The Five Points of Architecture feature referring to a facade free from structural constraints is the free facade.
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret articulated the Five Points in the 1920s to describe possibilities created by reinforced-concrete construction. The free facade meant that exterior walls no longer had to carry the building’s main structural load. Supporting columns could be placed inside or set back from the facade, allowing the exterior to be composed more freely.
This point is commonly confused with the free plan. The free plan concerns the flexible arrangement of interior spaces, while the free facade concerns the building’s exterior envelope and its independence from structural walls.
The other points were pilotis, a roof garden, horizontal windows and the free plan. Together, they encouraged lighter-looking buildings, continuous ribbon windows, open interiors and elevated ground floors. Villa Savoye, completed near Paris in 1931, is often used to illustrate the system, although Le Corbusier’s buildings did not always apply every point in an identical way.