What is the importance of Design

In today’s day and age, one cannot underestimate the importance of design: the art of creating striking visuals to move and captivate your audience. But why is it exactly that design has become so important in the past decade?

To come to a conclusion on why design forms such a pivotal part of structures, we must first look at the evolution and significance of architecture and design.

As early as 2630 BC, the ancient Egyptians have been constructing pyramids as a tomb for royalty, and their design has confused historians and engineers alike: What inspired this triangular design? Was it functionality or was there a deeper meaning?

The spiritually inspired design behind pyramids:

Egyptologists have proposed multifarious ideas as to why the pyramid may have its design. One popular idea is that the sloping sides of a pyramid are in many ways a symbolic of a passage leading to the skies, where the dead would be able to metaphorically live forever. Another popular opinion is that the sloping pyramid shape in fact represents the way the rays of sun fall onto the land. Both of these, while they are indefinite, provide a salient insight as to how culture and beliefs play a significant role in the design of structures

The technical benefits of a square based pyramid:

While there is no definite answer as to why the Egyptians chose specifically a square based pyramid as opposed to a triangular based pyramid or any other similar shapes that would fulfil their cultural beliefs, one simple answers lays behind the mathematics of construction. A triangular based pyramid seems conceptually easier to construct. However, unlike in square based pyramids, the angles involved and the fabrication of the pyramid itself would be a lot harder: it’s much easier to create four exact 90 degree corners, than three exact 60 degree corners. An as a result of the triangular base, all subsequent corner stones would also need to be precisely angled. Furthermore, it would also seem that creating a floor plan would be a much more straight forward process in a square base.

The evolution of design:

In the above illustration, I have placed the pyramid as the starting point of the so called 'evolution of architecture'. However, know lets zoom in specifically on the most probable reason as to why the pyramids are designed as they are.The ancestors of these great structures are the burial tombs found throughout North America and Europe-simple mounds of earth that covered burial chambers. The first tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs were flat, box-shaped buildings called mastabas.

However, the Egyptians wanted to construct taller and taller pyramids. One of the earliest attempts was the Meidum pyramid, in 2570 B.C., which had seven steps but due to a lack of structural integrity, it collapsed and was abandoned.

The Egyptians learnt that if pyramids were going to be higher, to support the structure they must have steeper slopes wider bases. This process of making the base wider and the top taller finally culminated in the shape of a square based pyramid, suggesting that perhaps, it is design that proves advances in structure.This raises the question of what came first: The chicken or the egg?

What came first: advances in structures or advances in design?

Advances in Design:

The advances in design mainly took place in different artistic eras, where peoples views and ideas of aesthetics drastically changed. For example, it was the art nouveau movement that instigated ideas and designs such as the Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

As seen in the image above, compared to the surrounding structures this cathedral is an artistic monument and after its design completion in 1881, it took more than 40 years to complete, thus showing the extent of engineering difficulty in such a structure.

Advances in Structure:

The discovery of new materials- Having stronger materials allows for the construction of taller buildings and more extravagant architectural features. New innovations such as graphene, which 200 times stronger than steel will allow humans to further extend horizons in design through the competency of materials

The development of new tools-The evolution of technology, such as CAD, had made design a more simplistic process, which allows for experimentation of design. CAD accelerates the process of construction through allowing the user to test models for structural integrity easily and therefore come up with solutions.

Overall, In my opinion, it is impossible to put one before the other due to the immense amount of variables surrounding construction. While sometimes they may literally go hand in hand, most of the time, its one that influences the other- but the starting point may be design or structural advances and within reasonable expectation of a structure, (i.e. its not infinitely tall)it is impossible to place one above the other

Time vs Perception

Once more, looking at the architecture time line above, both structure and aesthetic elements of architecture and design have evidently changed and its this which raises the question of what really makes a building or a structure visually appealing? Is it grandiosity or quirkiness as seen in many modern design movements? Or simplicity and functionality as seen in artistic movements such as the Bauhaus movement? ​

It is in fact society and its overall position that determine whether something is of aesthetic appeal. Western culture and most developed countries have explored more quirky ideas as a way of catching the onlookers eye and no where is this more evident than in the work of Zaha Hadid who was one of the most influential and popular architects of the 21st century. As you can see, while each building is unique, an architect’s perception of design is outlined by collective attributes of their creations:

Is aesthetics everything?

While we have discovered that design does indeed play a large part of construction, pure aesthetic appeal is not everything. When designing a building, often large considerations and criteria have to be fulfiled

Considerations for design

Earthquake proofing-Buildings are basically designed to support a vertical load in order to support the walls, roof and all the stuff inside to keep them standing. Earthquakes present a lateral, or sideways, load to the building structure that is a bit more complicated to account for

How tall the building is-As the buildings get bigger and taller other techniques are employed such as “base isolation.” Another technique to dampen the swaying of a tall building is to build in a large (several tons) mass that can sway at the top of the building in opposition to the building sway.

Temperature- most materials are susceptible to expansion and compression dependant on the temperature. This can be overcome using expansion joints

Material being built on- If the ground lacks structural integrity (e.g. sand), then the foundations will have to go a lot deeper to ensure the building doesn’t sink or move the ground

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To conclude, we have examined the evolution of design and answered where design stands against practicality of construction. Overall, the importance of design just cannot be ignored due to the immense role it has had since the beginning of development.