ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the basic elements available to an architect when composing a work of architecture. These are conceptual elements of architecture. The primary subjects of architecture are the conditions it operates in and the person who will inhabit it. The person represents people and life generically. The person is an ingredient as well as an agent of architecture. The person and conditions both contribute to architecture; together they constitute the content and the context of architecture. An architect’s first concern is not with how and of what materials basic elements might be constructed nor with their appearance but with what they may be used to do – their powers. The basic elements of architecture are instruments for identifying place, for organising space, especially to accommodate human occupation, to orchestrate experience and to frame activity. More complex and irregular works of architecture are composed of the basic and combined architectural elements.
