A method for Precedent Analysis of Spatial Artefacts

This paper will treat two issues regarding innovative/ creative morphological analysis of spatial artifacts in relation to their Form, Operation and Performance. One will be about precedents and their usage in the design process, analogically; and second will be an example of a comparative (architectural) precedent analysis of two buildings of the same architect(office). Learning by analogy is a powerful method, in general. Analogy has two domains basically; one is source and the other is target domain; thus, design domain will be target domain and that of analysis, source. I will try to show how we can use the structured- analogical source knowledge in spatial design process; target domain. This paper will go in depth with the creative analogy in terms of constraints of similarity, structure, and purpose as (Holyoak and Thagard, 1996) put it. There will also be presented a schematic paradigm about creativity through analogical and other creative mental behaviors like: defamiliarization, circumscribing, mental leaps, metaphor, simile, mimesis and aesthetical judgment, etc. Each spatial artifact has a form, operation(working of the function; thus, not function alone) and a performance most of which is normative. Form will be analyzed and represented in terms of its spatial relationships, organizations, its physical properties(its structure, day- light quality, geometry, mass and abstraction of these properties as parti (dominant underlying characteristics of the artifact, in terms of form, at hand), and its topological(non-metric) properties; accessibility of its consisting building blocks and spaces. Operation will basically represent how spatial divisions and blocks possibly could be used best and see if their working of the function match with the actual ends of the artifact at hand. Performance will represent performative properties in relation to operation and form; how good/ bad it operates and also evaluating how the form is emerged in relation to its context, spatial quality and aesthetics. A schematic diagram of form, operation and performance can be shown like: F(m) – O – P. In the process of analysis we can observe whether the form will or will not afford operation, and operation performance; in design process, performance will ask for affordances from operation and operation from form(morph). This mutual working of design and analysis will be explained at some levels of design phases; concept, pre-parametric sketch, parti(pre-parametric design), parametric alternatives and; eventually the definitive design. Finally, the analysis of these two buildings will be compared with each other and a conclusion will be inferred, respectively