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An architect usually starts working after the size, type, and cost of the building have been determined. The site involves the varying behavior of the natural environment that has to be altered to the unvarying physical needs of human beings. The type is the generalized form established by society that must be modified according to the use of the future building. The cost implies the economics of land, labor, and materials that must be adjusted to suit a particular sum.
Thus, planning is the process of particularizing and ultimately harmonizing the demands of the environment, use, and economy. This process has a cultural as well as a functional value in creating a plan. For any social activity, the architect inevitably influences how that activity is executed.
Planning the environment
The natural environment is both a hindrance and a help, and the architect seeks to invite both its aid and to repel its attacks. To make buildings habitable and comfortable, he must control the effects of heat, cold, light, air, moisture, and dryness and foresee destructive potentialities such as fire, earthquake, flood, and disease.
The methods of controlling the environment considered here are only the practical aspects of planning. They are treated by the architect within the context of the expressive aspects. The placement and form of buildings in relation to their sites, the distribution of spaces within buildings, and other planning devices discussed below are fundamental elements in the aesthetics of architecture.
Orientation
The arrangement of the axes of buildings and their parts is a device for controlling the effects of sun, wind, and rainfall. The sun is regular in its course; it favors the southern and neglects the northern exposures of buildings in the Northern Hemisphere so that it may be captured for heat or evaded for coolness by turning the axis of a plan toward or away from it. Within buildings, the axis and placement of each space determine the amount of sun it receives. Orientation may control the air circulation and reduce the disadvantages of wind, rain, and snow since prevailing currents can be foreseen in most climates. The characteristics of the immediate environment also influence orientation: trees, land formations, and other buildings create shade and reduce or intensify wind, while bodies of water produce moisture and reflect the sun.