Design constraints

Constraint; something that limits or restrains Design constraint; RULES and LEGISLATIONS STANDARDS VALUES and NORMS REQUIREMENTS WISHES, preferences etc. HABITS, tendencies TRENDS.which direct design activity. They are produced by different actors who play a particular role in design or generates his/her own part of the problem These can be named DESIGNER, CLIENT, USER AND LEGISLATOR GENERATED CONSTRAINS

In design, the problem usually originates not in the designer's mind but with a client or users; someone in need who is unable to solve the problem or perhaps even fully to understand it without help. But he expects more than just a house with rooms of appropriate sizes and relationships. Client expects architect's aesthetic-based contribution related to form, space and style.

The client on the other hand cannot actually design by himself but nevertheless may to some extent know what he wants. Obviously clever client chooses a designer according to his/her past work The way that designers perceive and understand problems is to some extent a function of this social relationship. The vast majority of design today is commissioned by clients who are not themselves the users.

Public architecture such as hospitals, schools or housing is usually designed by publicly-employed architects who have relatively little contact with the users of their buildings. A traditional image of designer establishing a personal relationship with a client/user misleading today, and customed design is very rare Even private practitioner architects commissioned to design new buildings for a large organizations are likely to be kept away from the actual users by a client committee.

This increasing distance between designers and users has created a need for user -requirement studies. Designers have to communicate social and human scientist, ergonomists, architectural psychologist, urban sociologists to learn what their users actually need. But still relations between the users and designers remain the same and unsuccessful. Recently participatory techniques have been invented to solve this problem. In 1970s user participation to design became an important scientific issue. However it was not broadly applicable as it was expected at the beginning.

Architect is expected to generate his/her own constrains. He is supposed to come up with an integrative idea, an overall concept which organizes unifies the whole building. He may restrict the range of colures and materials and establish geometric and dimensional rules (he has to have his own values, criterias and beliefs in short his own discourse). Clearly from the designer`s point of view clients constrains are not absolute as are legislator constraints. Rather they all carry a relative value which is open to a certain amount of discussion.

The architects today must satisfy the fire officer, the building inspector and the town planner and in addition depending on the nature of the particular project, the housing corporation, health inspectors, home office inspectors, the water authority, electricity authority. Legislators create constraints within which designers must work. Such legislation and control may range from standards and codes of practice to guidelines and recommendations. Such standards may govern factors of safety, utility or appearance.

Legislative constraints in design are generally value freethat is to say they must be satisfied without question, and cannot be counted against other factors and considerations. It is obvious that designer-generated constraints are comparatively flexible. If they cause too many difficulties, or just simply do not work out the designer is free to modify or change them.

But design students often fail to recognize this simple factbut they hopelessly obey to the criteria that they put forward at the beginning of design. One of the most important skills of a designer is to gain the ability to critically evaluate his own self-imposed constraints, and give them up whenever it is needed. As we have seen the legislators demand is fixed, the client may alter his priorities and the designer may change his mind what links all the constraints is their domain of influence: external and internal

These are the constraints establish a relationship between some elements of the building and some features of its site. They relate the designed building to its context. The site boundary, the sun, the street is the external to the problem. We can refer to them as external constraints. Sometimes external constraints virtually determine the whole form of design the building regulations closely define the permitted distances of windows from boundaries, the client may have a strong preferences for the living room which overlooks the garden and has sunny aspect; the architect may think important to continue the existing street faade in terms of the line and height.

Internal constrains generally allow a grater degree of freedom and choice since they only govern factors which are under designer's control. Number and sizes of spaces, various kinds and qualities of space forms are obviously client-generated constraints. The structure or pattern of the problem to reach the desired relationships between these spaces. These relationships can be in terms of human circulation, distribution of services or in the visual, acoustic and noice controls and barriers necessary to house the various communal and private functions of the buildings.

This requires a balance between design from outside to inside and from inside to outside.