7 Critical Success Factors for Architecture

Design Outside of the Box

• Successful architecture tends to be innovative spatially. The most famous American architect, Frank LLoyd Wright, not only could think outside the box but had a personal mission to destroy the box of traditional architecture: "The corner window is indicative of an idea conceived, early in my work...that the architecture of freedom and democracy needed something basically better than the box. So I started to destroy the box as a building... The light now came in where it had never come in before and vision went out. You had screens for walls instead of box walls - here the walls vanished as walls, the box vanished as a box."

It Captures Your Emotions

• Architecture that impacts you in some way is considered successful, as architect Philip Johnson has noted: "All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space."

It Uses Innovative Technology

• In order to achieve innovative architectural ideas, innovative technology is often employed. Recently, remote-control houses and zero-carbon footprint homes have become popular. Yorklake Homes, in London, began using high-technology to deliver zero-carbon footprint homes in 2005.

An Overall Sense of Harmony

• Good architecture has a sense of harmony and a central theme which shines through the entire project. Swiss architect and city planner Le Corbusier wrote "Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light." Le Corbusier incorporated universal design principles of harmony, such as the "golden mean" proportion system.

Develops a new Genre

• Highly successful architecture develops its own new genre. A group of Dutch artists and architects offered the world the De Stijl movement while American architect Frank LLoyd Wright personally came up with the organic architecture movement: "Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity."

Attention to Detail

• German architect and designer Mies Van Der Rohe was famous for his attention to detail and it helped make his architecture great. He is quoted as saying: "Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together." And he also said "God is in the details."

Architecture that Answers Global Challenges

• Today more than ever, successful architecture is seen as a potential source of answers not just for building buildings but for designing cities as architecture, and even more than this, reinventing how countries interact. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas was given the task of helping to redesign Europe, as envisioned in his Roadmap 2050 project. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe shared a similar open-mindedness and saw the need to address critical issues: "The long path from material through function to creative work has only one goal: to create order out of the desperate confusion of our time. We must have order, allocating to each thing its proper place and giving to each thing its due according to its nature." Successful architecture answers challenges and challenges us to live our lives at a higher level.