Frozen Void: The Elegant Affect of the Evolved Object

The notion of elegance tends to focus on the finished object - the complete and seamless work - rather than the expression of process per se. Here, Kivi Sotamaa shows how he set out with his Frozen Void ‘to achieve an elegant affect in the evolved object’. In so doing, he reveals how this type of intensification is, in fact, fundamental to the emergence of the new elegance, where intensity renders a greater potential for features within the surface to emerge to different parameters. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolutionary Architecture? Some Perspectives From Biological Design

Architects' view of nature tends to rest on the assumption that it is inherently efficient in its use of materials and energy, and essentially ingenious and elegant in its solutions. This perception in science is one that has been propounded through Darwinism: the notion that refinement of ‘design’ is achieved through repetitive selection, variation and mutation. The renowned biologist J Scott Turner argues here that there is little evidence that living design actually comes about in this way. Instead, looking to Darwin's French contemporary Claude Bernard and his theory of homeostasis, he proposes that living systems converge on effective design much faster and more predictably than a simple regime of natural selection alone would suggest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deus Ex Machina: From Semiology to the Elegance of Aesthetics

Architecture's ability to realise large-scale effects permits its emphasis to shift aesthetics on a project-by-project basis. Elegance unleashes a specific visual intelligence that can be achieved by refinement and precision of surface. Here, Mark Foster Gage investigates how elegance can be designed into a project. This requires a ‘visual and formal expertise’ combined with a careful curation of mutation and awareness of ‘extreme differentiation’. Elegance often only reveals itself partially, acquired, in the design stage, through ‘isolated views and expertly calibrated moments’ and perceived fleetingly in built work. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fabricating Elegance: Digital Architecture's Coming of Age

For Joseph Rosa, John H Bryan Curator of Architecture at the Institute of Chicago, elegance with its ‘refined aesthetic ability’ represents a concurrent maturing of design culture and technologies. It builds on the pioneering fabrication techniques of the late 1990s, spearheaded in seminal projects such as the Korean Presbyterian Church in New York by Greg Lynn, Douglas Garofalo and Michael McInturf, and the Yokohama Port Terminal by Foreign Office Architects. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sociocultural factors of the late Ming and early Qing Chinese garden landscape,based on philosophies seen in Yuanye,Zhangwuzhi, and Xianqingouji

This study explores garden landscape design philosophies during the Ming–Qing transitional period in China as presented in three different garden design books: Zhangwuzhi (长物志), Yuanye (园冶), and Xianqingouji (闲情偶寄). During this period, the Confucian hierarchical social system fractured as the merchant class began to encroach on high society. In reaction to this change, Zhangwuzhi proposed the ‘elegant’ garden design ideology to maintain the cultural hegemony of the gentry. Reflecting the rising social status of merchants, Yuanye applied this ideology to the gardens of the merchant class. In early Qing, as commoners’ ownership of gardens increased, Xianqingouji optimised the ‘elegant’ ideology, and introduced it as a practical design for ordinary citizens’ gardens. In sum, all three books applied the ‘elegant’ ideology to garden landscapes of different classes in response to the social changes of the time.     

Good Natured Stuff

Neil Spiller ruminates on nature and what ‘the odd naughty leaf’ has contributed to art and architecture over the years - culminating in evolutionary design and parametrical modelling today. He flags up the work of two of the most ‘talented young bucks’ in the field - Dennis Dollens and Cloud 9. But how realistic is it for us to really expect biomimicry to influence how and what we build? Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Building as Refined Object: The Architecture of Antonio Citterio

Sebastiano Brandolini describes the work of Antonio Citterio who, despite a low-key personal presence on the Italian architectural scene and an architecture of quiet restraint, has gained an enviable international reputation for his elegant and ‘impeccably well-made’ buildings. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finding Time

What has our sense of the acceleration of time got to bear on our experience of cities? How might it be consciously countered by architects ‘finding time’ through ‘thoughtful design and measured observation’. ‘A self-declared ‘cultural polymath’, Tim Makower is the founder of Makower Architects. A partner at Allies and Morrison for many years, he has significant experience in leading large-scale projects, ranging from the King's Cross Masterplan in London to the Old Doha Regeneration Framework, which he draws on here and in his book Touching the City: Thoughts on Urban Scale (Wiley, 2014).     

Recent Works by Bernard Lassus

At the forefront of innovative French landscape design, Bernard Lassus has developed a uniquely modern ethos. Working in the context of a multicultural society, he sets out to create ‘rational approaches that anchor the lives of men and women in nature and history’. Michel Conan describes how this is played out in his projects for the new town area of Sarcelles, the landscaping of the French motorways and in the gardens of an international headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distructuring Utopias

In order to meet the challenges of fast-paced urban transformations, Laurent-Paul Robert and Dr Vesna Petresin Robert of Rubedo call for a rethinking of the perennial Utopian model of urban design. They espouse a design strategy that is both able ‘to reflect the dynamics of urban growth and decay’, while meeting the needs of a ‘post-capitalist economy’ - a condition in which change is the only constant. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Louise T Blouin Institute,West London

The borderlands of Notting Hill and Shepherd's Bush – at the very fringes of the Westway – have become the site of London's largest new privately owned artspace. A nonprofit foundation funded by Louise T Blouin MacBain, the Canadian CEO of a global media business and an arts philanthropist, the institute has been designed both as a home for the Blouin Foundation and as an effective showcase for the work of newly emerging and established artists. Jeremy Melvin describes how architects Borgos Dance have used the ‘intriguing’ exterior of an old coachbuilder's workshop to their advantage, in hewing out a ‘compelling’ new interior. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Elegance,Attenuation, and Geometry: Herta and Paul Amir Building,Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Preston Scott Cohen explores the elegant through the eye of projective geometry. He finds ‘fruitful lessons’ in the architecture of the Baroque, which offers a historical model of anamorphosis (the extreme perspectival condition in which an image appears distorted) and tectonic distortion. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performing Elegance

At the level of global culture, the impact of elegant buildings is magnified where there is a seamless integration of complex parts and fabrication expressed through a mastery of techniques and transformative set of features. Hani Rashid of Asymptote explains how, in working at an international scale, the practice is now seeking to propagate innovative design through a ‘developed understanding of the multiple levels of local responses that affect both local and global conditions’. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards an integrated data base

A project steered by the US Building Research Board has demonstrated a prototype integrated data base which would be usable at all phases of a building's life‐cycle, from design concept through to building operation and maintenance; the computer hardware and software employed is mixed, not a ‘closed’ system. But there are substantial problems in developing such an elegant concept, as discussed here. Peter Smeallie is Senior Programs Officer at BRB; Richard Zitzmann is the project consultant.     

Hitler's ‘Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost’: a case only for Poland? A forgotten dimension of national-socialist spatial and town planning in the former Czechoslovakia

Adolf Hitler constructed his Nazi ideology as a universal worldview aimed at the German Reich's eastward expansion; the ‘Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost’ programme was officially launched in 1940. The forcible establishment of multiple administrative units in 1938/1939 created the conditions for an architecture that would serve the totalitarian regime. Thus began an enormous planning process and the targeted institutionalization of urban development and spatial planning and research. This programme included not only German government agencies and research institutions specifically established or reorganized for this purpose, but increasingly also involved communal politics and independent or government architects. The author pursues the thesis that this Germanization concept, formulated within the framework of the ‘Generalsiedlungspläne Ost’, allowed the relevant agencies to increase their influence or eliminate any opponents. From this basis, the study identifies the role that GBI (Generalbauinspektor) for Berlin Albert Speer, his architects, and local architects played in the planning process in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and analyses the architectural evidence of the Nazi rulers’ Germanization and colonization policies. The initial comparison of the urban planning models applied in ‘Großreich Deutschland’ with those in the annexed regions in today's Poland and Czech Republic offers relevant arguments related to this far-reaching sociological and architecture–historical topic.     

District court of justice,Katowice

On visiting Katowice in southwest Poland, Jeremy Melvin met up with Archistudio, the architects of a substantial new judicial precinct that is due for completion in 2008. He describes how in this scheme, which is so demanding even in its circulation requirements, the practice has been able to combine pragmatism and foresight with ‘elegant and dignified expression’. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk of shear failure and extensional failure around over-stressed excavations in brittle rock

The authors investigate the failure modes surrounding over-stressed tunnels in rock.Three lines of investigation are employed:failure in over-stressed three-dimensional(3D) models of tunnels bored under 3D stress,failure modes in two-dimensional(2D) numerical simulations of 1000 m and 2000 m deep tunnels using FRACOD,both in intact rock and in rock masses with one or two joint sets,and finally,observations in TBM(tunnel boring machine) tunnels in hard and medium hard massive rocks.The reason for 'stress-induced' failure to initiate,when the assumed maximum tangential stress is approximately(0.4-0.5)σ_c(UCS,uniaxial compressive strength) in massive rock,is now known to be due to exceedance of a critical extensional strain which is generated by a Poisson's ratio effect.However,because similar 'stress/strength' failure limits are found in mining,nuclear waste research excavations,and deep road tunnels in Norway,one is easily misled into thinking of compressive stress induced failure.Because of this,the empirical SRF(stress reduction factor in the Q-system) is set to accelerate as the estimated ratio σ_(θmax)/σ_c 0.4.In mining,similar 'stress/strength' ratios are used to suggest depth of break-out.The reality behind the fracture initiation stress/strength ratio of '0.4' is actually because of combinations of familiar tensile and compressive strength ratios(such as 10) with Poisson's ratio(say0.25).We exceed the extensional strain limits and start to see acoustic emission(AE) when tangential stress σθ≈ 0.4σc,due to simple arithmetic.The combination of 2D theoretical FRACOD models and actual tunnelling suggests frequent initiation of failure by 'stable' extensional strain fracturing,but propagation in 'unstable' and therefore dynamic shearing.In the case of very deep tunnels(and 3D physical simulations),compressive stresses may be too high for extensional strain fracturing,and shearing will dominate,both ahead of the face and following the face.When shallower,the concept of 'extensional strain initiation but propagation' in shear is suggested.The various failure modes are richly illustrated,and the inability of conventional continuum modelling is emphasized,unless cohesion weakening and friction mobilization at different strain levels are used to reach a pseudo state of yield,but still considering a continuum.     

Type,Field, Culture,Praxis

Here, Peter Carl substitutes the term ‘type’ for the typical, and ‘typology’ for typicality. In so doing he frees up the notion of type for contemporary design, liberating it from the strictures of its performance history and precedents that have often veered towards standardisation.     

The Grand Work of Fiction: The Detail as Narrative

A practising architect and Professor at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, Edward Ford is the leading expert on the architectural detail and the author of three seminal books on the subject. Here Ford explains that, though the decision ‘to abstract or to articulate’ architecture ‘may be largely subconscious’, it is never ‘arbitrary’. For ‘in the well-designed building, it is done in the service of the creation of a larger narrative, a unity of vision’.     

Becoming Architectural: Affirmative Critique,Creative Incompletion

When Greg Lynn embraced digital animation software in the 1990s, he not only redefined architectural production, but also the designer's relationship to the generative process. In this extract from an unpublished essay written in 2000, the philosopher Brian Massumi describes Lynn's ‘in-folding’ open-ended approach, which renders the design process ‘less an external conduit for the artist's creativity’ than the artist ‘a conduit for creativity of the design process’.