Analysis of Forms and Elements in Architecture

Abstract

Studies and analyses of architectural design have become less visible in recent discourses. Current architectural education in Nigerian universities which is guided by a curriculum for Benchmark Academic Standard prescribes theory of architecture in the third year without going into specifics in the undergraduate programme. There is no explicit diet for students to understand designs or analyse them as was done in the past when students were exposed to critiques and meanings of the works of past and present architects. This trend is noticeable globally as a search in Google Scholar revealed very few mentions on the topics. This study seeks to present the analyses of design forms and elements in a concise form to be easily digested by architects and students who may wish to carry out specific analysis of architectural works and compositions. It was carried out by cursory investigations into the few publications on the subject matter and related fields in the Science Citation Index to decipher and extract the classical interpretations of the basic indices for analyzing architectural designs and presenting them in unambiguous terms. The positions held in this presentation are inferred or re-presented from the publications. The indices for analyses presented in the article are fundamental but not exhaustive as so many schools of thought in architecture may have other nuances for understanding of forms and elements in architectural design.