Drawing with Numbers: Geometry and Numeracy in Early Modern Architectural Design

2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Carpo
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Medieval Architecture ◽  
Classical Architecture ◽  
General Aspects

Precision in building was pursued and achieved well before the rise of modern science and technology. This fact applies to the classical tradition as well as to medieval architecture, and is particularly evident in architectural drawings and design from the Italian Renaissance onward. In this essay, I trace the shift from geometry-the primary tool for quantification in classical architecture- to numeracy that characterizes Renaissance architectural theory and practice. I also address some more general aspects of the relation between technologies of quantification and the making of architectural forms.

scholarly journals Utu

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Tunui
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Design Experiment ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Spatial Level ◽  
Surface Ornamentation ◽  
Mapping Techniques ◽  
Design Experiments

<p>Contemporary Māori architecture in Aotearoa is rapidly becoming ‘mainstreamed’ within a New Zealand architectural idiom. However, Māori architecture has been narrowed down to surface ornamentation, a handful of motifs and exhausted narratives. This dissonance is owing to the fact that Mātauranga Māori is not at the iho (core) of Māori architecture at a formal and spatial level. Consequently, this thesis aims to expand Māori architectural theory and practice by proposing that elements of tikanga Māori can be understood both formally and spatially in ways that generate new architectural possibilities. The research was conducted as an iterative design process. Three parts of the pōwhiri process are mapped for their underlying spatiality, both in the physical and meta-physical worlds. The ephemera are translated through a design methodology which reveals what these patterns could mean for contemporary Māori architecture. The three rituals: karanga, wero and hongi are explored as a series of design experiments which follow the same workflow. Each design experiment developed a range of different architectural techniques for expressing tikanga Māori. The use of speculative drawing/ mapping techniques is the principal way in which the spatiality of the ephemera is excavated and interrogated. The following research is not tied to an architectural site. The architecture is not based within a specific context, rather it is born of context, conceiving an architecture of the ephemeral and atmospheric qualities of ritual. This research acknowledges the Māori concept of tuakana-teina (elder sibling-younger sibling) knowledge exchange and draws a parallel with architectural design methodology. This thesis suggests a method of speculation for future generations of architectural designers in Aotearoa to build upon with their own whakaaro (thoughts).</p>

A shape grammar approach to contextual design: A case study of the Pol houses of Ahmedabad, India

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 845-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeta Rajesh Lambe ◽  
Alpana R Dongre
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Shape Grammar ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Architectural Style ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Contextual Design ◽  
Derivation Method ◽  
Row Houses

In architecture, context refers to the surrounding area or setting in which the building is placed. In architectural theory and practice, context plays an important role in proposing architectural vocabulary. Since the mid-20th-century, creating harmony with traditional context amidst growing development has been a major concern and interest of designers. Contextualism theory in architecture refers to the relationship between new buildings and the existing surroundings while addressing the issue of fitting new to old structures together to achieve congruence and continuity. The analysis of traditional architectural style significantly influences a designer’s decision-making process when adopting contextual design approach. In this study, a shape grammar approach is proposed to create a harmonious environment through the generation of new designs based on the grammar of existing architectural style without curbing the designer’s creativity. This paper demonstrates the pattern-generating quality of traditional Pol row houses of Ahmedabad, India. The grammar of the traditional Pol house forms the architectural context for the new in-fill development in the area. The shape grammar approach to architectural design is examined as a process of interpreting the context as socio-cultural experience through rule schema when addressing the issue of contemporary demands and needs. Here, shape grammar is explored as a tool to analyse the existing design through the generation of new designs. The grammar differs from the previous work in terms of the derivation method and identification of the clues for rule schema in the Indian context. This method has been examined in the process of resolving the issue of unsympathetic development by providing design variations within the grammar for in-fill development to derive spatial clues for generation of new designs, which would be argued as the first step towards achieving aesthetic congruence.

scholarly journals Regarding Rules: From Rimini to Rio

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Knight
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Shape Grammar ◽  
Design Practice ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Shape Grammars ◽  
Classical Architecture ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
De Re Aedificatoria ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Prior Shape

The legacy of Alberti’s 15th century treatise, De re aedificatoria(Alberti, 1988), on architectural theory and practice up to the present day is profound and wide-ranging. Indeed, the story of building over the last five and a half centuries is, in part, the story of the diverse interpretations, adaptations, and transformations of the rules of building that Alberti derived from classical architecture and laid down in his treatise. Interestingly, this story of transformations begins with Alberti himself — with his own adaptations and departures from classical rules within his own design practice and for his own time. In so doing, Alberti set the stage for others to transform rules, precedents, and traditions in innovative and context-specific ways.In this paper, design rules and transformations are introducedthrough the ideas and work of Alberti, and then expanded througha computational lens, specifically, through the lens of shape grammars.Four computational strategies for transforming designs to produce new ones are outlined and illustrated through prior shape grammar studies.In each strategy, the analysis of precedents is the impetus for design, and rules are the basis for practice. Though the computational format of shape grammars rules is unique and contemporary, the goals and potentials of shape grammars are very much in the spirit of Alberti.

scholarly journals Utu

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Benjamin Tunui
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Design Experiment ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Spatial Level ◽  
Surface Ornamentation ◽  
Mapping Techniques ◽  
Design Experiments

<p>Contemporary Māori architecture in Aotearoa is rapidly becoming ‘mainstreamed’ within a New Zealand architectural idiom. However, Māori architecture has been narrowed down to surface ornamentation, a handful of motifs and exhausted narratives. This dissonance is owing to the fact that Mātauranga Māori is not at the iho (core) of Māori architecture at a formal and spatial level. Consequently, this thesis aims to expand Māori architectural theory and practice by proposing that elements of tikanga Māori can be understood both formally and spatially in ways that generate new architectural possibilities. The research was conducted as an iterative design process. Three parts of the pōwhiri process are mapped for their underlying spatiality, both in the physical and meta-physical worlds. The ephemera are translated through a design methodology which reveals what these patterns could mean for contemporary Māori architecture. The three rituals: karanga, wero and hongi are explored as a series of design experiments which follow the same workflow. Each design experiment developed a range of different architectural techniques for expressing tikanga Māori. The use of speculative drawing/ mapping techniques is the principal way in which the spatiality of the ephemera is excavated and interrogated. The following research is not tied to an architectural site. The architecture is not based within a specific context, rather it is born of context, conceiving an architecture of the ephemeral and atmospheric qualities of ritual. This research acknowledges the Māori concept of tuakana-teina (elder sibling-younger sibling) knowledge exchange and draws a parallel with architectural design methodology. This thesis suggests a method of speculation for future generations of architectural designers in Aotearoa to build upon with their own whakaaro (thoughts).</p>

Unlimited Science: The Endless Transformation of Nature in Bacon and Shakespeare’s The Tempest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mickaël Popelard
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
The Tempest

Mickaël Popelard provides a different and complementary interpretation of The Tempest. He explores the early modern concept of infinity in relation to the transformation of nature. Doing so, he takes a look at the making of early modern science and provides us with a number of epistemological reflections on Shakespeare’s knowledge and, in particular, on his approach to limits and the unlimited. Taking Macbeth’s idea of an essentially limited human nature as his departure point, Popelard first focuses on Bacon’s both speculative and practical stand, insisting on the fact that, for him, the role of the scientist is to bind together theory and practice so as to achieve “the effecting of all things possible.” While he posits that Bacon’s reform of science and philosophy is marked by its open-endedness and, therefore, by its absence of limits, he shows that, if a similar interest in boundlessness can be noted in Shakespeare’s late plays, characters such as Prospero remain constrained by their obsession with “limits”, “confines” or “boundaries.” Yet, for all his epistemological hesitancy, Shakespeare’s magician and/or natural philosopher shares some of Bacon’s ideas on science, the most important being the belief in an operative rather than a verbally oriented science.

scholarly journals Digital Alberti: Tradition and innovation in the architectural theory and practice in Portugal

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mário Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Research Project ◽  
De Re ◽  
Classical Architecture ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Computational Environment ◽  
First Time

This research project is a celebration and an innovation. A celebration in the sense of commemorating the order given by King John III, in mid XVI century, to André de Resende to translate Alberti’s De re aedicatoria to the Portuguese language.An innovation in the sense of producing, for the first time, anintelligent computational environment to understand the culturalimpact of this treatise on classical architecture in Portugal and abroad.Research developes in six approaches: Alberti and the De reaedicatoria; New digital technologies; Grammar of sacred spaces;Grammar of column systematization; Architecture for a modernhumanism; The virtual reality of Albertian Architecture.

High Modernism in Theory and Practice: Karel Teige and Tomáš Bat'a

Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 428-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Merrill
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
High Modernism ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
Definition Of

This article compares Tomáš Bata's development of Zlín as a company town with the architectural theory of Karel Teige. Despite political differences— Bat’a was a champion of “American” capitalism, Teige a leader of the leftist avant-garde—they had unexpectedly similar ideas about architectural design and city planning. The article uses James C. Scott's definition of high modernism as a starting point to explain these commonalities, historically contextualizing the two men's thinking as a specific iteration of this ideology. Both, for instance, paradoxically sought to incorporate liberal, democratic values (typical of the rhetoric of state building in interwar Czechoslovakia) into their authoritarian plans. This analysis helps explain subsequent, socialist architectural developments, in which Teige's theory and Bat’a's practices were combined. In this, the article contributes to an understanding of Czechoslovakia's post-1948 cultural history not in terms of impositions from Moscow, but as building on native institutions.

scholarly journals Architectural design in a new social order: Re-exploring the reasons for application of spatial standards

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Vladimir Mihajlov
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Clear Visibility ◽  
Residential Space

The essence of the problem in this paper has been recognized in deterioration of public and residential space in the city, after deregulation of architecture in neoliberal context. This field is marked by increasing lack of rules-especially spatial standards in the architectural practice. Therefore, re-exploring the application of space standards in modern context is needed. The paper, thus, tries to give the answer to the following question: why contemporary architectural practice does not insist on standards for the design and planning any longer? Since the production of space in neoliberal context is powered by mighty individuals who tend to be unique and to manifest power, using the spatial standards in architecture is not welcome. However, NEO-Marxist orientation tries to revive the critical reflection of reality, and its main task is to define the standards and types derived from the spatial context. Different approaches, both theoretical and practical ones are necessary requirements in profession. A clear visibility of method is required for problem solving. The wider population should influence the architectural theory and practice by common set of criteria/standards. Finally, both ideological orientations mentioned are based on those who produce urban space and not on those who speculates with it.

Spectacular Science, Technology and Superstition in the Age of Shakespeare

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Renaissance Literature ◽  
Science And Literature ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Perspective

Back in the late 1950s, C.P. Snow famously defined science negatively by separating it from what it was not, namely literature. Such polarization, however, creates more problems than it solves. By contrast, the two co-editors of the book have adopted a dialectical approach to the subject, and to the numerous readers who keep asking themselves “what is science?”, we provide an answer from an early modern perspective, whereby “science” actually includes such various intellectual pursuits as history, poetry, occultism, or philosophy. Each essay illustrates one particular aspect of Shakespeare’s works and links science with the promise of the spectacular. This volume aims at bridging the gap between Renaissance literature and early modern science, focusing as it does on a complex intellectual territory, situated at the point of juncture between humanism, natural magic and craftsmanship. We assume that science and literature constantly interacted with one another, making clear the fact that what we now call “literature” and what we choose to see as “science” were not clearly separated in Shakespeare’s days but rather part of a common intellectual territory.

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