Selected Bibliography Architecture - Form Space and Order | Page 353

O R D E R ING PRINCIPLES

While Chapter 4 employed a geometric basis for organizing the forms and
spaces of a building, this chapter discusses additional principles that can
be utilized to create order in an architectural composition. Order refers not
simply to geometric regularity, but rather to a condition in which each part of a
whole is properly disposed with reference to other parts and to its purpose so
as to produce a harmonious arrangement.
There exists a natural diversity and complexity in the program requirements
for buildings. The forms and spaces of any building should acknowledge the
hierarchy inherent in the functions they accommodate, the users they serve,
the purposes or meaning they convey, and the scope or context they address.
It is in recognition of this natural diversity, complexity, and hierarchy in the
programming, designing, and making of buildings that ordering principles are
discussed.
Order without diversity can result in monotony or boredom; diversity without
order can produce chaos. A sense of unity with variety is the ideal. The
following ordering principles are seen as visual devices that allow the varied and
diverse forms and spaces of a building to coexist perceptually and conceptually
within an ordered, unified, and harmonious whole.

Pergamon, Plan of Upper City, 2nd century B.C.

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