A Study on the Female Architects' Approaches to Design in the 21st Century

The female architects play an active role in the 21 st century architecture, which is characterized by a quest of new forms, albeit they are few in number in the sector. Accordingly, the present study focused on the design approaches of today's female architects, and furthermore, the sources used in their designs, their focal concepts, and the formal language of their forms were investigated. In this context, ten well-known contemporary female architects were included in the scope of the study. A dual methodical pattern, namely textual analysis and visual analysis, was used for the purposes of the study. The texts of female architects, which described their projects, were conceptually analyzed using the textual analysis method, where their formal language was analyzed by means of the visual analysis method. The data were then organized into data sets and presented in tabular format. The results of the present study indicated that the female architects mostly made use of nature and socio-cultural elements in their designs and considered the data therefrom as an important input to be incorporated into their design. On the other hand, although they had similar points of departure in terms of design, they did not have a common language in terms of form. The results of the study suggested that the selected female architects considered multiple factors in their designs. Among those, the female architects most frequently emphasized the natural environment factor. Approaches such as incorporating geography into design, making use of existing vegetation, using climatic data, emulating and being inspired by nature were indicative of how close the female architects were to nature and that they used nature as a source of design. For the female architects, the nature was beyond a design problem to deal with, it was an element that must be protected, cared for, and incorporated into the design. As a matter of fact, they were inclined towards free forms that relate to nature in the forms of their produce.