36 | 37
1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: PD0710-67/4028Chapter 2 final_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 9:01 AM Page 37
TextProblem solving› NL Architects: Prisma housingMultiple solutionsThere is no such thing as one right answer in architecture.
In his book Tools for Ideas: An Introduction to Architectural
Design,Christian Gänshirt contrasts scientific thought and
method to that of architecture. He refers to Horst Rittel’s
definition of ‘tricky or wicked’ problems, which have no
definitive solution. There may only be one opportunity to
provide a solution (because the next time the problem will
be different; in architecture there will be a different site,
brief, budget or client) and so it is impossible to definitively
compare the quality of that solution with another. In addition,
if an architect made a comprehensive study of every option
available for every small decision in order to solve the bigger
problem, there would be no time to act. The benefit of action
far outweighs the negligible benefit associated with certainty
on the multiplicity of smaller questions.
For an architect, the imperative to act is the justification
of their existence. To compound this, the knowledge that
there is no means of establishing one right answer drives
the architect to adjust their process in the endless search to
improve upon the last project and explore another idea that
presents itself as imperative. This leads to an empirical
approach to solving architectural problems.‘It’s delicate. We don’t force whatever’s emerging. On the contrary, we try to
keep it in peripheral vision for as long as possible and try to let it acquire its
own qualities and its own momentum. It’s such a delicate thing and if you
try and lock it down into a crude, over-presented way, that is an absolute
anathema to the way that we work.’
Steve Tompkins, Haworth Tompkins1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: PD0710-67/4028Chapter 2 final_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 9:02 AM Page 37