner.


Introduction and methodology
Most architecture students, at the beginning of their studies, have no experience at all in designing.It might help to explain them the typical aspects of interesting design processes, explored by many researches since the second half of the twentieth century.But it is difficult for students to understand these complexities without an interesting example.
Thanks to the 'Fondation Le Corbusier', the different phases of the design of the Villa Savoye are well documented.Le Corbusier's drawings and the story of the conception of the Villa Savoye, can thereby help to make the design process itself comprehensible.This paper gives an overview of important aspects of design processes, highlighted by several authors during the past decades, each of these characteristics illustrated with the design process of the Villa Savoye.

Design proclems deal with many, often conflicting, constraints
Architectural design is a form of problem solving in which designers have to deal with a lot of requirements.These can be very diverse, and they can be in conflict with each other.They range from constraints concerning the distribution of towns to constraints concerning the distribution of light fixtures1 .In the case of the design of an Indian Village for example, Christopher Alexander stated that he worked with up to 140 requirements2 .

Mixed media
In a drawing of that first design (1), Le Corbusier combined the three floor plans together with sketches that showed the interior and exterior of the villa.Many theorists and architects wrote about this mixing of design media.Caruso 4 stated that the diversity of constraints is often made visible in drawings that combine different media: schemes of overall concepts, perspective views and solutions for details.Each of these media medium or form of representation is used for a particular facet of the process.Lawson 5 agreed that in architectural practices, design drawings are often overlaid and mixed together.Two-dimensional plans or sections can be seen with sketches and more diagrammatic marks all on the same piece of paper in what appears a confusing jumble.Neutelings 6 stated that designers rely on various modes of representation to work their way through the design process, and the skill needed to design has a direct relationship with the various media available during the design process.

Divergent Thinking
The importance of generating variations or alternatives cannot be overestimated.According to Liu 8 , designers have to test several alternatives, before finding a possible solution.They have to generate a wide range of concepts to prevent overlooking valuable ones.They have to evaluate and select these soon enough to restrict their number from getting too large to allow meaningful consideration.During the conceptual stage, in the formulation of McGown 9 , the number of what are called 'lateral' transformations shouldn't be exaggerated.In a lateral transformation, as Goel 10 specified, movement is from one idea to a different idea.In a vertical transformation, movement is from one idea to a more detailed and exacting version of the same idea.Good design is a result of balance between lateral and vertical transformation.It is a result of a balance between divergent and convergent thinking.As written by Marples 11 , the nature of the problem can only be found by examining it through proposed solutions, and it seems likely that its examination through just one proposal leads to a very biased view.It seems probable that at least two radically different solutions need to be attempted in order to obtain a clear picture of the 'real nature' of the problem through comparisons of subproblems.
Therefore, Lawson 12 stated that it might be perhaps better for designers to use divergent thinking in excess rather than too sparingly.
How could the first project of the villa Savoye be made less expensive?As Benton 13 analysed, the first project for this villa was based on a rigid 5-by-5-meter grid, and moreover, it used the dimension of the turning circle of a large car and the space required to bring a gently sloping ramp up through the house without dividing the plan in two.Just trying to reduce the dimensions a bit in all directions, would have made it impossible to maintain those important features.Therefore, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret tried in November 1928 several alternatives not maintaining all these typical characteristics of the first concept 14 .On November 26, they made a completely new design; a juxtaposition of vertical volumes incorporating a vertical staircase block with a 'pan de verre' window (2).

Iterative process
After two months of research and several proposals, the architects still weren't satisfied with the newly developed concepts and looked back to their first drawings.However, the second and third projects were not useless at all.These alternative designs did help them to find saving solutions: by increasing the density of parts on the ground floor and the first floor, by reducing the terrace to a solarium, and by diminishing the range between posts.The new project of 21 December 1928, was in fact an adaptation of the first one, and costed much less 15 .
About this iterative process is also written by researchers.Levin 16 said that with a first concept, it's almost impossible to propose an idea that meets all preconditions at once.Eventually, as Lawson 17 stated, unless the design proves totally successful, one of two things happen to halt this phase.Either the general form of the solution reveals itself incapable of solving enough problems, or so many modifications have to be made that the idea behind the solution is lost and abandonded.In either case the designer is likely to choose the revolutionary step of starting a completely new train of thought.Ching 18 noted that while the design process is typically presented as a linear series of steps, it is more truly a cyclical, iterative sequence of careful analysis of available information; intuitive synthesis of insights, and critical evaluation of possible solutions.An iterative process that is repeated until a successful fit between what exists and what is desired is achieved.The design process can be compressed into a short, intense period of time or extend over several months or even years, depending on the urgency or complexity of the design problem.Design can also be an untidy process in which moments of confusion are followed by instances of exquisite clarity, interspersed with periods of quiet reflection.Designing is in fact searching without really knowing what to look for 19 .

Integrated architecture: merge and blend.
In their final design, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret seemed to return to their first project, with only minor modifications.But in fact, in that last project, they managed to combine qualities of several of the previous designs, thereby adding the richness and complexity as Benton 20 noticed.The contrast between horizontal and vertical, almost absent from the first project, but a main feature in the scheme of 26-27 November, was reintroduced in the final scheme in the form of the spiral staircase.Also the pan de verre modified the first project and made it possible to see down into the entrance hall and out onto the terrace as you move up or down the ramp.
From research about architectural design, we learn that combining multiple qualities in one solution gives satisfactory results.Jones 21 clarified that ideas encompassing multiple topics are also called integrated or also composite.For architect Peter Zumthor 22 , architecture is at its most beautiful when things have come into their own --when they are coherent.That is when everything refers to everything else, and it is impossible to remove a single thing without destroying the whole.Place, use, and form.The form reflects the place, the place is just so, and the use reflects this and that.Architectural qualities of the design must merge and blend with the constructional and formal structure of the finished building.Form and construction, appearance and function are then no longer separate.They belong together and form a whole.
Benton 23 noted that the use for a standard window in the Villa Savoye can be read on numerous levels.First of all, the 'fenêtre en longueur' was made possible by the concrete structure and as such it served as an expression of that structure.Secondly, it was also an interior solution, being the most efficient way to distribute light.Thirdly, the 'fenêtre en longueur' was also a storage solution, whereby underneath the long windows built-in cupboards allowed for storage and concealed distribution channels for services.And finally, it was a technical solution, of which the architects tried to patent the sliding window.
Another example of integrated architecture in the Villa Savoye comes with the question of channelling and containing a route inside a regular volume, and linking that route to spaces of different size and intensity.Symmetry and asymmetry were both relevant, as were closure and transparency, a disciplining grid and fragmentation of that grid, the taut planes of the box and the sensuous spaces created by curves.All this resulted in a new combination for the 'Five Points'.At the end of the 1920s he drew a series of sketches comparing the house of the Maison La Roche/Jeanneret, to the final project for the Villa Baizeau at Carthage, and to the Villa Stein at Garches.The Villa Savoye fused together the asymmetry, spatial drama and promenade architecturale of the first, with the skeletal character of the second, and the geometrical clarity of the third (3).It combined the square, the grid, the axis, the frontal plane and a turbulent drama of interior and exterior spaces , volumes and surfaces; and it managed to play these together while maintaining unity, hierarchy and an appropriate level of detail 24 .
2.6 Balancing a straightforward concept with ambiguïty.
Winters 25 explained that variety or diversity is an important design consideration because "too much" visual activity may cause a chaotic effect.On the other hand, no variety or diversity results in monotony.The architectural designer must walk the tight rope between chaos and boredom to create a building or space of enticing interest.A balancing of complexity or detail on the one hand, and simplicity or plainness on the other, is necessary.When a building uses too many elements we say it is 'busy'.When a building uses no variety in elements we say it is uninteresting.The architect must have a balance of simplicity and restful visual areas with complex, more active forms.Venturi 26 liked elements which are hybrid rather than "pure," compromising rather than "clean," distorted rather than "straightforward," ambiguous rather than "articulated," perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as "interesting," conventional rather than "designed," accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear.He prefered messy vitality over obvious unity.
The architect Fujimoto 27 declared that he wanted to make architecture that even a child can draw.A desire for lucidity.However, at the same time, he wanted this lucid architecture to contain an incomprehensible diversity.
A place containing both the lucidity of the solution at the moment it appeared, and the experience of a profound diversity throughout.
We can find an example of this balance between concept and detail in the strip window bordering the terrace in the south façade of the Villa Savoye.This window was so broad that it had to be reinforced by two baby pilotis linking horizontal stiffeners.Seen from the outside these delicate cylinders hover in an ambiguous position (4).They seem part of the façade, which they are, but their diminutive size in comparison with the normal pilotis also forces a perspectival reading so that they are read simultaneously well within the building 28 .
predecessors, we must carry on a certain tradition.De Vylder 35 stated that an architect should not always invent completely new concepts, but can start from an existing situation and bring that up to date.This will have the advantage of carrying the old in it.Part of the quality of the new lies in its comparison with the old.Or, as Perec 36 formulated for art paintings that a considerable number of, if not all, paintings only acquire their true significance in relation to the earlier works that are found in them, either simply reproduced whole or in part, or in a much more allusive manner, encrypted.Similarly, Geers 37 wrote for architecture that the architect's project deals indirectly with everything that has happened before, both in the field of architecture and in the world.Architecture without acknowledging history is impossible.The project is not about inventions in order to bring something new into existence, but about formulating intentions to reassemble things already known in another way.In today's world, too much emphasis is put on the new, the fresh and the frenzy.Architecture is neither new nor old, architecture is always contemporary.Every new architecture reassembles chosen elements of a found reality.
Le Corbusier made several travels to study past architecture.In the villa Savoye, he was inspired by the earth ramps of Middle Eastern architecture for his promenade architectural.Among Le Corbusier, only on foot, in movement, can you see the developing articulation of the architecture 38 .

Conclusion
The making of the project for the Villa Savoye, seems to include all aspects of typical interesting design processes.As a frequently published that can also be visited and experienced in reality, it can help to explain the complexity of designing and make all these aspects of it more comprehensible.