Building simply: ethic or aesthetic? Thinking and making in an era of specialisation

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-117
Author(s):  
Gordon Murray
Keyword(s):  
Design Research ◽  
Research Unit ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Surface Appearance ◽  
Performance Requirements ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture ◽  
Aesthetic Thinking

The recent history of architecture can be characterised as a battle between attention-grabbing, ‘iconic’ buildings and a counteracting tendency towards the aesthetically reduced, even avowedly ‘minimal’. But beneath the surface appearance of these contrasting formal tendencies – restless or serene, as demanded by their aesthetic ideals – the means of building have become relentlessly more complex to meet ever more demanding environmental and other performance requirements. It was against this background that the Design Research Unit at Cardiff University convened a one-day symposium to explore the possibility of ‘Building Simply’: the topic proved, not unexpectedly, elusive. Below we publish some reflections by Gordon Murray on some of the issues raised, and these are followed by three design papers – by Pierre d'Avoine, Roland Raderschall and the organisers – that addressed the topic from differing perspectives.

scholarly journals Spanish ‘Plastic’ Architecture. A critical reading and design approach.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Camporeale
Keyword(s):  
Reinforced Concrete ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Plastic Potential ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture ◽  
Contemporary Architecture

The following critical text proposes a series of notes and reflections on the reinforced concrete architecture, not on the material itself. Since its invention, concrete has combined two potentialities, deriving from the two materials of which it is composed: the ‘elastic’ potential, which has been developed and has reached a consolidated form and tradition, and the ‘plastic’ one. The last one has been little experienced at the beginning and, in the course of recent history of architecture, has found space in architectural criticism in the meaning of "expressive", "brutalist", "sculptural", ending up to influence 'superficially' (related to the surface) of architecture. The 'plastic' architecture, instead, is three-dimensional and unifies the construction and spatial qualification in a single design gesture. This critical approach not only allows reconsidering the history of modern/contemporary architecture starting from the necessary collaboration between space and construction that unifies the final judgment on the works, but allows influencing the project, adhering to a formative process of those geographic-cultural areas that possess those certain characters, the masonry one. The Spanish "plastic" architecture is, in that sense, a clear example: in many buildings this "masonry" character is clearly identified, due to the architectural exploitation of the reinforced concrete plastic potential.

Physiologic Measures In Patients with PTSD with and Without A Recent History of Alcohol Abuse

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Ahearn ◽  
Mary Mussey ◽  
Catherine Johnson ◽  
Amy Krohn ◽  
Timothy Juergens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Abuse ◽  
Recent History ◽  
History Of

Fictive Mode, ‘Journey to the West’, and Transformation of Space: ‘Ali Mubarak’s Discourses of Modernization

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-358
Author(s):  
WEN-CHIN OUYANG
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Theoretical Principle ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The West ◽  
Arab Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Journey To The West

I begin my exploration of ‘Ali Mubarak (1823/4–1893) and the discourses on modernization ‘performed’ in his only attempt at fiction, ‘Alam al-Din (The Sign of Religion, 1882), with a quote from Guy Davenport because it elegantly sums up a key theoretical principle underpinning any discussion of cultural transformation and, more particularly, of modernization. Locating ‘Ali Mubarak and his only fictional work at the juncture of the transformation from the ‘traditional’ to the ‘modern’ in the recent history of Arab culture and of Arabic narrative, I find Davenport's pronouncement tantalizingly appropriate. He not only places the stakes of history and geography in one another, but simultaneously opens up the imagination to the combined forces of time and space that stand behind these two distinct yet related disciplines.

Stuttgarter Rede über Architektur

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-104
Author(s):  
Friedrich Kittler
Keyword(s):  
Media History ◽  
Media System ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture

Der Vortrag schlägt vor, nicht mehr den Menschen als letzte Referenz und vertrauten Maßstab der Architektur zu setzen, sondern Architekturen als Mediensysteme zu denken. Eine noch ungeschriebene Mediengeschichte der Architektur sollte daher auch und gerade in historischer Absicht nach formalen Entsprechungen zwischen Techniken des Entwerfens und solchen der Bauten suchen, in denen Praxis und Produkt zusammenfallen. </br></br>The paper proposes the consideration of architecture(s) as a media system, instead of imposing man as its ultimate reference and known measure. A media history of architecture – which remains to be written – should therefore search for formal correspondences between techniques of drafting and those of buildings, in which practice and product coincide.

Predictors of Treatment Response to Fluoxetine in PTSD Following a Recent History of War Zone Stress Exposure

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul S. Hicks ◽  
Michael L. Adams ◽  
Brett Litz ◽  
Keith Young ◽  
Jed Goldart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Response ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Stress Exposure ◽  
War Zone ◽  
History Of

On the nature of chemistry

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent History ◽  
History Of Chemistry ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Fundamental Unity ◽  
The 19Th Century

<span>The very nature of chemistry presents us with a tension. A tension between the exhilaration of diversity of substances and forms on the one hand and the safety of fundamental unity on the other. Even just the recent history of chemistry has been al1 about this tension, from the debates about Prout's hypothesis as to whether there is a primary matter in the 19th century to the more recent speculations as to whether computers will enable us to virtually dispense with experimental chemistry.</span>

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