FORM FOLLOW FUNCTION
Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.
The authorship of the phrase is often, though wrongly, ascribed to the American sculptor Horatio Greenaugh, whose thinking to a large extent predates the later functional approach to architecture. It was, however, the American architect Louis Sullivan who coined the phrase, in 1896, in his article "The Tall office building artistically considered". Here Sullivan actually said "form ever follows function", but the simpler (and less emphatic) phrase is the one usually remembered. For Sullivan this was distilled wisdom, an aesthetic credo, the single "rule that shall permit of no exception". The full quote is thus:
It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.
Sullivan developed the shape of the tall steel skycrapper in late 19th Century Chicago at the very moment when technology, taste and economic forces converged violently and made it necessary to drop the established styles of the past. If the shape of the building wasn't going to be chosen out of the old pattern book something had to determine form, and according to Sullivan it was going to be the purpose of the building. It was "form follows function", as opposed to "form follows precedent". Sullivan's assistant Frank Lloyd Right adopted and professed the same principle in slightly different form, perhaps because shaking off the old styles gave them more freedom and latitude.
FUNCTION FOLLOW FORM
A Reverse Process Design Project
The following lists outline the sequence of steps for traditional design process and the alternative
sequence used in this project.
The traditional route for ID:
1. Design brief and introduction to the purpose
2. Research
3. Sketching (two dimensional)
4. Concept rendering (two dimensional)
5. Refinement drawings (two dimensional)
6. Model making (three dimensional)
7. Detail design (in digital three dimensions)
The route taken in reverse process design project:
1. Model making form studies (three dimensional)
2. Sketching of models (two dimensional)
3. Design brief and introduction to the purpose
4. Research
5. Revisions of form (three dimensional)
6. Final model making (three dimensional)
7. Detail design (in digital three dimensions)
This understanding begins with abstract form theory, a structure of abstract visual relationships.
Prior to this project, the third year ID studio class at WWU had been studying and doing the
exercises of Rowena Reed Kostellow’s three dimensional design form theory. These exercises
were developed by Ms. Kostellow during her celebrated career as a professor at Pratt Institute
from 1938 to 1972. The goal is to develop a student’s sensitivity to form: to create it, analyze it,
and understand it based on this formal theory of spatial relationships.
