For example, what is exactly the definition of design? It is used as a noun or a verb and can be applied to almost anything that is a creation of a person/group. Of course in architectural terms it usually refers to the values and intentions of the architect, only it still remains an expression of art and it is therefore very subjective to a qualification of good or bad. Therefore my proposed line up of buildings earlier stated on the blog with construction / design / environmental values would probably be highly debatable because of the subjective decision making. So what about the research question?
My idea was to make a list of design values that state high architectural quality in combination with structural design. These values could be extracted from reference building and be applied as a set of rules for a small design project where it could be made to practice. The reflection of this little design project can then be used to shape the rules to better perfection. An example of such a value would be for instance “a total encapsulation of the construction in the façade”, so the facade and construction merge as one. Maybe you are directly thinking of high-tech architecture and free form blog designs, such as the i-web building in front of the old Architecture facility here at Delft, or others will think of something totally different. The problem is that if you don’t specify these rules correctly you will get a collection of extremes. For the “encapsulation of the construction” we could also select a plain normal brick building or a building like the new Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin (GMP Architekten)
In fact many railway stations will fit this description, mainly because the typology of a railway station usually describes a open tube like building. Will a railway station automatically be high quality design, surely not. So more rules are needed. Speaking of typologies and architecture movements, it would therefore be wise to confine the project to one type or movement. If not it will just be a no go, definitely in the given amount of time. For this I was thinking of the a building based on modern a concrete building structure. The usual construction layout used today for this kind of building is the basic grid column and floor construction initial based on the work of ‘le Corbusier’. In this architectural era you see a lot of experimenting with the new material of concrete and it is used in the most bizarre forms and shapes. Unfortunately the common building today hasn’t got that much of an structural expression and is based on the standard grid design. And in fact by using a construction type like this, a separation is made between the building, the outer skin and the construction. That is of course a shame. Today where almost anything is possible, free form design double curved surfaces and so on, it would be very interesting to research the possibilities in which way integration between a concrete building structure and the architectural building can be achieved!
... seems like you might be approaching a research question, Bart, but I don't quite see it yet.
ReplyDeleteIs it something along the lines of:
"Assuming that integration of structure and enclosure is a good thing, and assuming that we want to design and construct a 'free-form' building of some given shape out of concrete in such an integrated way, how thick should the concrete be and how much reinforcing should it have?"
Perhaps not, since that's not really a research question, but rather a technical design task, up until a point where you might find that no amount of concrete and reinforcing will do the job.
A related question, however, might be along the lines of:
"How can/should a parametric-associative model be constructed which assists designers in exploring integrated ways of structuring free-form buildings - i.e. building them out of relatively homogeneous materials?"
(I don't think you can make one general model, but models for specific types of 'free-forms' are conceivable.)
Marco Visser's project from last fall's Stand-Up Architecture course was similar in spirit to this, though his specific topic was bridges. See http://1212257ar0960.blogspot.com/ for some information on this.
Keep in mind that 'free-forms' are potentially much more difficult to deal with than bridges (even if confined to linear and static behavior) but perhaps you can still come up with something useful for preliminary design. Andrew may also have some helpful comments/ideas on this.
AC
This is very educational content and written well for a change. It's nice to see that some people still understand how to write a quality post.! Gabinete de arquitectura Lisboa
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