1,720,979 research outputs found
SCAFFOLD Structuring communicaton in the architectural forum for one-line design
No full textArchitectur
A Tool for the Design of Facilities for the Sustainable Production of Knowledge
No full textThe aim of the study is to develop a ‘design tool’, that is a method to enhance the design and planning of facilities for the sustainable production of new knowledge. More precisely, the objective is to identify a method to support the conception of building complexes related to the long-term production of new knowledge. The tool is focused on the necessary spatial conditions pertaining to this end, especially the topological networks. Today, with profound developments in what has been called the Knowledge Economy and consequent changes in our society, new challenging design problems have to be faced. It appears that one of the most crucial of these is to design Sustainable Innovation Facilities which can meet the new needs and exploit the potential of the New Environment of our time.To solve this new problem, a new set of design methods is needed, in the form of a design tool. The concept of ‘Sustainable Development’ in the economy and the environment is applied to the production of new knowledge. The basic feature of ‘Sustainable Development’ is generalized as: the process of increasing or at least maintaining output in a changing environment by means of adaptation. One condition contributing significantly to such adaptation is knowledge ‘diversity’ of people interacting within what have been called ‘clusters’. There are two possibilities of achieving such clusters of high diversity: 1) through ‘virtual’ media and 2) through face-to-face interaction in ‘real’ places. Both are seen to be of value. Hence, facilities for sustainably producing new knowledge have to combine the advantages of both virtual and physical means. In certain situations, over-reliance on virtual media may to lead to ‘Cyberbalkanization’. This study thus concentrates on enhancing interaction in the ‘real places’ that exist in built environments. To measure physical diversity in clusters, three steps are suggested: 1. The identification of clustering locations in innovation facilities; 2. The identification of users interacting in such clustering locations; 3. The measurement of the diversity of the agents interacting in such clusters. To provide a better understanding of the concepts of diversity and cluster formation related to the physical spatial organization of a facility, the campus of TU Delft was chosen as a case study. The study shows that the possibility for physical interaction between knowledge agents in clusters from diverse academic backgrounds is very low, which forces us to think about conditions that may increase them. As a result, the study is concerned with the necessary conditions to allow the formation of clusters of high diversity in knowledge production facilities. These conditions are represented in terms of topological networks consisting of nodes, which represent places for potential encounters, and links between nodes, which represent accessibility between such places. We use the term ‘Archigraph’ for these networks. To construct the design tool, three examples of applications are considered to explore how the tool can be constructed. The three examples illustrate how to compare diversity of interacting groups in clusters for schemes in three different situations as follows: different network structure but similar allocation; different allocation but the same network structure; and different allocation with different network structure. To test the tool, two design options from a real design competition are used in another case study. We compare the ‘diversity index’ of the schemes using the design tool. Possible modifications to the tool are suggested as a result of this case study. Starting from methodologies developed by the Design Knowledge Systems Research Center (DKS) for the development of design tools, the research is also innovative in the following respects: 1. The transfer of concepts and techniques from the domains of economics, regional science, environmental sustainability, and sociology to the domain of spatial design, on the scale of building complexes; 2. The development of a model representing spatial attributes constraining face-to-face group interaction in the built environment; 3. The development of a design tool which can help in evaluating and optimizing the potential diversity of groups communicating within building complexes. The design tool proposed here is not intended for use as a deterministic design machine but as an aid to providing a better understanding in comparing alternative building plans when the topological network is taken as a necessary condition for enhancing physical interaction among diverse agents.ArchitectureArchitectur
A framework for comparing and controlling number-based design reasoning systems
No full textArchitectur
Precedents and design thinking in an age of relativization: The transformations of the normative discourse on the orders of architecture in France between 1650 and 1793
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The structure of architectural theory: A study of some writings by Gottfried Semper, John Ruskin and Christopher Alexander
No full textArchitectur
Use and adaptation of precedents in architectural design. Toward an evolutionary design model
No full textFor centuries, architects have re-used design precedents in the conception of new design solutions. Whether explicitly - as in the case of Le Corbusier, James Stirling and Jo Coenen - or implicitly - as with J.J.P. Oud, Aldo van Eyk, and Santiago Calatrava - this practice has led to very advantageous efficient, effective, and innovative results. The goal of this research project is to contribute to the construction of computational tools to facilitate this practice by developing a model that grasps significant characteristics of the design process as it employs precedents. The model is built drawing an analogy from the natural evolution. The intention is not to represent the processes that take place in the architects minds but rather their behavior as this is manifested in their design products. The project draws from the multidisciplinary methodology of design tool development of the Design Knowledge Systems Research Center. It employs an analogy with Darwinian evolutionary theory in combination with recent theories of genetics and embryology. The criteria of usefulness in picturing the phenomenon in architecture determines the focus on particular aspects of the analogy. The research also uses three case studies from the architectural domain: J.J.P. Oud, to identify adequacy criteria for the model; Le Corbusier, to illustrate the components and conduct of the model under development; and Santiago Calatrava, to test the model. The research develops a pre-computational qualitative model that provides insights into the process of re-use and adequacy criteria for an analytical model to succeed in architectural practice. Given the notorious history of misuse of analogies from the Darwinian model and biological models in general to other fields, special attention was paid to circumscribe the limits of the analogy. There are basic differences between design and evolutionary models, the most important being the process of selection, natural versus artificial. As "breeders", designers recall from memory and/or from archives through "artificial selection" - this is not the case in natural selection. In natural evolution, mutations are "random", and natural selection gives the direction. In the human design process, mutations and selection are mostly intentional. Many analogies suffer from confusion between the natural science notion of evolution and the cultural notion of progress; they are also highly reductive in their representation of cognitive processes of design, misrepresenting the design process. The evolutionary and genetics analogy serve as heuristic devices to represent the mechanisms in the process of use and adaptation of design precedents and the elements of such precedents accumulated over the years that are adapted and recombined during the design process often leading to design innovations. The model employs the notion of "design feature", a precedent component, as the most important unit of selection. Drawing from developmental genetics, and the idea of regulatory genes, each feature is derived from two interlinked kind of instructions where the "regulatory d-gene" deals with the configurational instructions and the "structural d-gene" deals with the technique and materials used. In the design model, just as in evolution, the notion of fitting environmental constraints in the generation of form is essential. Fitness relates to both internal and external constraints; it is multi-dimensional in a multi-criteria ecological environment.Architectur
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