Strategy vs Tactic - Premise vs Concept

Margaret Crawford defines strategies as being based on place and tactics as being based on time. The following paragraph really helps answer a question that many of us are struggling with in studio; what is the difference between our architectural premise and our concept.

If I may make a direct comparison, Crawford states "a tactic is a way of operating without a proper place, and so depends on time." In the same way, the architectural premise is based on your life experience. It is a basis for how you intend to operate and proceed through all of your design questions. A premise, or tactic, used for one problem could be easily used to tackle another, completely different issue.

Crawford writes about strategies in that they "establish a 'proper' place...that triumphs over time." In my mind I see this relating to a design concept in that the concept defines the solution for a specific place. A concept has only one place.

Our concepts or strategies for the SC State student center project are most likely not going to be the same concept or strategy we would use for the design of a fire house in the middle of New York City. However, the premise or tactic that we use to arrive at our concept may be the same.

Comments

  1. I really like how you took the premise debacle and applied it to the topics of this class. The definitions work with the terms concept and premise, and definitely help clear up some controversy on their differences. However, in class discussion, I interpreted strategy and tactic to both either perform as the "premise" or the "concept." I guess I didn't consider that they could co-exist in the same project.

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