295 research outputs found
Architecture in the Age of Apparatus-Centric Culture
No full textArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
Beyond the typological discourse: The creation of the architectural language and the type as a project in the western modern city
No full textThis thesis considers the city and its architecture the extreme condition under which the endless discussion around the human being way of thinking takes place. More precisely, the research assumes the city as the place where the displacement of mindset principles, categories and catalogue of objects is materialized into Form, becoming inhabitable. This radical definition of Form is therefore the subject matter of Urban Morphology and Building Typology and justifies the seductive uniqueness of the city with respect to any other possibility of existence of the above mentioned discussion. At least since its original inception, the greek polis, to discuss about the architecture of the city therefore implies to discuss about the ground of the thinking which made the city possible. The thesis identifies two main conditions under which the existence of the city is made possible. The former is the identification of the agents ( i.e. the driving forces) who reciprocally recognize claiming a role in the city coming into being and therefore decide to engage within the related discussion. The latter is the existence of a language as the result of the discussion about what the city should be. The type definition encompasses both the aspects, becoming the specific embodiment of the city collective project. Since the “conditions of possibility” of the discussion are neither neutral nor universal but historical, this thesis analyzes the city and its architecture as the place of an harsh conflict among different positions developed through space and time. The conflict not necessarily occurs within the existing city, putting into question its achieved certainties and implicit rationality. Sometimes it happens that the discussion leads to the crisis of the city itself and its architecture, demanding for a complete renewal of its principles, categories and related catalogues. Assuming the perspective of the crisis as a challenging one, the thesis starts questioning the Enlightenment revolution discussion around the city as a symmetrical discussion on the principle of the Enlightenment itself, in order to get rid of the Ancien Régime and to abruptly enter into the realm of Modernity. Furthermore, the thesis analyzes the way the city reacted to that revolution, as a mean of better understanding the way the western society coped with the subject matter of the Modern way of thinking itself. Through the transformation of the city, its principles, its categories and its catalogues, the thesis follows the transformation of the human being mindset as a reaction to the introduction of Modernity and its meaning. Towards that perspective, it recognizes an important threshold in the discussion occurred around the ’70 of the XX century. In fact, a crises of a new kind appeared at that time. It was not anymore under discussion an historical specific form of the city, but the possibility itself of existence of the city as an embodied displacement of that discussion was radically put into question. This is what Post-Modernity was deeply prompting. As an immediate consequence it was put into question the possibility of existence of the type itself. The thesis identifies in that aporia the main struggle put at stake nowadays, which is still unresolved and too often remains unquestioned. The thesis concludes that the crisis of the type identifies with the sunset of the western civilization, and that renouncing to the type definition as the subject matter of the discussion implies to renounce to those principles upon which the civilization process is grounded: to lead the discussion to a necessarily materialized conclusion, however provisional and partial it should be, of course to be discussed again and again. Moreover, the thesis concludes that to renounce to the type project means to renounce to the city, blurring its entity into a generic space of living.ArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
Place-time discontinuities: Mapping in architectural discourse
No full textArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
System-embedded Intelligence in Architecture
No full textFounded on the imperative to understand, evaluate and consciously decide about the use of digital media in architecture this research not only aims to analyze and critically assess computer-based systems in architecture, but also proposes evaluation and classification of digitally driven architecture through procedural- and object-oriented studies. It, furthermore, introduces methodologies of digital design, which in-corporate intelligent computer-based systems proposing development of prototypical tools to support the design process. Bijlagen op DVD in TU Delft Trésor collectie, TR diss 5272ArchitectureArchitectur
Camp of Faith: On Political Theology and Urban Form
No full textThe dissertation explores the political foundations of the city. It positions itself around a definition of the idea of the political, which is determined by the specific constitution of opposed entities; a dichotomy between a sovereign body and movements. Subsequently, the research suggests a dialectical reading of the idea of Urban Form, which is built upon the relation between norm and exception, between friendship and enmity, inclusion and exclusion. Departing from this definition, the dissertation stresses on the (constructive) dynamism of opposing forces which motivate or shape a creative tension: the state of antithetical, which becomes spatialised in the form of the city. This political understanding of the concept of the city has always been entangled with theological polemics. In this dissertation, the very notion of separation, that is embedded in theology, becomes the core concept when an ideological power aims at defining itself through the act of exclusion. Walls, enclosures and boundaries are the architectural elements that represent this action. However here the idea of separation does not imply a form of rejection but rather an association. Camp of Faith rereads these peculiar urban forms as political repercussions of theological ideas, when the city’s architecture establishes a relationship between power, inhabitants and territory. These spatial configurations mediate the moment of conflict, when opposing forces collide and projects are initiated in a dialectical process. Cities become laboratories of projects and counter-projects. Nevertheless the research’s ambition rests in the architectural quality of such phenomena, not only reading the architecture as an outcome of a deliberate political act but also when political ideas and ideologies emerge from the very architecture of the city. Camp of Faith relies on the close reading of paradigmatic examples that unfold the theological idea of city beyond the limits of time and geography. Therefore, here, the concern is not so much changing stylistic periods, but rather the issue of continuity; a specific conception of space which has remained constant despite the advent of technological and economic development: reading the city as series of inhabitable walls.ArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
The fourth typology; dominant type and the idea of the city
No full textArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
Architectural Contestation
No full textThis dissertation addresses the reductive reading of Georges Bataille's work done within the field of architectural criticism and theory which tends to set aside the fundamental ‘broken’ totality of Bataille's oeuvre and also to narrowly interpret it as a mere critique of architectural form, consequently presenting it either as the negation of all form of architecture or as the critique of 'classical' architectural forms. Against this ‘appropriation’, i.e. this reductive reading and the subsequent misconstruction it initiates, which violently abridges the relevance and pertinence of Bataille's oeuvre to architectural theory and criticism (and which similarly betrays a very weak definition of architecture as principally occupied with the generation of form), this dissertation argues that Bataille's oeuvre forms a 'whole' or 'totality' which, although disrupting and disrupted, should be considered in its entirety in order to reveal the peculiar function of expenditure, it contends, architecture and architectural criticism are – if carried out non-hypocritically – sharing. Commencing from a deep analysis of the different attempts made to ‘appropriate’ Bataille’s thinking within the discipline, the dissertation seeks, inversely, to ‘release’ (in the sense of issuing it into the open as well as freeing it) Bataille’s ‘use value’, while arguing for an insurgent comprehension of architecture and a radical enactment of its correlative assessment as non-hypocritical expenditures that pervade Bataille’s ‘take’ on the subject. To these ends, it contextualises Bataille's oeuvre in the wider context of pre and post-War intellectual history, by discussing its author’s influences, groups, reviews, polemics and legacy. It considers the manner in which Bataille, acknowledges his personal experience of the excess, evidences his reading of Hegel, Nietzsche, Mauss, and Sade, consciously engages with notable intellectual figures of his time such as Andre Breton and Jean Paul Sartre, and influences several major post-War thinkers. While this dissertation does attempt the recovery of Bataille’s relationship with those philosophers and intellectuals, it also looks to his published and unpublished books, novels, and articles to grasp how his ‘writing’ is paradoxically a theorizing of expenditure as well as a practice of the excess (hence an expenditure in itself). Subsequently, it proposes to read Bataille's ‘take’ on architecture from within the 'context' of this 'paradoxical philosophy'. From this scholarly angle of investigation, it demonstrates that Bataille's texts on architecture appear to be not just a critique of architectural forms but rather a contentious elucidation of the political, social and economic function of architecture: a means of 'exchange' or ‘communication’ between what Bataille sketches as the heterogeneous and homogeneous realms. To put it differently, Bataille, the dissertation reveals, perceives architecture as a device allowing a leaking of the sacred back into the profane. Before these findings – hence following Bataille – this dissertation advances a thesis of architecture as an expenditure – either real or symbolic, either productive or in pure loss – functioning on a dual mode. On the one hand, architecture is imperative: it serves the hegemony of the 'high' heterogeneous elements while it structures and preserves the homogeneous realm and its order. On the other hand it is 'impure': it allows a leaking of the 'low' impure heterogeneous elements back into the profane (homogeneous realm), disturbing as such its order. This function of expenditure, the dissertation concludes, logically appears to be not limited to the architectural object. Indeed, as Bataille suggests it, the very function of the architectural assessment seems also to be expenditure. A ‘project’ having no further ends than to be a radical squandering in and of itself. Bataille’s ‘take’ on architecture is not a mere renewing of architectural criticism but a radical architectural contestation.Public Building / CompositionArchitectur
Shoes, Cars, and Other Love Stories: Investigating The Experience of Love for Products
No full textPeople often say they love a product. What do they really mean when they say this, and is this a phenomenon that is relevant to the field of design? Findings from a preliminary study in this thesis indicated that people describe their love as a rewarding, long-term, and dynamic experience that arises from a meaningful relationship built with products they own and use. Inspired by existing approaches to the experience of love from social psychology, research tools are developed for the closer study of person-product love. Using those tools the research in this thesis investigates how person-product interactions are linked to the experience of love and how these influence love over time. The findings reveal how the experience of love arises from person-product relationships, how love relationships develop over time, and which factors can provoke change in the love experience and love relationships over time. These findings present opportunities for design researchers and designers to foster rewarding experiences and long-lasting person-product relationships. Person-product love relationships can bring emotional rewards that benefit people’s wellbeing and stimulate sustained efforts to keep loved products for longer.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin
«The battle of Shulgin» on the maps by S.U. Remezov and its source: historical and natural-geographical plots
No full textThe specifics of ethnographical and archaeological research is such, that it requires use of new sources for a more detailed analysis. So, potentially, the books, created in the late XVII — early XVIII century by Siberian cartographer S.U. Remezov are very important in modern science. The author of the article examines one of the map of the late seventeenth century, which became a source for a compilation of several pages by S.U. Remezov. The author sees several methodological bases of a research in the field of ethnoarcheology. They are system approach, synergetics, and world-system analysis. However, in this case, the author uses the theorem of Gödel, which he considers possible to adapt for the Humanities in order to justify the need to involve a wide range of sources. The methodology of the study is to compare the same geographic features on past and present maps, as well as to use written sources for analysis and interpretation of data maps. After examining it and comparing it with a modern version, the author concludes that the accuracy and reliability of the map by Strunin is undeniable. This allowed us to draw conclusions about the natural and geographical situation at the end of the seventeenth century, formed by the systems of communication, patterns of settlement of the Russians and their art of war in the defense of the border lands. The author believes that the system of the Russian settlement on the Tobol River banks is a variant of the settling on the banks of large rivers and lower reaches of their tributaries. In this case, the first settlements were founded on the most liveable places. The system of communications between the settlements had been established by the natives before the Russians arrived, they adapted them to fit their needs, and they mainly survived to the present day. As for the military, defending the border lands at the Tobol River, the Russians put an emphasis on constructing fortified settlements, and moving the equestrian army. The author pays great attention to one of the events at the end of the XVI century, the battle of Tobolsk nobleman Vasily Shulgin with the nomads. The author considers the place of the battle, the reasons for its sad outcome, and its importance for the subsequent development of the Tobol region
Urban Literacy: A Scriptive Approach to the Experience, Use and Imagination of Place
No full textThis dissertation discusses how literature offers valuable ways to become aware of how people experience, use, and imagine places. It argues that Lefebvre’s concept of "lived space", experienced and lived through by characters, evoking memories and imaginations, is the space that we encounter in the evocative descriptions of places and spaces by literary writers. The hypothesis of this work is that if existing literature can provide such insights, a literary approach using instruments from literature is also conceivable within the domain of architectural research and even of architectural design. To address the different perspectives that a literary approach to architecture can provide, the work proposes a triad of interrelated concepts: description, transcription and prescription. Each of the three branches of this literary bridge connects to a slightly different discourse and examples of architectural and literary practices. Together, the terms description, transcription and prescription supply a framework to address lived experience and develop tools for spatial research and design. Literary references include Proust, Calvino, Oulipo, Breton, Aragon, Joyce and Danielewski, while the work of architects Steven Holl, Bernard Tschumi and Rem Koolhaas are discussed as "scriptive" architectural practices.ArchitectureArchitectur
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