The Architectural Typology of Contemporary Façades for Public Buildings in the European Context

In contemporary architecture, a border between an exterior and an interior—a façade—is variously designed in terms of form, style, response to climate or culture, individual approach or tools used. Despite the diversity and multi-tread theoretical and practical discourse, the Authors propose the typology of contemporary façades for public buildings (open to society) in the context of European cities by extracting comprehensive architectural features. The term systematic reflects the complexness of the issue by the newly proposed element. Namely, it is a representation of a particular architectural feature with the use of scale. The elaboration consists of (1) an introduction with a literature review and thesis, (2) our aim and method, (3) a historical background; case studies, and systematics introduction (4) conclusions with typology proposal.

Form Follows Function: A Statement Taken too far

This research article examines the study of the philosophy behind the statement "Form Follows Function", its relation to modernist architecture and its interpretation in contemporary architecture. It explains the basic principles of this philosophy, which began with the work of Louis Sullivan and how this statement actually came into existence. It defines the basic terms and vocabulary of this philosophy. It identifies the concepts of this philosophy that were transferred to architecture and became the basis of modernist architectural style. Modernist projects and buildings are very functional and lack any kind of ornamentation. The “transfer” of the concepts of form follow function to architecture was very direct and literal, this is the reason why it isn't suitable for the contemporary world. Moreover, the time when this statement was given was the time when world war one had just taken place and a fast and low funded restoration of infrastructure was needed. There is not any such kind of need in the contemporary world. The technology has advanced to such an extent that the functions can be fit into even the strangest forms which us to experiment. enables The focus is now more on the forms and the aesthetics which has been highly employed in the deconstructivist style. The new concept of adaptive reuse cannot be employed in the modernist architecture which is a big disadvantage. Keywords: form, function, modernism, post modernism

Architectural Characteristics of Different Configurations Based on New Geometric Determinations for the Conoid

The aim of this article is to orient the evolution of new architectural forms offering up-to--date scientific support. Unlike the volume, the expression for the lateral area of a regular conoid has not yet been obtained by means of direct integration or a differential geometry procedure. In this type of ruled surface, the fundamental expressions I and II, for other curved figures have proved not solvable thus far. As this form is frequently used in architectural engineering, the inability to determine its surface area represents a serious hindrance to solving several problems that arise in radiative transfer, lighting and construction, to cite just a few. To address such drawback, we conceived a new approach that, in principle, consists in dividing the surface into infinitesimal elliptic strips of which the area can be obtained in an approximate fashion. The length of the ellipse is expressed with certain accuracy by means of Ramanujan’s second formula. By integrating the so-found perimeter of the differential strips for the whole span of the conoid, an unexpected solution emerges through a newly found number that we call psi (ψ). In this complex process, projected shapes have been derived from an original closed form composed of two conoids and called Antisphera for its significant parallels with the sphere. The authors try to demonstrate that the properties of the new surfaces have relevant implications for technology, especially in building science and sustainability, under domains such as structures, radiation and acoustics. Fragments of the conoid have occasionally appeared in modern and contemporary architecture but this article discusses how its use had been discontinued, mainly due to the uncertainties that its construction posed. The new knowledge provided by the authors, including their own proposals, may help to revitalize and expand such interesting configurations in the search for a revolution of forms.

The challenge of preserving contemporary architecture. Experiences at the MAXXI museum in Rome

El destino de los edificios contemporáneos de hormigón se ha convertido en motivo de creciente preocupación debido al rápido envejecimiento de estas construcciones. Las actuaciones para su conservación material y estructural requieren varias disciplinas, dado que gran parte de ellos son resultado de experimentos pioneros y de desafíos singulares, tanto morfológicos como técnico-constructivos. No obstante, elegir cómo intervenir debe partir de un bagaje consolidado de conocimientos y de premisas operativas y teóricas, que lamentablemente apenas se aplican a la restauración del hormigón armado. Este artículo se centra sobre la experiencia de conservación del MAXXI, el Museo Nacional de las Artes del siglo XXI, realizado por Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) en Roma, envejecido prematuramente e intervenido recientemente con una importante actuación de conservación de sus superficies externas.

CONCEPT OF THE COLLAGE CITY OF COLIN ROWE AND FRED KETTER IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE THEORY

The article examines the collage concept proposed by Colin Rowe and Fred Kett er as an architectural and urban design strategy and presented in the book “Collage City”. The prerequisites of the collage concept are described, the conditions under which Colin Rowe’s scientifi c and creative position was formed, which was developed by his students, are described. The article analyzes the arguments of the authors of the book in defense of the collage theory, which presupposes the search for balance and compromise between the historical and the contemporary city. The importance of the theory of collage in modern architectural and urban planning within the framework of the metamodern paradigm is determined.

Architektura nowego stylu zakopiańskiego. Odrodzenie stylowe czy popkulturowy kicz i historyczne niezrozumienie?

Abstrakt: Tekst porusza kwestie współczesnego budownictwa inspirowanego stylem zakopiańskim, szukając odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy wykazuje ono właściwe cechy, pozwalające określić je mianem rewiwalizmu historycznych wzorów. Wychodząc od założeń Stanisława Witkiewicza oraz teorii architektonicznego odrodzenia i neowernakularyzmu, artykuł przybliża i analizuje przykłady budowli tzw. nowego stylu zakopiańskiego. Komparatystyka obiektów i teorii estetycznych Witkiewicza w zestawieniu z rozszerzonymi definicjami wernakularyzmu stanowi trzon rozważań o możliwej próbie usytuowania rozwijających się obecnie tendencji stylowych na mapie architektury czerpiącej z dziedzictwa przeszłości. Na podstawie reprezentatywnych przykładów architektury powstałej po roku 2000 poddaje analizie słuszność popkulturowo ukonstytuowanego terminu nowy styl zakopiański. Summary: The text addresses the questions of contemporary architecture inspired by the Zakopane Style, examining whether or not they present the appropriate features that would predispose them to be described as the revivalism of historical patterns. Beginning with the aesthetic writings of Stanisław Witkiewicz and the theory of architectural revival and neo-vernacularism, the article introduces and analyzes examples of the so-called New Zakopane Style. The comparison of selected buildings with Witkiewicz's aesthetic theories, in combination with extended definitions of vernacularism, is the core of considerations about an attempt to situate the currently developing trends on the map of architectural styles drawing from the late 19th century heritage. On the basis of representative examples of architecture created after 2000, the text aims to analyze the validity of the pop-culturally constituted term of the New Zakopane Style.

Tales to tell - Weaving Indigenous Narratives in Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour

<p>How does one design a contemporary Indigenous Pacific architecture? Can the structure of Indigenous narratives of multiple Pacific cultures reposition the space of contemporary architecture? This thesis primarily drives Indigenous Pacific narratives as a catalyst for multicultural identity in a contemporary setting. Te Awarua-o-Porirua harbour presents environmental dysphoria due to cultural indifferences, poor harbour health, and disconnected harbour spaces contemplating a script for a resilient harbour. In response, this thesis argues for a multi-cultural architecture speculating an intervention that converges Indigenous narratives of a diverse city — particularly Māori and Samoan to suggest a “harbour settlement” that reflects the harbour’s intrinsic socio-cultural and historical context. This thesis develops a design that characterises Māori and Samoan cultural narratives by exploring the context of narrative creation — a series of exercises transcribing a repositioning of Indigenous ideals into narratives. In doing so, the study invests in translating Porirua’s most prominent Indigenous identities to their urban architecture. In opposition of the current environment that fails to recognise Indigenous treasure — urban development that has failed to recognise iwi Ngāti Toa Rangatira as its kaitiaki (guardians) — this thesis contemplates an amphibious settlement to mediate a community-harbour relationship. The design aims to create a series of architectural segments termed ‘Ngā Kaitiaki e Whitu: The Seven Sentinels’ that take the form of a harbour settlement. Indigenous Pacific narratives have frequently translated through architecture as an ornament or façade, offering an opportunity to capitalise on an alternative repositioning of Indigenous narratives as a framework to develop contemporary Indigenous spaces. By introducing a new Indigenous harbour settlement, this study explores a spatial concept known as Va in Samoan or Wā in Māori — a concept of space interwoven throughout the fabric of the Pacific regions, proposing new criteria for Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour.</p>

Tales to tell - Weaving Indigenous Narratives in Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour

<p>How does one design a contemporary Indigenous Pacific architecture? Can the structure of Indigenous narratives of multiple Pacific cultures reposition the space of contemporary architecture? This thesis primarily drives Indigenous Pacific narratives as a catalyst for multicultural identity in a contemporary setting. Te Awarua-o-Porirua harbour presents environmental dysphoria due to cultural indifferences, poor harbour health, and disconnected harbour spaces contemplating a script for a resilient harbour. In response, this thesis argues for a multi-cultural architecture speculating an intervention that converges Indigenous narratives of a diverse city — particularly Māori and Samoan to suggest a “harbour settlement” that reflects the harbour’s intrinsic socio-cultural and historical context. This thesis develops a design that characterises Māori and Samoan cultural narratives by exploring the context of narrative creation — a series of exercises transcribing a repositioning of Indigenous ideals into narratives. In doing so, the study invests in translating Porirua’s most prominent Indigenous identities to their urban architecture. In opposition of the current environment that fails to recognise Indigenous treasure — urban development that has failed to recognise iwi Ngāti Toa Rangatira as its kaitiaki (guardians) — this thesis contemplates an amphibious settlement to mediate a community-harbour relationship. The design aims to create a series of architectural segments termed ‘Ngā Kaitiaki e Whitu: The Seven Sentinels’ that take the form of a harbour settlement. Indigenous Pacific narratives have frequently translated through architecture as an ornament or façade, offering an opportunity to capitalise on an alternative repositioning of Indigenous narratives as a framework to develop contemporary Indigenous spaces. By introducing a new Indigenous harbour settlement, this study explores a spatial concept known as Va in Samoan or Wā in Māori — a concept of space interwoven throughout the fabric of the Pacific regions, proposing new criteria for Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour.</p>

Our Third Skin

<p>It can be argued that there is an absence of reverence between contemporary architecture that governs our urban environment and the human body. Current architectural forms are unwittingly unresponsive to the dynamic flow of human action thus realising a denaturalisation of the human body’s transformations. The natural body deliberately expresses itself through reactive and interactive dynamic fluctuations whilst planar verticality and horizontality are qualities that commonly delineate the revered contemporary architecture of our lived realities. This thesis explored the human body as both a metaphorical and literal site. Provoking an investigation into how the body responds to the surface of architecture in an attempt to redefine how the design of architecture can better respond to the body as an active controller for defining space and generating form. This notion elicits the exploration of the relationship between; body and space, body and surface, body and form. By actively trying to understand the fundamental parameters of interior architecture that enhance our experience of being, this thesis is a commentary on how principles of interior architecture can be extracted and adapted to thrive within the ubiquitous realities of the urban environment. This is an effort to return form back to something more intimately attuned to the body’s stature. The motivation of this thesis was to create a design methodology that transitions from concept, to design and reach its realisation – where material enables the abstract intellect of form to be thought. With each phase propelled by the aspiration to better understand the relationship between the biological body and architecture. Following the framework of body space, interaction, and form, the methodology of the thesis has been developed at three scales of immediacy, maturing from the wearable to the inhabitable. The first level of immediacy considered and intuitively explores the body as a ‘site’. By using the biological body and the scale of the body to understand the body as a vessel that both contains and occupies space. The second level of immediacy and scale increased and responded to the intimate expressions of the self upon the surface of architecture. An investigation into how the anatomy of the body responds to the planar and static nature of surface. Actualising an experiential surface that departs from being a flat rigid surface and becomes suppler like an epidermis. Such an architecture that excites and transforms the body that is subject to it. As the methodology manifests the possibility of using the body as a design generative, the third and last level of immediacy is an amalgamation and development upon the previous analyses. The existential dialect between the surface of the body and the surface of architecture generates the contours of a ‘vertical somatic topography’. Site and material are introduced to shift the ephemeral form to reach physical conception through a series of scale models. The chosen site’s organisation and behaviour of material(s) directed and balanced the variations of form. The form creates a new immersive spatial condition that entices passer-byers to rediscover an omitted space in the city. The antithetical form of the installation deconstructs and disturbs the space in which it is presented imposing an affective reaction between body and surface - counteracting the sensory deprivation and suggests a space to slow, ingest, interact, and confer yourself in a moment of realisation of the surrounding architecture’s immobility and insensitivity to the ever dynamic natural body.</p>

Our Third Skin

<p>It can be argued that there is an absence of reverence between contemporary architecture that governs our urban environment and the human body. Current architectural forms are unwittingly unresponsive to the dynamic flow of human action thus realising a denaturalisation of the human body’s transformations. The natural body deliberately expresses itself through reactive and interactive dynamic fluctuations whilst planar verticality and horizontality are qualities that commonly delineate the revered contemporary architecture of our lived realities. This thesis explored the human body as both a metaphorical and literal site. Provoking an investigation into how the body responds to the surface of architecture in an attempt to redefine how the design of architecture can better respond to the body as an active controller for defining space and generating form. This notion elicits the exploration of the relationship between; body and space, body and surface, body and form. By actively trying to understand the fundamental parameters of interior architecture that enhance our experience of being, this thesis is a commentary on how principles of interior architecture can be extracted and adapted to thrive within the ubiquitous realities of the urban environment. This is an effort to return form back to something more intimately attuned to the body’s stature. The motivation of this thesis was to create a design methodology that transitions from concept, to design and reach its realisation – where material enables the abstract intellect of form to be thought. With each phase propelled by the aspiration to better understand the relationship between the biological body and architecture. Following the framework of body space, interaction, and form, the methodology of the thesis has been developed at three scales of immediacy, maturing from the wearable to the inhabitable. The first level of immediacy considered and intuitively explores the body as a ‘site’. By using the biological body and the scale of the body to understand the body as a vessel that both contains and occupies space. The second level of immediacy and scale increased and responded to the intimate expressions of the self upon the surface of architecture. An investigation into how the anatomy of the body responds to the planar and static nature of surface. Actualising an experiential surface that departs from being a flat rigid surface and becomes suppler like an epidermis. Such an architecture that excites and transforms the body that is subject to it. As the methodology manifests the possibility of using the body as a design generative, the third and last level of immediacy is an amalgamation and development upon the previous analyses. The existential dialect between the surface of the body and the surface of architecture generates the contours of a ‘vertical somatic topography’. Site and material are introduced to shift the ephemeral form to reach physical conception through a series of scale models. The chosen site’s organisation and behaviour of material(s) directed and balanced the variations of form. The form creates a new immersive spatial condition that entices passer-byers to rediscover an omitted space in the city. The antithetical form of the installation deconstructs and disturbs the space in which it is presented imposing an affective reaction between body and surface - counteracting the sensory deprivation and suggests a space to slow, ingest, interact, and confer yourself in a moment of realisation of the surrounding architecture’s immobility and insensitivity to the ever dynamic natural body.</p>