Space: Solids and Voids

Rigid elements – walls, floors, and roofs that enclose cavities such as rooms, windows, and doorways – form the building. The relationships among these solids and voids are what create architectural space. Each space is distinguished from the others through the placement, size, shape, and materials of its enclosure. This variation is what gives every building its distinctive character.

Mirror images: Symmetry.

D esigning one side of a space to mirror the opposite side is called symmetry. The dividing line between the identical halves is called an axis. The balanced arrangement of elements gives symmetrical buildings a feeling of formality, harmony, and dignity. It’s easy to understand our affinity for this type of architecture: symmetry reflects the bilateral form of the human body.

The country homes designed by Italian architect Andrea Palladio during the Renaissance are good examples of architectural symmetry. They are composed of a central block flanked by porches and wings of equal size – like the arms of a torso.

Imbalance and tension: Asymmetry.

A rchitectural elements that are unevenly spaced so that they do not balance each other create asymmetry. This unbalanced arrangement of elements gives architecture a feeling of informality and movement – and sometimes a note of surprise. The Victorians liked asymmetry, which they believed gave buildings a ruggedness in harmony with nature.

Asymmetrical designs are rhythmic and radiate a sense of activeness. When an architect is making an asymmetrical design, he should take care that balance and harmony of the structure is maintained. This would help prevent visual chaos; which is very important if an architect wants people to feel pleasant and react positively when they look at his structure. Symmetry and Asymmetry both have their own rules. Achieving any one of these by satisfying its principles is creativity.

Scale

Each architectural element – whether it’s a door, a window, or a brick – shares a relationship with every other element in the building. The size of each component in relation to the size of other components is called scale. Scale refers not only to the relative size of one element to another within the building but also to the entire building’s size in relation to its surroundings. By manipulating scale, an architect can make a building feel imposing or intimate. For example, tall columns that extend two stories higher than a three-story exterior wall are large in scale relative to the size of the wall. By scaling the columns so tall, the architect makes the three-story building appear more monumental than it would appear without them. The term out of scale infers that one part of the architecture is too big or too small for its surroundings or the other elements of its design. Breaking the rules with oversized elements, however, is not always inappropriate.

O ut of scale elements can add verve and excitement to a design. Visual scale, unlike size, is relative, not absolute. One obvious example of this concept is the Shard, the tallest building in Europe at 1,016 feet tall, opened in 2012 in London. Located in the historic London Bridge Quarter, this project provoked heated debates and pretty negative reviews. English Heritage claimed the building would be "a shard of glass through the heart of historic London", giving the building its name, the Shard. They objected, in particular, because the Shard would loom over St Paul's. One of architecture critics called the building "out-of-scale and arrogant" while the other wrote that "The Shard has slashed the face of London forever".

However, there was a public inquiry, which decided that the tower was a good enough piece of design to overcome such concerns and become a landmark building on the London skyline. Besides, the 72nd floor houses an observation deck which is going to become the most popular visitor attraction and London deserves to be seen from above. The supporters of the project say that every classic building was new at one time and many of them were badly criticized.