System Architecture: Strategy and Product Development for Complex Systems, First Edition

4.2 Form in Architecture

Form

It is surprisingly difficult to separate form from function. In common speech, we refer to form with function words. Try describing a paper coffee cup, a pencil, or a spiral notebook without any reference to function. If you used the words “handle,” “eraser,” and “binding,” you were using words rooted in a function. To stay entirely in the form domain, we might use “flat cardboard half-circle,” “rubber cylinder,” and “metal spiral.” One objective of this chapter is to clearly distinguish form from function.

Form is what has been or is eventually implemented. Form is eventually built, written, composed, manufactured, or assembled. Form is about existence. As indicated by the definition in Box 4.1, the first test for ...