Traditional design discourse uses very vague notions. The vagueness can be greatly reduced by confining one’s descriptions of physical design features to materials and spatial relationships. Such definitions are suggested for three factors of architectural facades: surface complexity, silhouette complexity, and facade articulation. Each of the three definitions correlates highly with subjective impressions (rsin the range of .69 to .90). When all three factors were varied simultaneously, the most important factor for visual preference turned out to be the surface complexity (β weight = .72). Silhouette complexity was less important (β weight = .26), and facade articulation was least important (β weight = -.11). The findings have direct implications for both practice and research.
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