Precedent is an inspirational word or artifact. It can be a lot like the word prototype or archetype as it is where the next phase of design comes from. Throughout history, other cultures based their designs for architecture off of previous societies. Romans used precedents of other societies when they built the churches. Constantine was active in the church and in only a year after he reunited the empire he “made Christianity the favored imperial religion.” (Roth 279). Now that Christianity was popular they needed a place to worship and they set out to find an architectural place of worship. “Constantine and church officials looked to secular public buildings, and the type they selected was the basilica” The basilica was a place for law or gatherings, what better place for a Christianity to be embraced. It was a place where a gathering of people could hear the Christian law preached from the altar. From there other churches used the Church basilica as precedents for their own. Furthermore, the other buildings of Christians were derived from royal tombs which were round, octagonal, or square. (Roth 280). As designers we must receive inspiration from other places that we might not have thought about for spaces. The basilica was used for law and with a few alterations it became an icon of what we see today for worship.
In design I find this word to be similar to multi functional. As stated in previous entries, for a space to work it must have commodity, firmness, and delight. The commodity of a building is determined by those who use it. The basilica was used for “civic activities…a large covered space, where judges could hear cases and the public could listen” (Roth 257). However, around circa 300, the basilica would be forever changed into a place of Christian worship. The basic outline of the building was a duality; it was not only for one use alone now. Again Constantine changed the commodity of the building by making it into a churches gathering space. “St. Peters and other early churches were clearly derived from the great imperial basilicas, but additional modifications were necessitated by the special needs of Christian worship.” (Roth 282) The commodity changed so to must the others as well. The basilica had a certain way of working for both law and the church. Two completely different purposes, and yet came together to accommodate both under “one roof” so to speak.
Moment captures time in place and allows us to revisit whenever the need. Architecture or even design in general captures a moment in time to allow us to go back and see what life was like back then. A moment that is literally caught in time is that of Pompeii Italy. When Mount Vesuvius erupted the town was caught off guard and was completely covered by molten lava. When excavated the archeologists found the city beneath. The town gives much insight to what was occurring back in that time. It linked together so much of what was going on in Italy during those times as well as uncovering for the first time the villa. Had this moment in time not have been discovered there would have been many loose ends of history still yet to be connected. In present day time we are learning to capture our own moments in time through drawing. For Suzanne we had to go draw a specific building and capture the building in whichever way we wanted. Those drawings created a mood of what was occurring and gave insight on how to become a better rounded designer. If the composition was too close it did not show how the building was to be experienced. However, if the moment was captured with a more zoomed out look, the building read more easily. Capturing those buildings in time allows me to revisit them whenever I am stuck on a design and get inspired by them all over again.
Size is an important aspect of design. When drawing the Mossman building, I saw how the people interacted with the space and got a feel of how large the space was to an individual. Size impacts design in every way because people do not want to feel uncomfortable and jammed into a place. The bathes of the Diocletian can be a way of interpreting metric further besides that of a measuring tape or tool. The baths are all linked together by the technologically advanced system of water, but the people within the space and the different rooms separating one room from another is a different way of going about the word metric. The building was for an aray of different amenities besides that of bathing. The baths were free to the public and had theaters and gymnasiums and had “continual games and the pleasures of the baths served to divert the populace.” Roth (269). These baths created a system of diverse functions that separated each into a caldarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium, and yet were all connected by water. The people in the space verses how large the actual baths were created a measuring devise to go by. It could accommodate 3200 people at various times of day for men, women, and slaves. The people had to feel comfortable enough in the space so that they were not all packed into the baths. The distance between the classes and the actual people in space versus one another all had to be taken into account when designing the baths of the Diocletian. Thus, the word metric goes beyond that of a measuring tape. It can be used to describe a range of different scales; the scale of the governments rule, the space between people in the space, and the space dimensions itself.
Presence I feel is how something speaks for itself. Work as a designer has to present itself without the designer there to defend it. When our work is put up it becomes for others to interpret and critique. The churches presence in society was to make order out of chaos. The church was built high and dominated over the area in which it was placed, as to give order to a unorganized place. The churches of Italy had geometric shapes that contained the genetic code of the universe they believed that this would make the building not become destroyed when the world ended. The church was the turn to place for order in the early 1000’s. The presence of the church allowed the people to feel more secure.
The purpose of design is to voice our ideas through our work. We must be careful of measurements because that is how a person will interact in the building. The scale of something must be able to relate well to the consumer, or it will take away from the design. They must be able to enjoy the "moment" that the space is creating by making it a functional design. Furthermore, if a space has a dual purpose or can accomidate more than one purpose it makes the space more delightful because it goes back to the basic functions of design. If the design works well enough, it can make its presence known throughout its lifetime to become a design that can be used as a precedent for designs to come. Afterall, that is what we all are designing for. We design to allow our voice to be heard long after we are gone.