An Alternative Approach to Geometric Harmonization of the Great Mosque in Córdoba

This research constitutes an alternative to proportional composition studies of the original Great Mosque and its four extensions in Córdoba, based on diagonals of a square and rectangles in ratio 1:√2 and 1:√3 (Fernández-Puertas, 2000, 2008). The method for this alternative research consists of graphic analyses by iteration of hypothetical products of the golden section in AutoCAD 2D software conducted on architectural drawings of the original Great Mosque and its four extensions, in reconstruction, according to measurements from the relevant literature. The alternative method insists on geometric harmonization derived from only one starting length in all drawings of same scale. It resulted in the production of a single harmonization pattern based on the golden section, with an additional sequence of a√2/Φn, successively developed for the original monument and its four extensions. It also includes otherwise excluded basic composition elements (minarets) and reveals otherwise hidden proportional qualities. The alternative approach enabled a deduction of algebraic expressions having only one variable for all drawings of the same scale. Their arithmetic values and deviations from real dimensions are calculated. Geometric harmonization by golden section with another starting length is applied to the drawing of the elevation at a different scale.

Architecture on Paper : The Development and Function of Architectural Drawings in the Renaissance

Drawings and the practice of drawing take centre stage in an investigation of what ‘designed’ Renaissance architecture, and what led the medieval master builder to gradually develop the characteristic features of the modern architect. This article focuses on the languages of drawings that were employed and developed by Renaissance architects. Examining the variety of functions that different graphical languages had within design and building processes, the article draws upon a storied argument between two Florentine architects to illustrate the conceptual and social tensions epitomized by drawing. The final section examines architectural drawings as means of communication beyond the building site, calling particular attention to the printed drawings that became increasingly important in the sixteenth century.

Reviews Fall 2021

Hopkins, O. A review of Maureen Cassidy-Geiger (ed.), Living with Architecture as Art: The Peter W. May Collection of Architectural Drawings, Models, and Artefacts. London: Ad Ilissvm, 2021. Svalduz, E. A Review of Martin Gaier and Wolfgang Wolters, eds., Dilettanti di architettura nella Venezia del Cinquecento. Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, 2020. Kuenzli, K. A review of Mark Wigley, Konrad Wachsmann’s Television: Post-architectural Transmissions. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020. Antonucci, M. A review of Dario Donetti, Francesco da Sangallo e l’identità dell’architettura toscana. Rome: Officina Libraria, 2020. Williams, S. A review of Zoltán Somhegyi, Reviewing the Past: The Presence of Ruins. London: Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd., 2020.

How Does Office Design Support Employees’ Health? A Case Study on the Relationships among Employees’ Perceptions of the Office Environment, Their Sense of Coherence and Office Design

This study investigated the current design circumstances of an office as well as employees’ perceptions of the office environment in relation to their perceived health, drawing on sense of coherence theory (comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness). Previous studies have related the physical office environment to employee health. However, most studies have focused on alleviating negative effects, while health-promoting potential, including employee sense of coherence, has been overlooked. This study adopted a mixed method case study approach, combining semi-structured interviews with employees, structured observations, and analysis of architectural drawings. The results indicated that employees’ perceptions did not always align with the ideas behind the architectural design and that employees understood the environment differently. The study also highlighted the interrelations (and contradictions) among the different components of sense of coherence. The findings imply that organizations may need to prioritize which components of coherence should be supported most by the office environment. It also suggests that case-specific design aspects should play a more central role in studying and conceptualizing healthy office design and that design solutions should be continuously modified during the use phase, while ensuring employees’ participation. The study concluded that an ‘ideal’ office environment should not be the goal. Instead, office design should provide an environment in which employees are able to cope with challenges in comprehensible, manageable and meaningful ways.

The Autobiographical Hinge: Revealing the self in architectural drawing

Some argue that the tendency to ignore the self as an aspect of the relationship between architects and their drawings is a consequence of the hegemony of digital modes of representation, others that it is inherent to traditional perspectival and projective techniques. It is in this repressive context that architects struggle to consider their subjectivity in relation to the drawings they produce. This article aims to divert this subjective distance by proposing a method for revealing the unconscious forces that abide between architects and architectural drawings. Through a comparative analysis of this intermediate space with the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s theory of the Transitional Object, the author considers his own relationship to perspective drawing and materializes this through the production of a drawing apparatus titled: the autobiographical hinge. Bilaterally, the conception of this drawing apparatus is founded on examples of visual art practice that challenge the repressive qualities of linear perspective, this includes the work of Penelope Haralambidou (2003); Lawrence Gowing (1965) and Marion Milner (1950). In a time of dissolved agency for the architect, this article presents a method through which to mine one’s own relationship to architectural drawing, through which a disturbance to those codified regimes occurs as a consequence of one’s own subjectivity being recognized.

Design Calculation for A (G +10) Building (Encode Steel)

The proposed steel building at Mumbai consisting of G+10 storeys, has a built-up area of about 165m2. The typical floor height is 3m above GL and the total height of the building above GL is 33m.Withreference to given plan, the architectural drawings and structural drawings showing plan, elevation, sectional views and connection drawings are drawn by using AUTOCAD 2017.Design calculations (Dead Load, Live Load, Wind Load, Seismic Load) are calculated manually-As per IS codes which are mentioned in technical details. The rolled steel sections for beam and column has been chosen from IS 12778:2004. High tensile steel grade-E350BR has been used for steel sections. And, the analysis of structure is done by using STAAD.Pro V8i SS5.Design of beam and column are manually calculated-As per IS: 800-2007. And, spread sheet has been created to check the beam and column, whether it is safe or not. The connection designs are calculated-As per IS codes by using Welding-As per IS 9595-1996 and Fasteners-As per IS 3757-1985. Bracings are provided in the ground floor between the column to avoid soft storey failure. The material requirements are mentioned based on the design calculations. The total estimation of the building is 1.11cr.

Architecture, Affect and Architectural Practice

<p>This thesis builds on and contributes to work in theories of affect that has risen within diverse fields, including geography, cultural studies, media studies and feminist writings, challenging the nature of textual and representational-based research. Although numerous studies have examined how affect emerges in- and through- the occupation of architectural spaces, little analytical attention has been paid to the creative process of design and the role that affect plays in the many contingencies and uncertainties that arise in the process. In this context, the question that this thesis explores is what architectural and theoretical relations can be drawn out when architectural practices are viewed through the lens of affect. Such inquiry is critical to allow practices of architecture to be seen not through defined patterns or contained agenda’s but rather through intensities and forces between bodies (both human and non-human); it is to discover practice as sites of potential - and in doing so to address the usefulness of affect to be applied to more grounded empirical fields. In order to explore the above question, the study is based on a qualitative research methodology, including interviewing; writing of observational notes; visiting the architectural offices as well as the projects, where possible/appropriate; and collection of key documents, architectural drawings, and images relating to the design project discussed. This thesis begins with a review of current critical thinking of affect. Its focus is upon how these renderings present particular links between affect, body and space. Further, the thesis considers a range of ideas from architectural scholars and geographers attempting to identify connections between architecture, affect and architectural practice, through notions of affective mediation, tinkering, and stuttering. The thesis then moves forward to present an in-depth case study of three architectural practices, RUR Architecture PC, Kerstin Thompson Architects and Shigeru Ban Architects, with specific architectural projects, in order to evaluate how affect is a significant element in the design process for emergent practices of architecture. Ultimately, this thesis argues how architectural practice may extend theories of affect, particularly broadening Sara Ahmed’s notion of ‘sticky affects’ within the context of architecture, through sticky images, sticky processes and sticky objects, respectively to each case study. Importantly, the thesis engages with the often mundane but highly creative aspect of design processes, not so much in terms of the results, or impact, of affect in the final architectural space, but in terms of how design processes consist of stuttering’s where affect can bring bodies together through affective stickiness. The thesis offers an alternative and extended model for the study of how affect plays itself out in the dynamic relationships between different bodies, happenings and relations in practices of architecture.</p>

Architecture, Affect and Architectural Practice

<p>This thesis builds on and contributes to work in theories of affect that has risen within diverse fields, including geography, cultural studies, media studies and feminist writings, challenging the nature of textual and representational-based research. Although numerous studies have examined how affect emerges in- and through- the occupation of architectural spaces, little analytical attention has been paid to the creative process of design and the role that affect plays in the many contingencies and uncertainties that arise in the process. In this context, the question that this thesis explores is what architectural and theoretical relations can be drawn out when architectural practices are viewed through the lens of affect. Such inquiry is critical to allow practices of architecture to be seen not through defined patterns or contained agenda’s but rather through intensities and forces between bodies (both human and non-human); it is to discover practice as sites of potential - and in doing so to address the usefulness of affect to be applied to more grounded empirical fields. In order to explore the above question, the study is based on a qualitative research methodology, including interviewing; writing of observational notes; visiting the architectural offices as well as the projects, where possible/appropriate; and collection of key documents, architectural drawings, and images relating to the design project discussed. This thesis begins with a review of current critical thinking of affect. Its focus is upon how these renderings present particular links between affect, body and space. Further, the thesis considers a range of ideas from architectural scholars and geographers attempting to identify connections between architecture, affect and architectural practice, through notions of affective mediation, tinkering, and stuttering. The thesis then moves forward to present an in-depth case study of three architectural practices, RUR Architecture PC, Kerstin Thompson Architects and Shigeru Ban Architects, with specific architectural projects, in order to evaluate how affect is a significant element in the design process for emergent practices of architecture. Ultimately, this thesis argues how architectural practice may extend theories of affect, particularly broadening Sara Ahmed’s notion of ‘sticky affects’ within the context of architecture, through sticky images, sticky processes and sticky objects, respectively to each case study. Importantly, the thesis engages with the often mundane but highly creative aspect of design processes, not so much in terms of the results, or impact, of affect in the final architectural space, but in terms of how design processes consist of stuttering’s where affect can bring bodies together through affective stickiness. The thesis offers an alternative and extended model for the study of how affect plays itself out in the dynamic relationships between different bodies, happenings and relations in practices of architecture.</p>

Drawing in Perspective: A Proposition for a Discursive Architecture in the Age of Digital Representation

<p>Contemporary architectural practise has come to depend upon digital representation as a means of design and for the production of architectural drawings. The computer is common place in architectural offices, relegating the drawing board as a machine of the past. Today, the architect is more likely to draw with a mouse than a mechanical pencil. The proposition of this research suggests such a dramatic shift within representational technology will not only affect how architects design, but also, what they design. Digital modes of architectural representation are reliant on mathematical code designed to artificially simulate visual experience. Such software offers strict alliance with a geometrically correct perspective code making the construction of perspective as simple as taking a ‘snap shot’. The compliance of the digital drawing to codes prescribed by a programmer distance the architect from the perspectival representation, consequently removing the architect’s control of the drawing convention. The universality of perspectival views is enforced by computer programmes such as Google Sketch-Up, which use perspective as a default view. This research explores the bias of linear perspective, revealing that which architects have forgotten due to a dependence on digital software. Special attention is drawn to the lack of control the architect exerts over their limits of representation. By using manual drawing the perspective convention is able to be unpacked and critiqued against the limitations of the system first prescribed by Brunelleschi. The manual drawing is positioned as a powerful mode of representation for it overtly expresses projection and the architect’s control of the line. The hand drawing allows the convention to be interpreted erroneously. The research is methodology driven, focusing on representation as more than a rudimentary tool, but a component of the design process. Thus, representational tools are used to provide a new spatial representation of a site. Computer aided design entered wide spread architectural practice at the end of the 1980’s, a decade that provided an ideal setting for speculative drawn projects. Such projects proved fruitful to architects critically approaching issues of representation and drawing convention, treating the drawing as more than utilitarian in the production of architecture. Whilst the move into digital imagining is not a paradigm shift for the act of drawing, it fundamentally shifted the way architects draw, separating drawing conventions onto visually separate ‘sheets’. The architectural drawing known today was that discovered in the Renaissance, Renaissance architects, the first to conceive of architecture through representation, thus was their endeavour to produce a true three dimensional image. The Renaissance architect executed absolute control of perspective, control, which has since defined the modern architect. Positioned within research by design, the ‘drawing-out’ process is a critical interpretation of perspective. In particular the drawing of instrumental perspective is unpacked within the realm of scientific research. The picture plane, horizon line and ground plane remain constant as the positions of these are well documented. The stationary point, vanishing point (possibly the most speculative components of the drawing) or the relationship between the two, behave as independent variables. In breaking the assumptions that underlie linear perspective as a fixed geometric system we may ask ourselves if we are in control of representational methods, or if they control us. Since architects are controlled by their means of representation this question is paramount to the discipline, particularly today, when digital drawing has shifted the relationship between architect and representation. The implications of this new relationship may result in monotony across the architectural disciple, where the production of critical architecture is secondary to computer technology.</p>