Question
Asked 26 October 2016

Is it Form follows Functions or Function follows Form?

Dear Researchers,
In Classical period we saw the architecture developed on the principle of 'Function follows Form', which then altered to 'Form follows Function' during Modernism. Now few argue that Both of them are important.... Acceptance, rejections and arguments are still on. Can I get more perspectives on what researchers think on the issue today? and Why? Also if you can give your one line background would be helpful. 
Regards
Uma

Most recent answer

Dear Jan Waldrop. How to explain to architecture students that the function of the Christian religion has not changed significantly for two millennia, and the forms of temples repeatedly? Physical processes occur in Universe, living organisms and social bodies, but this does not mean that they affect objects similarly.

Popular answers (1)

Faris Ali Mustafa
Salahaddin University-Erbil
It is a reciprocal relationship, neither one of them advances nor lags, the two are interdependent with each other, that is, both complement the other…
7 Recommendations

All Answers (27)

Unai Fernández de Betoño
University of the Basque Country
Both of theme are valid, in my opinion. Because, on the one hand, same function can be inserted into different forms; and, on the other, inside the same form you can insert different functions. So, it's only a false dicotomy you can exaggerate depending on your (ideologic) interest(s).
1 Recommendation
Dear Uma
This is a good lead question. It seems to me that in the tick-tock between form follow function or function follow from something is missing. Perhaps it can be said that function and from - or form and function, are not first principle issues and they alternate being second and third principles or visa-versa.
So what would be the first principle? From philosophical point of view it seems that the cause or the reason of the form and the function of any building or structure would be a first principle issue.
Therefore I suggest that maybe a current formula that can be considered here would be: CUASE - FUNCTION - FROM or CUASE - FROM - FUNCTION
hope is add a little to the discussion
Erez
PS: As a side issue consideration, the term Functional Medicine can be evaluate here also.
1 Recommendation
Ronald Samuel LaFleur
SUNY Maritime College
Function vs. Form is a bit like the chicken-and-egg problem in that you are trying to place these ideas on a timeline and decide a causal relationship.  This is made challenging when considering the ideas in a vacuum.   Instead, the ideas are not in a vacuum and exist in a larger environment.
For example, if we consider the chicken-and-egg problem in the context of the environment, we have to consider how a form survives by finding food sources and avoiding predators.  With the assumption that the environment imposes these competitive forces on the form, then the surviving and evolving form is the one that has the best 'fitness.'  This suggests that what could be called a chicken came first because it has the ability (function) to flee from predators while the egg does not.  On the other hand, the egg develops without requiring an external food source.  But the egg requires warmth and protection from the chicken.  This debate continues often with evolutionary processes of variation and selection being invoked and an attempt to look back in time.
With regard to design, function and form coexist and which one is emphasized first depends on the design environment.  Variation is the mechanism for producing many form variants and creativity can be very important.  Function requires a selection process that decides fitness to the task at hand and a scientific method for judging fitness is needed.  Due to the dependence on environment, what is an optimal balance between form and function can change when the environmental conditions change (design, regulations, manufacturing, management, cost structures, material availability...). There is no vacuum, so some of the burden in design is knowing the current environment.
1 Recommendation
Dear;
See Functional Analysis and Value Analysis  and also these standards:
Norme FD X50-101 (1995). Analyse Fonctionnelle: L'Analyse Fonctionnelle outil interdisciplinaire de compétitivité. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme FD 50-153 (1985). Analyse de la Valeur: Recommandations pour sa mise en œuvre. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme  ISO 21351 (en cours). Systèmes Spatiaux: Cahier des Charges Fonctionnel et Spécification Technique de Besoin.
Norme NF EN 1325-1(1996). Vocabulaire du Management par la Valeur, de l'Analyse de la Valeur et de l'Analyse Fonctionnelle. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme NF EN 1325-2 (2005). Vocabulaire du Management par la Valeur, de l'Analyse de la Valeur et de l'Analyse Fonctionnelle. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme NF EN 12973 (2000). Management par la Valeur. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme NF X50-100 (1996). Analyse Fonctionnelle: Caractéristiques Fondamentales. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme NF X50-151 (2007). Analyse de la Valeur, Analyse Fonctionnelle: Expression Fonctionnelle du Besoin et Cahier des Charges Fonctionnel. Paris: AFNOR.
Norme NF X50-156 (2004). Management par la Valeur: Conception à Coût Objectif (CCO) ou à Objectif Désigné (COD) Exigences pour un pilotage concerté de la conception. Paris: AFNOR.
Regards, Nabil
Alex Haerens
Sapa Group
I'm an industrial designer and as such I work in the conviction that form follows function, but this is not a single path circuit. There are always several ways to get a function. If for instance you want to connect two wooden blocks then glue, a dovetail connection, a screw, a nail, ... will all do the job and these solutions are not even remotely alike. Still they all obey to form follows function. Another thing is that function is not always what seems to be declared. A ceiling in a church at 30 meters height does not serve the function of giving people a roof over their head since no human is that big. But it serves the function of showing the people inside how big god must be. A balustrade in wrought iron will serve as protection and separation. The ornamental curves, leafs, etc. serve as a disguise of the structure, to make it nice and acceptable. Again there is more than one function in the form.
The only time I see a "function follows form" is when people find a use for the things in their environment. Stone age people found stones that were hard enough to support a blow and that fitted in their hand and so "invented" stone tools. They gave a function to the form. In present days you would drive a screwdriver in the ground, attach a string to it to mark the boundary where you want to dig and that way attach a new function to the form at hand.
1 Recommendation
Ronald Samuel LaFleur
SUNY Maritime College
Designer: Form follows Function within the Environment
Operator: Function follows Form within the Environment
1 Recommendation
Bryan R Lawson
The University of Sheffield
Perhaps the classic quotation to answer your question is Sir Winston Churchill just after the Second World War in a debate about rebuilding the British Houses of Parliament.  Some wanted a new circular debating chamber but Churchill who excellent in debate wanted the old opposing benches....he won.   He said we shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us.
2 Recommendations
Timothy Edward Jones
Swansea University
from an engineering point of view form definitely follows function, however, this is often, arguably mostly, trumped by socio-political/economic considerations which then dictate that function follows form,
this was expressed in various naval treaties in the early 20th century, at one point the Kaiser remarked that in Germany they decide how big a battleship they want and then build a suitable dock for it, in Britain the opposite was said to apply, the government had said how large a dock they were prepared to build and the navy had to adapt its requirements to this
this is a point Alex missed, the 30 foot high ceiling was more often the result of a desire to overshadow a rival church that only had a 28 foot ceiling than it was to that God is so much bigger than any human
The first city in the world was Jericho in the Jurdan  valley, in which the first few buildings were four round barns and a tall tower.  The tower was alighted with the tallest mountain on the west side so that on the winter eqiunox day when the sun goes down it will cast a huge shadow. What was the real function of that first tower??
it might be a good question to add here...
Maaz Algada
faculty of engineering shoubra benha university
if the function follow form , what fornm is it ? can we say that ? Or why this particular form ? if the speech in the abdurd , we are looking for a job for this form , for eatch function there are one form suitable successful than othres , and therefore ,form results of / from the function .
Miguel Mesquita
Escola Superior Artística do Porto
Function follows Form.
Yasser Mabad
Egyptian Russian University
for me it’s like the chicken and the egg–we have to ask which came first, the form or the function?   the form existed before the function. It was the form that stimulated the imagination and the concept of use, which then steered to the function.
1 Recommendation
Melanie S. Hood
Stepped Care Solutions Inc.
In genetics and physiology, generally the form dictates the function. I think this could be argued for the built environment as well...Yes, we can design spaces in order to nudge people's behaviours, however the best design of a space will come after observing people in various "habitats" and redesigning based on their preferred/most efficient/effective patterns of use. I do wonder about this chicken and egg question in terms of organizational structures and systems.
1 Recommendation
Timothy Edward Jones
Swansea University
experience of martial arts lead me to make an interesting observation on this in terms of the built environment Melanie, some years ago while conducting a combat display in a reconstructed Iron Age village I sustained a cracked elbow. For the rest of the weekend this did not result in any major problems due to the design meaning I did not hit my elbow on surfaces very often. Once I'd returned to the modern world the angular nature of everything meant I was constantly hitting the injured area. This lead me to wonder whether or not cultures where such injuries might be expected tend to adopt softer more curved architectural forms than those with more sedentary populations.
1 Recommendation
Salahaddin Yasin Baper
Salahaddin University-Erbil
Form and Function are one
Mohammed Ghazi
Al-Iraqia University
Form follows architecture and function follows architecture, and both go toward human need
1 Recommendation
Jitender Singh
Indian Institute of Technology Ropar
It's up to human needs and today both of these are governed by product aesthetic design.
1 Recommendation
Faris Ali Mustafa
Salahaddin University-Erbil
It is a reciprocal relationship, neither one of them advances nor lags, the two are interdependent with each other, that is, both complement the other…
7 Recommendations
From follow function or function follow form could be like a tick-took of a pendulum as time moves on and things evolve. It often depend on what was the reason and the purpose to begin with.
2 Recommendations
Ansam Saleh
Salahaddin University-Erbil
endless relationship can not be separated both complete each other
1 Recommendation
“…the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where action does not change form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever brooding hills, main for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape and dies in a twinkling. It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of e head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law “. Louis Sullivan from "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered"
Dear Ansam Saleh, when the philosophically minded Sullivan wrote these words in 1896, he meant the law of interaction and tried to apply the concept of force and energy in the formation of form and its feedback. Thanks to this idea, a theory appeared in which the purpose of the structure, expressed in its functional image, should have turned into a spatial one. During the previous centuries, architects followed the classical theory based on the reproduction of traditional spatial patterns. The idea that the geometric characteristics of a structure are not determined by its internal characteristics (size, composition, style), but the external role they play was revolutionary. In fact, in a structure, its geometric properties such as shape, purpose, scale are independent. This expression as a slogan cannot be used as well as to attribute to the Middle Ages that the Cathedral in Paris created Christianity.
The thought that they complement each other means the principle of "do what you want and so everything is good" means that architectural theory must die.
Ramin Dehbandi
Nottingham Trent University
In my view, it depends on the project. Sometimes we have to make the form follow function, and sometimes the reverse. But it is only about which comes first, after that they will come to attention in cycles.
1 Recommendation
Yasser Mabad
Egyptian Russian University
The dictum form follows function was coined by the American architect Louis Sullivan in his article "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered"published in 1896 , he said" It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head,of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression,that form ever follows function. This is the law." However, that dictum is not a agreed general approach, Sullivan mentored Frank Lloyd Wright, who extended the idea to argue that form and function are one. Antonio Gaudi said "Form does not necessarily follow function"Ecro Saarinen said "Function influence but does not dictate form"Oscar Niemeyer said "my work is not about ‘form follows function’, but ‘form follows beauty’ or, even better, ‘form follows feminine".Thus, we see the wide controversy about what form follows in Architectureand applied arts, especially the interior design and furniture.
Jan Waldorp
University of Groningen
In biology form always follows function. It is based on the precise reproductive sequence of self-replicating organisms such as humans. Humans can be described as self-reproducing machines. In a self-reproducing machine sometimes an error occurs in the proces of replication. Unless the mutation provides an advantage, it causes a disturbance in the self-replication sequence and is consequently removed. In a few cases the design modification causes a positive feedback and provides an advantage that will outproduce the other designs (Tooby & Cosmides, 1995). Therefore, form is always the outcome of the function. Humans are no exception to this rule nor any form of human organization.
Dear Jan Waldrop. How to explain to architecture students that the function of the Christian religion has not changed significantly for two millennia, and the forms of temples repeatedly? Physical processes occur in Universe, living organisms and social bodies, but this does not mean that they affect objects similarly.

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