Form, theories of

Form is a concept concerned with coherence, the bringing together and perception of things as wholes. An idea of form as enclosed structure, able to be set before us and studies, has persisted since the seventeenth century and is sustained by the privilege of an objectifying vision in Western culture. In contrast, form understood as potential and a mode of temporalization has a much longer history in ancient Greek and Eastern thought and is one of the key insights recovered in ecologically sensitive design practice (Irwin and Baxter, 2008). Whether understood in terms of static object or organic, temporal structure, form implies a judgment about delineation-what belongs inside and outside the form.