Architectural Design and Construction Education (2024)

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTONIC

The International Journal of Architectonic, Spatial, and Environmental Design, 2018

A vital component to any architect’s education is learning how to effectively utilize building materials as carriers of architectural meaning; the development of a coherent tectonic language is fundamental to teaching architecture. This requires a careful understanding of the most basic components of architecture, its language, its words. The words are composed of materials, the sentences written in a building’s tectonics and detailing. Learning how to speak is the first step towards writing poetry. Learning the building art’s material language is the first step to creating architecture. Many academics and practitioners who are attracted to design build share a common belief that the materials and methods of construction matter, and are essential to an architect’s education. Latent in this line of inquiry is that if these elements are significant, that significance should be made manifest in the final, constructed reality of the building. This conception runs strongly counter to the direction of most contemporary architecture, in which seamlessness, weightlessness, and the suppression of materiality are ascendant. With these ideas in mind, how should an architect be trained? This paper will explore one method, using design build pedagogy to engage architecture students in a patient search for their own tectonic philosophy.

The Sense of Architectural Constructs

2014

In architecture science and art meet each other in the design process. In most architectural practices designing implements both scientific knowledge, gained from unified observations of the world, and poetic knowledge gained from embodied experiences in the world. Architectural research has an established tradition in the development of scientific knowledge in the fields of technology, construction, history and theory. But other modes of knowledge production remain relatively uncovered. The research presented here aims to articulate the potential of the architectural construct towards poetic knowledge production by blurring the distinction between intelligibility and sensibility and treating the ideal and the material as one continuous heterogeneous field. It is in the liminal zones, the in-between that things meet, interact, reverberate, where encounters take place, and we expect the architectural construct to position in the milieu to stage these encounters. The disruptive encoun...

Structure as Architecture, Architects as Engineers

2013 UBT International Conference, 2013

FROM THE INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE BETWEEN MAN AND MATTER, TO CONTEMPORARY TOOLS FOR ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION: INNOVATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES ON ARCHITECTURE'S EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES

Beginning at the ancient debate of whether architecture is or is not part of the “good-arts” system because of its contamination to a specific utility and a proper function, this article will emphasize once more the essence of “dwelling” to its definition and “to Dwell” as the an inner and an intrinsic character of Architecture. In this way one can understand architecture as the "form of being", or "form of living" whose matter is, as sculpture, painting and, especially, music, the human being himself. The gap between the ancient architect and the modern building engineer can be in this way deleted. The one as the other stay at the origin of the compositional architectural process, determining its reasons (arché - tek-ton), mixing two worlds: the one of "ideas" or their intimate representations (A), and the one of matter, techniques and technologies through which the author can materialize its final product (B). It is therefore in the relationship between these two worlds, called World 1 and World 3 by Karl Popper, that intervenes the typical dynamics of the process of architectural composition. If one thinks that aesthetic judgment intervenes only on the final product of a project, quite apart from the compositional process that intervened in shaping the object, it is inevitable to fall in a substantially romantic conception, and educating for an authentic freedom in the act of architectural composition is impossible. If “the forms of beauty” can be many, that through which these forms are determinated reveals to be a process characterized by recurrent features, that is a consistent circularity between the term (A) to the term (B), between World 1 and World 3. This kind of circularity, between World 1 and World 3, need a specific communication “medium”, a sort of “medium matter”, which appears to be fundamental when an artist cannot act directly on his final object (as is the case in architecture). In these cases he needs to use a “medium matter” through which he can progressively conceive, simulate and verify his program, ideas and final results. The purpose of this article is also to develop a few considerations specifically on this medium matter in order to evolve some considerations on its proper nature and required “ductility”. This medium matter is in fact the principal means through which the artist can manage the process of architectural composition. It is the fundamental “sanctuary” in which the original inner inspiration finds a first comparison with measures of matter that is the space where the dynamics of action-reaction and problem-solving begin. Focusing on this particular aspect, the article will take into account the great changing intervened within the last few years, from paper&pencil to Information Technologies and digital data elaboration as typical instrument to evolve the architectural compositional process. From a medium matter which was able to represent the final object by means of well-tried design techniques, we have arrived at new software which can control the process of architectural drawing, once elaborated only in the artist mind. Finally, this paper will try to investigate the main consequences of these changes (A) on the processes of education in architectural composition, and (B) on its final results: can these new instruments change the aesthetics of architecture and transform our general sense of beauty?

Structural Concepts and Spatial Design: On the Relationship between Architect and Engineer. In: Aita Flury (ed.): Cooperation: The Engineer and the Architect. Basel: Birkhäuser 2011, 57-70.

Understanding Architecture : Transforming Philosophy and Vocabulary into Architectural Marvels

JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, 2018

JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS showcasing the changes which human race has faced. Since, decade architecture is relatively ignored by philosophers and is largely unsuccessful to draw persistent, detailed attention when compared with other art forms such as film or comic. Even today, principally ancient art forms are livelier and have philosophers focus them rather than architecture. Further, some philosophers have even dabbled in architectural projects: Dewey worked on the Chicago Laboratory School, Wittgenstein took part in designing a house for his sister, and Bentham sketched the Panoptic on design as a plan for prison reform. Architecture has existed since the recognition of civilization with its language analogy being as old as Vitruvius has flourished through the stages of development of human ABSTRACT : Architecture has existed since the recognition of civilization and its language analogy is at least as old as Vitruvius. Architecture and the human sciences such as philosophy, psychology, sociology etc. have always shared common interfaces leaving significant impersonation on each other. Architecture is not just an art but it is the reflection of social and cultural values of a society. Thus, through architecture philosophy is represented whereas philosophy is adopted by architecture for creating an edifice which showcases the prevailing human nature and need. This article offers an overview of concerns in the philosophy of architecture. Essential issues include introductory matters regarding the nature of architecture i.e. a. What kinds of objects are architectural, and what is it defined domain. b. Three Aspects-Beauty, structure and utility defining architecture and further dimensions may include space, sustainability, psychological or social features. Through this article, architectural status of various civilisations is discussed keeping in mind the philosophy and vocabulary of architecture. Renaissance enhanced the status of man in society and introduced Anthropometry in architecture. The Industrial Revolution was another of those extraordinary jumps which aid in erecting the high rise steel structure by using new building materials like cast iron, steel, glass, etc. Further, in the late of 1950s, boredom in architectural structure and look provokes distortion of regular architectural elements and objects calling this style deconstructivism. 'Mankind living and interacting with our environment in a way that can continue' lead to the evolution of a new but established thought viewed as Sustainable Architecture. In short, the paper is an approach to discuss about the philosophy and terms used by architects through their expedition from prehistoric times to the sustainability era.

Technical and conceptual metaphor of architecture

"Three levels of axioms matching three levels of disciplines: 1. Multidiscipline: Macro most general where the metaphors and axioms and metaphors used by the widest and diverse disciplines, users and societies. All of society, crossing culture, disciplines, professions, industrialist arts and fields as mathematics and interdisciplinary vocabulary. 2. Interdisciplinary axioms are between fields of art [I] whereas metaphors in general inhabit all these axioms drive a wide variety and aid in associations, interdisciplinary contributions and conversations about board fields not necessary involved with a particular project but if about a project about all context including city plan, land use, institutions, culture and site selection, site planning and potent ional neighborhood and institutional involvement. 3. Micro Discipline: Between architects all involved in making the built environment particularly on single projects in voting relevant arts[I], crafts, manufactures, engineers, sub-con tractors and contactors. As well as owners, users, neighbors, governments agencies, planning boards and town councils."(2.0)Indeed, users of a building designed according to these inherited solutions understand the building's organization and meaning because its underlying principles have been encountered before. Metaphors communicate what both composer and reader know from similar and common experiences. These are incorporated in building's vocabulary such as walls, doors, stairs, floors, ceilings, windows, etc. They further exude through scale, proportion, size, magnitudes, dimensions, geometry, patterns, etc. Architectural metaphors are communicated but are not only a kind of linguistic communication. It includes a three-dimensional content of what people want to know. It is more than the obvious materialization into physical form although it is the physical form which communicates. Students of architecture learn the language, vocabulary and syntax to communicate and compose but they also, unlike the linguist, actor, musician, draftsman, need to learn the content, program and 1three-dimensional concept of creation. (2.0) Gelernter, M.,"Teaching design innovation through design traditions" 1. three-dimensional: where architects discover spatial functional, structural, mechanical and constructional realities in well rounded completeness. "Metaphoric techniques": Architecture and the making of metaphors is a serious subject, not to be taken lightly nor reduced to one or another of its' variables. It deals with the whole and substance of much of what constitutes the treasure, wealth, success and accomplishment of a society, civilization and individuals. The school, university, college, professors, teacher, student, department, etc. which limits its' view of architecture then becomes and produces that view. What may seem relevant, marketable, compatible and timely may be circumstantial and as a result of the faculty's own projections. They are getting what they asked for. Not unlike most professions, architecture is self‑professing. If architects say they make metaphors, are draftsman, builders, project managers, restoration specialist, traditionalist, etc. that is what they are and those will be the kinds of architects produced and the demands placed on the facility. Architecture is classic, setting its' own standards and is standard setting. It is a type and model which others can add or emulate. If architects become builders or only designers to whom will the builders look to copy or emulate. Even those advocating traditional imitations would be at a loss for a world without full architectural expressions. This is the environment which has been abdicated by the architect which is then controlled by the real estate developer, lawyers, accountants, comptrollers, engineers, builders, constructors, municipality, etc. Students do wish to abandon a priori (2.0)"repertoire of mental images" which we may call cultural or traditional unless these images can be restored to value. Students are asked to abandon their very means of understanding buildings". For most involved in the dialectic process this is a welcomed and natural event. It fits well to current maturing and when accepted culturally can induce new experiences. (2.0) Gelernter, M.,"Teaching design innovation through design traditions" One can reside in an environment for a life time without seeing, perceiving or noticing its' relationships, structure and connotations. Education deals with extent reality, its' perspective and context in universal history. We can apply (2.0)Gelernter's analogy of learning language skills to learning not architecture but aspects of architecture related to technique, expression, building, construction, contract documents, model building, graphics drafting, rendering, writing etc. Those skills and facts as language that teach the student about words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a considerable community. These are the architect's means of communicating ideas and including feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, symbols, forms, shapes, textures, scale, height, width or features having understood meanings. Just as linguists utilize reading, spelling, literature and composition (the language arts) to develop the student's comprehension and capacity for use of the written and oral language so do architectural educators use history, two and three-dimensional design, construction, structures, research, programming, drafting, drawing, rendering, etc. In the way mimicking helps students learn a language, copying draftsmanship enables a draftsman. Neither mimetic activities are the source of ideas, but rather the very necessary art to express those ideas. It is often the mastery of some technique of expression which builds the ability of the composer to innovate and create. But the two, technique and ideas are not the same. They depend upon each other and are metaphorically interrelated but they are sovereign and cannot compete. (2.0) Gelernter, M.,"Teaching design innovation through design traditions" They are complementary and mutually supportive. Often our finest artists are both the source of great ideas expressed with excellent quality craftsmanship. Mastering an idea is not the same as learning to speak a language, yet language is replete with words which are ideas. We remember the words, grammar and syntax along with physical means of using them. Both the technical and the cognitive realms of architectural composition are involved in the same idea(s) but the former articulates, explains, divides and makes conscious that which is deduced, inferred, learned, experienced and decided. Without a language, ideas would not materialize nor be 1thought. Technique of the vehicles which conduct our thoughts through a system of senses, perceptions, decisions, and recollections of experiences of both the inner and outer world. (1.0)For the existentialist in this kind of experience the teacher and learner are partners in the learning process. Perennialists promote a cognitive approach to education : one that stresses 1thinking and particularly philosophical 1thinking as its' primary goal while essentialist educational theory has stresses that factual, observable data predominates a purely rational approach. (1.0)Behavioral engineers think of schools as total conditioning units. Though behavioral engineering faculties and students initiate the kinds of changes necessary to create a new and better world. Linguistic analyst maintain that what we need in education is to become aware of how language can be used to influence both thinking and action. (1.0) Ozman, H.A., and Craver, S.M., "Philosophical Foundation of Education" 1. Thought : think, cognition, recognition, reasoning, the power to imagine, conception, a developed intention, as architectural plans, sections, elevations, axonometric, etc. think: to know : to form or have in the mind. To devise by thinking. To form a mental picture. To subject to the process of logical thought. To think implies the entrance of an idea into one's mind. The forming and bringing forth a conception. To think is to form; form forms from forms. They contend that not only educational problems, but the social, economic, and political problems of today could be solved or at least abrogated by a more precise and informed use of language. It is this philosophy and theory of education which most aligns with Gelernter's (2.0)"repertoire of mental schemata" which may provide a repertoire of solutions that provides the individual with competence to act in the world", "as the language analogy innovation of new ideas grows originally out of the old". This verses the existential phenomenological experience of Husserl, Heidegger and Dewey. Where new ideas are derived from an intimate experience "with" existence and not ideas "about" existence. (1.0)In Husserl's words, "to go back to the things themselves". "Metaphor's role in learning architecture" The transition from the passive non responsible ambivalence of youth is changed to a more relevant stage in schools of Higher Education. Particularly architecture whose inherent content deals with teaching people how to learn how to learn and regurgitate, reify, and create from what they have learned to others. Architectural faculty also teach these same students how to teach. This is the new world in which these people will reclaim their historical future.

The construction of architecture

2004

UNDERSTANDING THE POETICS OF ARCHITECTURE...ANUJ KUMAR SONI

This seminar consciously places itself in the realm of experience and feelings to deal with the potential expression of architecture. It is accomplished by reviewing available writings of Tadao Ando, Louis I Kahn and other literature. It deals with their visions, concepts and philosophies and their translation in to architectural language by defining parameters in the context of spatial, functional and environmental considerations. Following is the explanation of the essence of their architecture and explanations of the concept of ‘Dualism’. Dualism is a specific tactic employed by Ando to express his potential disposition by stimulating human spirit invoking ‘Shintai’. Shintai is ‘sentient being’ in Ando’s philosophy. It is an innate intuitive structure embedded in human conscious. The concept is explains in the following statement, “…Ando’s intuition about the role of the body in architectural space-his feeling for élan vital, without which architecture remains unconsummated.”

A Dance to the Music of Architecture

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2011