Building Fires

Abstract

This ongoing experiment in community-based, design-build pedagogy tests the deployment of direct action as a form of “insurgent architecture.” Through this we are developing strategies for design practices to mesh more productively with the everyday life of a recovering New Orleans neighborhood. While addressing both social and educational demands, this project also explores an alternative approach to architectural practice.     

生长的建筑与流动的空间——中关村永丰产业基地新材料创业大厦和新材料中试中心方案

该方案设计阐述了作者的两个观点,首先将繁衍生长的生物现象引申于建筑可持续发展的理念,提出建筑的生长应该向两个方向。在总体规划上留有发展的空间———建筑用地。在建筑物内部,将一个不可变的结构体系,适应于变化的多功能要求———灵活空间。其次提出的第二个观念———有机空间的设计。即将传统中国建筑文化的“天人合一”的“道”学与西方现代主义者的空间流动理念相结合,使室内空间与室外空间相互渗透,封闭空间向开放空间变化。     

>Cities and People,A Social and Architectural History

In the late 1950s the Bacardi Rum Corporation commissioned Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to design an office building in Mexico. Bacardi used the commission to shape its image as a sophisticated and cosmopolitan enterprise, as it reinvented itself in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution. The Bacardi project serves as a case study of corporate patronage of modern architecture in Latin America, marking a moment when both the image and organization of Mies's architecture helped build a reliable, mainstream international brand. Paradoxically, Mies's Bacardi building would also become part of a “mix” of architectural commissions that would include emerging alternatives to International Style modernism.     

A holistic approach to energy efficient building forms

Minimizing energy consumption in buildings has become an important goal in architecture and urban planning in recent years. Guidelines were developed for each climatic zone aiming at increasing solar exposure for buildings in cold climates and at reducing solar exposure for buildings in hot climates. This approach usually plans for the season with the harshest weather; often forgetting that temperatures in cities at latitude 25° can drop below thermal comfort limits in winter and that temperatures in cities at latitude 48° often rise above thermal comfort limits in summer. This paper argues that a holistic approach to energy efficient building forms is needed. It demonstrates a generic energy efficient building form derived by cutting solar profiles in a conventional block. Results show that the proposed building form, the Residential Solar Block (RSB), can maximize solar energy falling on facades and minimize solar energy falling on roofs and on the ground surrounding buildings in an urban area in winter; thus maximizing the potential of passive utilization of solar energy. The RSB also supports strategies for mitigating the urban heat island through increased airflow between buildings, the promotion of marketable green roofs and the reduction of transportation energy.     

清华大学超低能耗示范楼

简单介绍了清华大学超低能耗示范楼的设计方案,着重描述了太阳能、氢能等清洁能源在该工程中的应用,提出了“由系统网络平台到设备即插即用”的新的智能化控制理念。     

Form follows metaphors: a critical discourse analysis of the construction of the Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem

This article examines critically the role of architecture in the construction of national identity, using the case of the Israeli Supreme Court building. Through critical discourse analysis of texts that accompanied the design and construction of this building, I propose to study the interrelations between the production of the architectural object and the practice of the construction of an Israeli national identity. The existing body of knowledge that supports this article claims that the creation of national identity is a socially constructed process, which involves a variety of practices including education, music, army service, as well as the design of the built environment. It is important to note that the realisation of such practices does not occur as a natural process, but rather as a result of power relations, embodied within the national sphere. Following this line of argument, the paper proposes a critical approach, which aims to move towards the politicisation of the term 'sense of place'. In this context, concentrating on the Israeli Supreme Court building is not an arbitrary decision, since this institution is at the focus of the Israeli civil arena, and its building became a 'land-mark' and symbol of architectural quality. Following the texts written by the architects and critics, I would argue that this building reflects - and thus strengthens - the hegemonic interpretations of Israeli social and cultural reality. This interpretation is characterised by using selective historical and biblical references, in order to create through architecture an 'iconographic bridge' into an imagined collective past. However, this bridge reproduces the antinomies that frame Israeli space and transform it into 'our place', that is West versus East and Local versus Diaspora.     

能源自给型太阳能建筑设计实录

介绍一座以广州市气候为背景的能源自给型太阳能建筑的设计过程。针对太阳能一体化设计、适度应用太阳能光伏发电板以及此类太阳能建筑的平面布局等问题,以气候分析结论为依据,被动式设计优先为原则,采用温度梯度布局方法,运用被动式蒸发降温、自然通风等对策进行设计,并结合发电量模拟数据来论证该建筑的可行性。以期所述建筑设计要点对相似气候区下的太阳能建筑设计具有借鉴意义。     

A computational approach for achieving optimum daylight inside buildings through automated kinetic shading systems

Parametric architecture can be used to improve design quality by integrating and coordinating design components, and any change in one parameter affects the final design. Daylight is a crucial parameter in designing energy-efficient buildings. In this research, daylight inside a building was improved by designing a kinetic shading system with independent units parametrically responding to sunlight through 3D rotation (around the centers of the units) and 2D movement (on the surface of the shading system). Various patterns were determined to create the unit's basic form and allow the designer to have a wide range of options. The units were defined with the plugin “Grasshopper.” Their rotation was parametrically controlled on the basis of sun path and weather data by using “Honeybee” and “Ladybug” plugins to provide constant optimized daylighting inside the building. Results showed that the use of such a shading system in optimal situations can greatly increase the efficiency of indoor daylight.     

Getting complexity organised: Using self-organisation in architectural construction

The increasing number of the so called “non-standard” designs in architecture, enabled by the development of digital tools of design, analysis, and fabrication, poses new questions for the engineering part of the building process. The number of explicit design decisions required to define the constructive details of a non-repetitive structure can be overwhelming. This paper illustrates three design examples that use methods from the field of artificial-life to reduce the design decisions and organise complex non-regular structures: the design of a “forest of columns” for the Groningen Stadsbalkon, the construction of an adaptive quad-mesh for a CAAD Swissbau Pavilion, and the optimisation of a large irregular roof structure.     

德莫拉的盒子

本文以葡萄牙建筑师艾德·瓦尔多·苏托·德·莫拉三个大小规模不同的建筑作品为例,通过研究分析其作品的环境地形策略,空间功能组织,形态细节控制等方面,得出德莫拉在葡萄牙乡村语境下,以"盒子"为原型,用现代主义手法进行操作,形成了一套属于自己的建筑设计逻辑。     

Daylight as a zoning device for midtown

Since 1960, New York City's Midtown district has experienced an office building boom with the construction of seventy million square feet (650 300 m²) of new office space in one hundred eleven buildings. During this period it became increasingly clear that this new generation of superscale office towers, such as AT & T and IBM, were overpowering their context by dramatically diminishing the daylighting available to the public streets, parks, plazas, and neighboring buildings.The prime cause of this environmental dilemma was the permissive and subjective manner in which the City Planning Commission reviewed Midtown buildings. The waiving of the rigid as-of-right or automatic height and setback regulations for a negotiated review, conceived to encourage good architecture, resulted in daylighting conditions which were measurably worse than those that, in part, led to the call for zoning to protect public access to “light and air” in 1916. The as-of-right zoning regulations which were enacted to guarantee an adequate level of solar access had been superceded by negotiated or discretionary zoning and in the process one of the original goals of zoning was lost.Responding to the defined need for procedural certainty, public accountability, and design and development flexibility, the consultants proposed a performance system of as-of-right zoning based on objective criteria and measurement techniques. The centerpiece of the new building bulk regulations is a modified Waldram Diagram on which the daylighting performance of a building is evaluated against a threshold and standard. The threshold and standard were systematically derived from an analysis of the sixty-year historical expectation for daylight in Midtown. The performance system as adopted by the City is presently being programmed for computer evaluation.     

Form follows metaphors: a critical discourse analysis of the construction of the Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem

This article examines critically the role of architecture in the construction of national identity, using the case of the Israeli Supreme Court building. Through critical discourse analysis of texts that accompanied the design and construction of this building, I propose to study the interrelations between the production of the architectural object and the practice of the construction of an Israeli national identity. The existing body of knowledge that supports this article claims that the creation of national identity is a socially constructed process, which involves a variety of practices including education, music, army service, as well as the design of the built environment. It is important to note that the realisation of such practices does not occur as a natural process, but rather as a result of power relations, embodied within the national sphere. Following this line of argument, the paper proposes a critical approach, which aims to move towards the politicisation of the term ‘sense of place’. In this context, concentrating on the Israeli Supreme Court building is not an arbitrary decision, since this institution is at the focus of the Israeli civil arena, and its building became a ‘land-mark’ and symbol of architectural quality. Following the texts written by the architects and critics, I would argue that this building reflects – and thus strengthens – the hegemonic interpretations of Israeli social and cultural reality. This interpretation is characterised by using selective historical and biblical references, in order to create through architecture an ‘iconographic bridge’ into an imagined collective past. However, this bridge reproduces the antinomies that frame Israeli space and transform it into ‘our place’, that is West versus East and Local versus Diaspora.     

Developments Affecting the Practice of Architecture Specialization of Practice

Abstract

Solar technology is burdened with a stigma that contradicts a sense of proportion and beauty in building. Arbitrarily attached to new or existing construction, the technology is often associated with a small clique of individuals disenfranchised from the mainstream. This project is designed to challenge these perceptions and reestablish the ideals of solar energy by integrating architecture and technology. It pushes existing paradigms by proposing architectural form that celebrates solar power while obtaining a high level of system integration. As each technical decision was measured against its contribution to spatial effect, the project attained a simultaneous sense of the sustainable and the beautiful.     

4C营销理论下的建筑节能改造研究

建筑是能源的消耗大户,我国既有建筑的存量很大,建筑节能改造能有效地减少既有建筑的能耗,但在实际项目中,建筑节能改造的效果与原先设计目标有着很大偏差,其中“人为因素”是最主要的原因,建筑节能改造市场化将有助于解决这个问题。本文引入经济学中的4C营销概念来探讨使建筑节能改造市场化可能性,分析了其面临的原因以及可能的应对方法。     

基于生命周期理论的多功能太阳房

从建筑设计概念、建筑结构、节能设计、功能的灵活性等方面对2013太阳能十项全能竞赛中以色列团队的参赛作品进行了介绍,分析了其设计中的几个独特之处,以供今后太阳能建筑设计参考借鉴。     

Haptic Diagrams: From Cinematography to Architectural Performance

Abstract

Contemporary design practices use the diagram as an active agent in the development of form and matter into architectural space. Deleuze and Guattari, following Foucault,¹ defined the diagram as an “abstract machine,” which “does not function to represent even something real, but rather constructed a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality.”² This formulation emphasizes the diagram's configuration and its modes of operation through virtuality and potentiality. In this sense, the diagram is the architects' way of dreaming, the “no-place” encompassing the utopian act. Simultaneously being reality and process, the diagram delays the relation between sign and meaning and promotes a shift from architecture as form or sign to an architecture of forces, performance, and performativity.³     

浅谈东部华侨城天麓山海大宅项目

该文通过对深圳东部华侨城山海大宅项目的介绍,简述了一个高端的山地别墅项目从开发之初立意到最后施工建成的基本情况。指出将因地制宜的设计理念从规划一直贯彻至建筑单体设计是本项目成功的主要因素。     

对刘家琨四川美院新校区设计艺术馆的两种阅读

文章由两部分组成。第一部分“在场阅读”,邓敬基于在场的直接观感,从背景、现场内外空间、材料等多方面文章详细介绍了对刘家琨设计的四川美院新校区设计艺术馆建筑群做了详尽的报道和解读。 第二部分“不在场阅读”,钟文凯从对工业建筑的“再现”、个性的表达、材料的使用等方面对四川美术学院设计系馆进行了分析,从中观察到刘家琨的这一新作品在设计构思和表现形式上有意识地趋向多元、复杂的变化,和一种关注点从内到外的转移。这种转变在某种程度上已经开始偏离现代主义建筑的一些基本信条,反映了刘家琨对现代主义建筑的反思,并在实践中寻找“另一条路”的努力。