Editing Form follows function (section)

== Application in different fields ==
"Form follows function" is closely associated with [[utilitarian design]],{{sfn|Strauss|2021|p=14}} a concept of products designed exclusively for utility ("function") instead of "contemplating pleasure".{{sfn|Heskett|2005|p=28}}  

=== Architecture ===
[[File:LSNewarkBank0.jpg|thumb|[[Home Building Association Bank]] by Sullivan]]
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2011}}
The phrase "form (ever) follows function" became a [[battle cry]] of Modernist architects after the 1930s. The credo was taken to imply that decorative elements, which architects call "ornament", were superfluous in modern buildings. The phrase can best be implemented in design by asking the question, "Does it work?"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Geddes |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qwW3TttZkREC&q=form+follows+function |title=Fit: An Architect's Manifesto |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-15575-3 |language=en}}</ref> Design in architecture utilizing this mantra follows the functionality and purpose of the building. For example, a family home would be designed around familial and social interactions and life. It would be purposeful, without functionless flare. A building's beauty comes from the function it serves rather than from its visual design. One aim of the Modernists after World War&nbsp;II was to elevate the living conditions of the masses. Many people around the world were living in less than ideal conditions, worsened by war. The Modernists sought to bring these people into more livable, humane spaces that, while not conventionally beautiful, were extremely functional. As a result, architecture utilizing "form follows function" became a sign of hope and progress.<ref>{{Citation |title=What Caused Modernist Architecture? |date=2020-11-10 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv173f28d.8 |work=The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical |pages=33–44 |access-date=2023-04-11 |publisher=Princeton University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctv173f28d.8 |s2cid=242897822 |url-access=subscription }}.</ref>

Despite coining the term, Louis Sullivan himself neither thought nor designed along such lines at the peak of his career. Indeed, while his buildings could be spare and crisp in their principal masses, he often punctuated their plain surfaces with eruptions of lush [[Art Nouveau]] and [[Celtic Revival]] decorations, usually cast in iron or terracotta, and ranging from organic forms like vines and ivy, to more geometric designs, and interlace, inspired by his Irish design heritage. Probably the most famous example is the writhing green ironwork that covers the entrance canopies of the [[Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building]] on South State Street in Chicago. These ornaments, often executed by the talented younger draftsman in Sullivan's employ, would eventually become Sullivan's trademark; to students of architecture, they are his instantly recognizable signature.

=== Automobile designing ===

If the design of an automobile conforms to its function—for instance, the [[Fiat Multipla]]'s shape, which is partly due to the desire to sit six people in two rows—then its form is said to follow its function.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://europe.autonews.com/article/19990719/ANE/907190815/multipla-designer-shows-that-form-follows-function |title=MULTIPLA DESIGNER SHOWS THAT FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION |work=Automotive News |access-date=2018-01-08 |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Product design ===

One episode in the history of the inherent conflict between functional design and the demands of the marketplace took place in 1935, after the introduction of the streamlined [[Chrysler Airflow]], when the American auto industry temporarily halted attempts to introduce optimal aerodynamic forms into mass manufacture. Some car-makers thought aerodynamic efficiency would result in a single optimal auto-body shape, a "teardrop" shape, which would not be good for unit sales.<ref>Jeffrey Meikle's, "Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925–1939".</ref> [[General Motors]] adopted two different positions on streamlining, one meant for its internal engineering community, the other meant for its customers. Like the annual model year change, so-called aerodynamic styling is often meaningless in terms of technical performance. Subsequently, [[drag coefficient]] has become both a marketing tool and a means of improving the sale-ability of a car by reducing its fuel consumption, slightly, and increasing its top speed, markedly.

The American industrial designers of the 1930s and 1940s like [[Raymond Loewy]], [[Norman Bel Geddes]] and [[Henry Dreyfuss]] grappled with the inherent contradictions of "form follows function" as they redesigned blenders and locomotives and duplicating machines for mass-market consumption. Loewy formulated his {{visible anchor|MAYA|text="MAYA" (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable)}} principle to express that product designs are bound by functional constraints of math and materials and logic, but their acceptance is constrained by social expectations. His advice was that for very new technologies, they should be made as familiar as possible, but for familiar technologies, they should be made surprising.

[[Victor Papanek]] (1923–1998) was one influential twentieth-century designer and design philosopher who taught and wrote as a proponent of "form follows function".

By honestly applying "form follows function", industrial designers had the potential to put their clients out of business.{{Citation needed|date=September 2008}} Some simple single-purpose objects like screwdrivers and pencils and teapots might be reducible to a single optimal form, precluding [[product differentiation]]. Some objects made too durable would prevent sales of replacements (see [[Planned obsolescence]]). From the standpoint of functionality, some products are simply unnecessary.

An alternative approach referred to as "form leads function", or "function follows form", starts with vague, abstract, or underspecified designs. These designs, sometimes generated using tools like text-to-image models, can serve as triggers for generating novel ideas for product design.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2023-06-16 |title=How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity |work=Harvard Business Review |url=https://hbr.org/2023/07/how-generative-ai-can-augment-human-creativity |access-date=2023-06-20 |issn=0017-8012}}</ref>

=== Software engineering ===
It has been argued that the structure and internal quality attributes of a working, non-trivial software artifact will represent first and foremost the engineering requirements of its construction, with the influence of process being marginal, if any. This does not mean that process is irrelevant, but that processes compatible with an artifact's requirements lead to roughly similar results.<ref>{{cite conference
  | first = Diomidis
  | last = Spinellis
  | author-link = Diomidis Spinellis
  | title = A Tale of Four Kernels
  | book-title = ICSE '08: Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Software Engineering
  | pages = 381–390
  | publisher = Association for Computing Machinery
  | date = May 2008
  | location = Leipzig, Germany
  | url = http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/conf/2008-ICSE-4kernel/html/Spi08b.html
  | doi = 10.1145/1368088.1368140
  | access-date = 2011-10-19
| url-access = subscription
  }}</ref>

The principle can also be applied to enterprise application architectures of modern business, where "function" encompasses the business processes which should be assisted by the enterprise architecture, or "form". If the architecture were to dictate how the business operates, then the business is likely to suffer from inflexibility and the inability to adapt to change.{{Citation needed|reason=Then quid of the book "Team Topologies"? - https://teamtopologies.com/|date=December 2022}} [[Service-oriented architecture]] enables an [[enterprise architect]] to rearrange the "form" of the architecture to meet the functional requirements of a business by adopting standards-based communication protocols which enable interoperability. This stands in conflict with [[Conway's law]],{{Citation needed|reason=Then quid of the book "Team Topologies"? - https://teamtopologies.com/|date=December 2022}} which states from a social point of view that "form follows organization".

Furthermore, [[domain-driven design]] postulates that structure ([[software architecture]], [[design pattern]], [[implementation]]) should emerge from constraints of the modeled domain ([[functional requirement]]).

While "form" and "function" may be more or less explicit and invariant concepts to the many engineering doctrines, [[metaprogramming]] and the [[functional programming]] paradigm lend themselves very well to explore, blur and invert the essence of those two concepts.

The [[agile software development]] movement espouses techniques such as "[[test-driven development]]", in which the engineer begins with a minimum unit of user-oriented functionality, creates an automated test for such and then implements the functionality and iterates, repeating this process. The result and argument for this discipline are that the structure or "form" emerges from actual function, and in fact because done organically, makes the project more adaptable long-term, as well of as higher-quality because of the functional base of automated tests.{{cn|date=December 2024}}