Space it might be argued that space is the main substance that architects manipulate

and affect. A plan, strategy, or model is always an arrangement, parcelling, and

structuring of spatial relationships. Architects cluster uses together, string out rooms,
arrange adjacencies, propose flows of people through circulation, separate, join or
interrelate inside and outside or rooms to rooms. All of this happens in three dimensions
and is experienced fragmentally over time. When students are critiqued for their projects
not being spatial enough what is meant is that they are generally not thinking about the
above.

Concept/idea good and great projects have something that holds the project or
building together. It could be a narrative about how the building is used or experienced
or the way in which it enters into a dialogue with its surroundings. Architecture can
support, critique or negate its surroundings, history of the building type or its function.
The reasons for doing any of this are usual conceptual rather than functional it is about
how buildings speak to its culture and society.

Form this can be a rather tricky, complicated and loaded term, but I will define it
simply as the stuff that determines or organises space, the solids if you will. In this sense
it is inseparable from space, they work together (solid and void) to provide for use,
movement, and expression. Form is sometimes seen mostly as dealing with the last term
expression, as in abstract form, overwrought form, appropriate form, and so on. This
tends to treat form as shape and worse, sculptural shape. Form thought about in this way
has its uses in art but simplifies the difficulty of architecture if not seen as something
that relates various aspects (use, space, light, expression, and structure). Talk of form
often leads to talk of being formal or formalist which is taken to mean shapist
something that is all sculpture and lacking in content. However, form remains a critical
thing to think about in the making of architecture.

Unity/clarity These terms have fallen a bit out of favour; they were very popular and
central terms in modern architecture, but not everyone agrees that unity is possible or
necessary. We now accept that projects can be fragmentary, collage-like or ambiguous.
Yet, even when making projects that might not be singular in their approach or aesthetic,
there is always this drive to be clear about ones ideas and intentions. Even the most
deconstructivist or collage-like project will work to some sort of common expression,
motif or underlying method, i.e. unifying principle.

Context this is a term used more and more to replace site. Whereas site is the
physical place where you build and which an architect should understand, context can
include the history of the place, demographics, patterns of formal or informal use,
cultural or social aspects and so on. All of these and more can be used to underpin an
idea for a project.

Function this might be a contestable term for some architects; we no longer see
function in the sense that modern architects saw it and from which some developed the
idea of functionalism. Functionalism was the idea that if you satisfied the use of the
building in your design everything else would take care of itself in short, that function
was the primary aim of design. Functions are now seen as more fluid, changeable and
indeterminate uses, so architects may instead speak about use or events or actions.
Nevertheless, despite the shift in thinking about the function of a building, at some point
the architecture must engage with what is meant to happen in it and propose some
resolution to that (even if it is to propose indeterminate and flexible space).

Order this term has some of the characteristics of unity mentioned above. It can be
seen as a strict and hierarchical concept. But it can also be understood in the sense of
underlying organisational principles that can include fluid, labyrinthine or network type
structures. Although some architects believe they are fostering some sort of productive
disorder in their projects, there is always some order there. It may be the result of
constructional necessity or visual legibility (i.e. signalling disorder). In the end the
building, paid for and used by others must work in some way; there must be some order
somewhere.

Structure the first sense of this word is in relation to technology, i.e., how things are
held up, fastened and made. The other sense is similar to order, as an organisational
principle. This is about how you read, interpret and then structure uses, experiences,
spaces, forms and all the rest to develop a project.

User/Inhabitation this is about those people who live, work or utilise the building,
design or project. Some see user as an overly neutral term that homogenizes the
diversity of people and their reaction to spaces resulting in bland expectations of
behaviour. In schools we tend to speak about how someone might inhabit a space or
buildings so that the student is led to think about narratives, accidental or secondary
ways of using spaces, or about how spaces might be appropriated and transformed in
different ways. Thinking about inhabitation is meant to make one more aware of the life
of people in architecture rather than about the functions they carry out. I always use the
example of the kitchen its function is for cooking and maybe eating, but during a party
it tends to be the most social gathering space, its use going beyond its function.

My more personal take on architecture is that its key role is in providing spaces for
people to carry out their activities in a way that supports, enriches and facilitates the
inhabitants to adapt, transform and make the spaces their own. I tend to privilege spatial
development and organisation for this reason. The way you organise spaces can fix
(sometimes overly) social relations by creating unnecessary or counter-productive
hierarchies. But it can also open up spaces so that life within the architecture can evolve
so that both social and architectural conditions grow and change (hopefully for the
better). For me form, space, structure and context are critical terms function,
economics, regulations and other pragmatic aspects are issues to be dealt with, used to
make a work of architecture as good as it can be rather than taken as limiting factors of
the work.
Privileging form, the author's creativity or concepts tend to simplify and overlook what is
a very complicated design practice.