TC03_C: PRE-DESIGN

Programming and program/brief analysis

Form Finding from the Inside Out. Programming is the art and/or science of determining the fundamental
functional requirements of a designed object. We often assume that this is a simple task, and for well-known
building types (single family residences, speculative office buildings, etc.) this may be the case. However
discerning the essential requirements for more complex or less deterministic building types (e.g., hospitals or
retail shops) may be more difficult. What, for example, is the exact function of an art museum? Certainly we
could list a set of rooms with suggested areas, but it is unlikely that this process would set the problem up
correctly. The function of an art museum according to Louis Kahn was a set of spaces that are good for the
viewing of art. Even this usefully vague description, however, doesnt address the civic, commercial, and
educational requirements that todays art museum might face. The building housing such an institution would
include functions branding, public spaces, a civic image that couldnt be included in a traditional areas
schedule.
Programming is, therefore, both an objective and a subjective process. Discerning what our clients need (or
want) will invariably involve discussions about square footage/ metrage and relationships between spaces.
However, it is the architects task to also figure out the larger issues that underlie our clients needs, and to
see whether those can be addressed architecturally. Typically, developing a program is an additional service
for architects in the US and UK, but it does happen frequently. As often as not, we will be confronted on a
new job with a program/ brief written by a client or a space planner. Even if this is the case, however, good
practice suggests that this document be thoroughly questioned.
When architects are asked to prepare a program or brief, we typically rely on several sources of information
regarding what elements are necessary in a typical building of the type being designed: how much space
each of these may take up (either in absolute or relative terms), what services or qualities these spaces
require and what relationships each space should have to one another. This is a process of problem
seeking, not problem solving in the words of the Texas architectural firm Caudill Rowlett Scott, who
pioneered systematic approaches to programming in the 1960s and 1970s.To gain reliable information,
architects will often interview clients and users, using existing facilities as a benchmark.
Are the spaces being used now large enough? Are there services that should be provided? What does or
does not work with the current arrangements, and what suggestions might the day-to-day users have for
improving their environment?
We may also study other installations of the type, either through a literature search or site visits, to glean
information about current space and functional standards. In some cases (for instance, health care) there will
be well published standards that will list much of this information. However, it is almost always beneficial to
see these standards in action, and to decide whether good practice will rely solely on these, or whether
inherent problems or shortcomings in standard design need to be addressed (Figure 1).

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Figure 1: The programming and program analysis process is one of asking questions, comparing standards
and precedents, and rigorously assessing the results.

Information from this exercise will typically be tabulated in the form of an areas schedule (or program/brief)
that lists the space requirements for the proposed design (Table 1).

Table 1: A typical areas schedule, with space names, required areas, and a matrix of requirements.

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Usually this will break down required uses into individual rooms, grouped according to how the client sees
their functional relationships.
The schedule will list room titles or uses, area in square feet or square meters, and may include further
information about required proportions, qualities (e.g., daylight), or services. Areas schedules are usually
drawn up using spreadsheet software (i.e., Microsoft Excel), which allows users to enter data cells for room
names, areas, and qualities, as well as programmed cells that can manipulate, compare, or sort this
information. Using spreadsheets we can easily subtotal building areas, compare sizes, or later in the process
estimate how close to the original program/brief our developing design may be.
Several rules of thumb for estimating space requirements are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Rules of thumb for estimating space requirements during preliminary design phases.

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These are drawn from daily experience and are thus not universally applicable, but they give a good idea of
where a programming exercise might start. All of these assumptions deserve to be tested with any client for
example, a common exercise in an early program/briefing meeting is to tape out on the floor an assumed
office size, allowing users or clients to get a sense for what a 10m2 office actually looks like. Also included
are typical net-togross ratios. Net space in a building includes all rentable, or assignable areas, such as
offices or apartments, clerical spaces or meeting rooms. Gross space includes all house or non-assignable
spaces such as hallways, bathrooms, lobbies, and service rooms.
Generally the rule of thumb is that any space in a building that could be rented is considered net, while any
space that cannot be rented is considered gross. Net-to-gross ratios are taken perhaps too seriously by
developers, especially considering the qualities that gross spaces such as atriums, cafes, or lounges can
add to a buildings function. Nonetheless, they are so universally used as benchmarks of efficiency that they
are worthy of study. A third type of area, construction area is often assumed or calculated to arrive at a total
figure for the footprint area of a building.

Program/Brief Analysis. No matter who creates the program/brief, the first step in our design process is
almost always to analyze its implications. Here we are looking for ways to translate a list of requirements into
a strategy for form (architectural, landscape, engineering, etc.) As such, architects typically rely on several
graphic conventions to help spatialize a program/brief. While these may give the appearance of objective
problem solving, they should be approached with great caution. Ideally, these exercises should be seen as
ways of questioning and understanding the data in the program/brief. It is very rare that a satisfactory form
will emerge solely out of a diagramming process more often this process will help us understand the
problem in spatial terms, and our concepts will emerge from this understanding. It is important to remember,
too, that program/brief analysis is an inside out method of strategizing. More often than not, we will also be
analyzing our site during this phase, and any solutions that emerge will need to be holistic, balancing what
we discover from the internal organization and from external forces.

Nonetheless, diagramming is a useful exercise, provided that we understand its limitations. Traditionally,
architects begin with bubble diagrams, or very loose representations of areas drawn to scale from the
program/brief with relationships between these areas noted by lines indicating connectivity. The areas
themselves are often color-coded, labeled with names and areas, and typically drawn as ovals or rectangles
with curved corners. These shapes remind us that we are not yet designating rooms we are rather
interested in the area that a given activity is likely to take up.

Connectivity is often indicated in one of two categories adjacencies and affinities (Figure 2).

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 Figure 2 Adjacencies vs. affinities

Adjacencies represent relationships between activities that require direct circulatory access. A typical
example in residential design is the relationship between a kitchen and a dining room. Here, there are good
reasons to locate areas adjacent to one another to enable quick, efficient movement of people or goods from
one to another. Affinities, on the other hand, indicate activities that share something besides circulatory
convenience, and thus may tend toward one another in a building for reasons of performance or
constructability.
Here, a good residential example is kitchens and bathrooms. While there is no pressing need for circulation
between these two spaces, they share a requirement for plumbing. To save the costs involved with
excessive piping, wet activities are often grouped near one another, sharing plumbing stacks and drains.
Other affinities may include the need for daylighting, security, visibility, privacy, fresh air, or sound
attenuation.
A useful bubble diagram will often show adjacencies as solid lines connecting one program/brief element to
another, while showing affinities as an outline surrounding like elements. In Figures 3 and 4, note how
spaces relate in terms of circulation (adjacency) and servicing (affinity). In the former, the kitchen and dining
room are connected by a solid line, while in the latter the kitchen and bathrooms are circled by a dashed line.
These indicate the need for physical proximity due to circulatory and functional reasons, respectively.
Through an iterative process, bubble diagrams will be re-drawn and re-drawn until efficient strategies

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emerge for deploying spaces and program/brief elements relative to one another. Here, one might think of
the connecting and encircling lines as rubber bands, the goal being to tighten these up as much as possible.

Adjacency requirements

Figure 3 A first layout of adjacency requirements for the areas schedule in Table 2.

Figures 5 and 6 show several iterations for a small residence. Note that a balance is gradually struck
between the ideal circulation scheme and the goal of collecting all wet areas around a single plumbing stack.
Note, too, that the final scheme is only an efficient organization it is hardly architectural and will benefit
from a more forceful sculpting of these elements into real spatial proposals.
An additional tool for program/brief analysis is the spreadsheet (e.g., Microsoft Excel). A building
program/brief that is entered as a spreadsheet can be manipulated to discover patterns, repetitive elements,
or shared requirements in important ways. The areas schedule in Table 1 contains additional entries
representing the spaces requirements for daylighting, privacy, and plumbing. In each case, the architect has
entered a 1 if the requirement is absolute, 2 if the requirement is desirable, and 3 if the element does not
require the attribute in question. The Data Sort tool in a typical spreadsheet program can then be used to

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show patterns in use, performance, or servicing. By sorting this data by these requirements, patterns emerge
that suggest how these spaces might be deployed. The sort shown in Table 2, for example, indicates what
elements require access to plumbing. Note that none of these spaces require daylight. This suggests that
these elements might be grouped into a single core in the center of a floor plate, where they will not take up
potentially precious perimeter, naturally illuminated space. While the examples shown are simple, this
process can be a powerful organizational tool for larger buildings.

Figure 4 A first layout of affinity requirements for the areas schedule in Table 2.

Moving into design. Bubble diagrams and other graphic strategies designed to generate architectural form
from objective program data have received a bad reputation over the past generation. In our opinion, this is
largely due to the late modernist myth that simply figuring out the most efficient solution to a programmed
problem, and then building the diagram, could produce architecture on its own. This is a very reductive
view. However bubble diagrams and spreadsheets can be powerful methods for discovering the patterns of
use and function on which a clever architectural scheme may be based. Very often, initial programmatic
assumptions will be altered or questioned as the initial schematic strategies are produced how close, for
example, one is required to meet targets for office sizes or lobby spaces may change dramatically as
architectural ideas are explored. Invariably, well try experiments from both ends, attempting to find
architecturally significant patterns in how the program fits together and looking at how architectural ideas can

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be fulfilled or matched by the program. Figure 7 shows two simple organizational strategies applied to the
program areas, each having potential as an integrated solution.
An important aspect of turning the corner from data analysis to design synthesis is to recognize just how the
spaces required by various activities may be woven together, or how they may fit in three dimensions.
Three-dimensional models whether physical or virtual may play a key role in understanding the
architectural implications of a diagram produced by analysis. At this stage, volumetric models (boxes) are
often less useful than floor-plate models, which can show possible plan arrangements on multiple floors
while giving a rudimentary glimpse of what the resulting spaces and building masses might suggest.
One aspect to look for at this point is clues to the buildings grain, that is, overlaps of dimensions, bay sizes,
floor heights, etc., that may suggest a pattern or order to the buildings spaces and massing. This will
become imperative as the design process moves toward structural layout and bay sizes, but may be evident
at this early stage. A classic example here is the fortunate coincidence between office dimensions (often
3X3m, 10X10 ft) and parking stalls (often 3X9m, 10X30 ft). Noticing potential alignments through a buildings
structure at this point will make subsequent stages of structural design much more efficient and integrated
(Fig. 8).

Figure 5 Initial layout based on the findings of the first adjacency and affinity diagrams. One way to think of
the goals here is that were trying to shrink the connecting and encircling lines to come up with an efficient
arrangement.

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 Programmatic layout attempt

Figure 6 Further refinement as the programmatic elements begin to find their place in the overall hierarchy.

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Linear

Centralized

Figure 7 Two architectural strategies imposed on the program.

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Figure 8 Finding the spatial grain of a building can be an important discovery during program analysis.
Here, dimensional alignments between two seemingly unrelated program components might suggest a
structural module.

Frequently asked questions

Whats the difference between a program, an areas schedule, and a brief ? These are all different names for
the same thing. Program is the American term for what British architects call a Brief. To confuse things
further, the brief is also often referred to as a schedule in the UK, which in the US refers to the projects
calendar.

Glossary and formulas

Affinities Relationships between program elements that suggest physical proximity based on shared qualities
or requirements.
Adjacencies Relationships between program elements that suggest physical proximity based on circulatory
requirements.
Bubble Diagrams Drawings showing the relative areas of programmed spaces and their desired relationship.
While often derided, these diagrams can provide a useful first step toward understanding the spatial
consequences of programmatic imperatives.
Construction Area A measure of the floor area taken up by walls, columns, shafts, etc.
Grain A pattern or order that emerges based on an understanding of typical sizes of elements of the
program/brief. Often the primary design goal in analyzing an architectural program.
Gross Area A measure of building area that includes all spaces assignable and otherwise (i.e., circulation,
toilets, elevators, etc.).
Net Area A measure of building area that includes only assignable spaces such as offices or apartments.
Net to Gross A percentage derived by dividing the assignable area of a building (Net) by the total area
(Gross). Often seen as a measure of efficiency, but not always accurate in its assessment of how well a
building may work.
Program (or Brief) A written document that lists the required performance aspects of a designed object. In
architectural situations, this often takes the form of a list of spaces with areas and qualities ascribed to them,
but this is not necessarily a complete description.

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Programming Determining the fundamental functional requirements of a designed object.
Stratification Diagram A drawing (or model) showing the desired distribution of a given program/brief in a
multi-story situation.

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