It comes from french ‘parti pris’, means decision taken or ‘point of depature’. Parti is about intention, main idea, essence of your design. It represents the basic scheme that a building design is based on–guiding decisions and informing overall layout, form and aesthetic.Once parti is made, the rest of the design begins to fall into place naturally. Your main idea is expressed through a quick sketch (esquisse) /diagram.
Parti is the essence of the main idea of an architectural design.
a design guideline, a tool to convey the idea
Example of essence of intention such as “designing a house that three generations of a family can comfortably share”
Types of parti(diagram)
- Form-based: emphasize the geometry, composite, scale, structure
- Flow-based: convey concepts related to light, ventilation, views. This type of diagram excels at representing functionality. For example, helping yo visualise how people move through the spaces.
- Demention-based: focuses on metric to convey data related to such as cost over time
The parti needs not only to include the characteristics of the building but also the organisational logic, what are you going to do and how are you going to do. What it might feel like to look at and use the building.
Tips over parti diagram:
a. Must be specially layed out, such as to include surrounding road, parking spaces etc.
b. Use narrative to explain the development sequence of your work. To represent this process in a narrative parti, make a series of drawings of what’s driving the decision -making, how it relates to your project and how it contributes to the development of your ideas.
Meandering leads to perfection 