Parti Study

A scheme with no organizing idea survives until the first real constraint, and then every decision is argued from scratch. A scheme with two competing ideas is worse: it looks resolved and every change breaks something.

This does not ask whether the idea is good. It asks whether there is one, what it is in a sentence, and whether the drawing actually obeys it.

Workflow

Step 1. Get the parti into one sentence

Ask for it in one sentence, and hold the line at one. Then read it back and test it against three things:

• Is it an idea or a description? "A bar building with a courtyard" is a description of a shape. "The public work happens along the street and everything private turns its back on it" is an idea, because it tells you what to do at the next decision.
• Does it decide anything? A parti earns its place by answering questions that have not been asked yet. If it cannot resolve a question about a room nobody has drawn, it is not organizing the scheme.
• Could the opposite have been chosen? An idea with no alternative is not a choice. If nobody could have decided otherwise, the sentence is describing a constraint rather than an idea.

If no sentence comes, say so plainly and stop there. A scheme with no parti is a legitimate state, especially early, and the finding is more useful than a sentence invented to fill the gap. Ask instead what the scheme is currently organized by: a structural grid, a site line, a code requirement, a previous project. Something is organizing it.

Step 2. Test the plan against the sentence

Go through the scheme condition by condition and record whether each one follows from the idea:

Condition	Does the parti explain it?	If not, what does?

Work at least: the entrance, the circulation, where the public and private parts sit, the section, the massing, where the structure lands, what the facade does on each side, what happens at the edges of the site.

The third column is the study. Anything the parti does not explain is explained by something else, and that something else is either a constraint (fine) or a second idea (a problem).

Step 3. Name every departure, and sort it

#	Where the scheme departs	Why	Compromise, or second idea?

• Compromise. The idea still holds; this place had to give way for a constraint. Say which constraint and whether it is fixed.
• Second idea. Another organizing principle is running here. Name it in a sentence too. Two ideas is not automatically wrong, and it is always worth knowing, because a scheme with two will be pulled apart by the first change that favours one of them.
• Nothing. It is like that because it was drawn like that. These are the most useful findings and there are usually more than expected.

Count the three. A scheme where most conditions land in the third column is being organized by habit.

Step 4. Run the idea against the constraints it has to survive

The parti is tested by what is coming, not by the current drawing:

• What does the programme do to it when the areas are right? Point at space-program.
• What does the code do to it? Egress, ratings, accessibility. An idea that dies at the second exit was going to die anyway.
• What does the budget do to it? Which part of the idea is the expensive part, and does the idea survive losing it? Point at budget-reconciliation.
• What does the structure do to it, and the core? Point at design-core.
• What survives if the site changes, the programme grows, or a floor is added?

Report, for each, whether the idea holds, bends, or breaks. An idea that breaks under a constraint that is already known is worth finding now.

Step 5. Where alternatives are wanted, generate different ideas

Only on request, and under one rule: each alternative is a different organizing idea from the same constraints, stated in its own sentence. Not a variation, not the same scheme moved.

#	The idea, in one sentence	What it makes easy	What it gives up

What it gives up is required for every one. An option with no cost stated is an option nobody can weigh. Point at option-compare to work them properly and at design-critic to judge them; do not judge them here.

Say plainly when two proposed alternatives are the same idea in different clothes. That happens most of the time and naming it is more useful than three entries in a table.

Step 6. Report

The sentence, the condition table, the three departure counts, the constraint test, and any alternatives with their costs. Then:

• Whether the scheme has one idea, two, or none.
• The single condition most at risk of breaking the idea.
• What has not been tested because the information does not exist yet.

Close by saying no judgement was made about the idea, and naming design-critic and independent-critic.

Step 7. Save, if asked

Ask whether to write the study to a file and where.

Rules

• One sentence. Refuse to accept a paragraph as a parti.
• Never invent a parti for a scheme that does not have one. Say so and ask what is organizing it instead.
• Every departure is sorted into compromise, second idea, or nothing.
• Alternatives are different ideas, never variations, and each states what it gives up.
• Never propose a formal type because it is a type you know.
• Never judge the idea. Name the skill that does.

Anti-patterns

• Accepting a description of the shape as the parti.
• Writing a parti for a scheme that has none, so the drawing gets a story attached to it after the fact.
• Producing three alternatives that are the same scheme with the entrance moved.
• Calling every departure a compromise, which is how a second idea stays invisible.
• Testing the idea against the current drawing rather than against the constraints that have not arrived yet.
• Praising the idea. Different skill, and separate for a reason.
• Reaching for courtyard, bar, mat, or nine-square as an answer.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.