Architecture between process and metadesign

Materials, methods & technologies, 2016

The built environment is a man-made surrounding that provides space for all kinds of human activities. Our quality of life is deeply influenced by the surrounding urban environment that we inhabit. That is why it is crucially important for us as designers and architects to execute extensive research over different architectural practices in developing the ultimate space for living. This is the focus of the paper to study different designer’s methods in solving architectural and urban planning tasks. We will try to list and analyze some of the architectural approaches used in contemporary urban design and architecture that provoke the creativity of the designer and architect to create better, more interesting and functional urban space to experience.

A rapid acceleration in urbanization has appeared as an important by-product of the world's globalization process, with the result that cities have now become man's primary habitat. This development is both forcing urban environments to embrace increasing numbers of inhabitants, despite their often limited resources, and requiring 21st century architects and urban planners to quickly develop new ideas and new forms on how to direct the futures of global cities. Faced as they are by the challenges of sustainability, these architects and planners are exploring ways both to rehabilitate existing urban centers and come up with new modes of space production. This study concentrates on the concept of the smart city and explores these new approaches by considering the findings achieved by the IAAC Global Summer School, which was conducted at the ITU Faculty of Architecture in 2013. This summer school was conducted as a means in the investigation of new strategies for urban development and city production by focusing on such different aspects as the production of knowledge, production of food, production of objects, and the production of energy. In order to enhance the discussion of this development, this work looks at the method of exploration utilized and the ideas set forth by the architectural student participants and considers their suggestions for adaptive and reactive spatial infrastructures. The aim of this study is to the enable architects to enhance their spatial awareness while generating new ideas for the future of the city.

Sustainable Development and Planning III, 2007

In the long term only closed cycles for processes and use of material could result in a permanent urban environment. The presented way of design tries to take the well-known metaphoric factor 20 improvement as a starting point: to preserve the essential flows and try to sustain the process to shape them towards closed cycles. The idea is to make urban development, mainly resulting in buildings and technical infrastructures, following to the (social) needs and goals, which form the basis of physical networks of the logistical chains, and not the other way around, like it can often be qualified today. In this way it will be possible to uncouple sustainable solutions from the existing paradigms, without the release of other relevant criteria for today's society. The main question is how to couple scientific research to architectural and urban design. Although often presented as such, this paper states that design cannot be qualified as scientific research. However, there are ways to interconnect scientific research and design: there is a reciprocal relationship. This paper introduces a new way to connect design and scientific research that can be used in urban development: Design by research is based on the introduction of a so-called 'Programme of Possibilities' (P.o.P.). The P.o.P. is mainly an essay of clues based on scientific research with a focus on redesign. This focus involves lateral thinking and creative alternatives that are not hindered by existing paradigms.

conference proceedings on Ambiance Nantes, 2003

Theme of the workshop : theory on architectural and urban ambience, reference and referenciation Several works of research that we have conducted in our laboratory (CRESSON) have aimed at understanding the ambient milieu (among which sonic and optic environment) through one's experience. These works encourage us to consider an "ecological approach to architecture" which takes into account human, sensitive and social experience in situ. This approach is useful for a qualitative design of ambient environment in a sensitive and cultural way. It aims at identifying different types of referential situations through potential « formers » (« formants » in french) that characterise them and find their origin in perceptual ordinary experience. Standing close to what implies an architectural projection of space and built form, it could modify the cognitive attitude in design relatively to ambience. This approach gives importance to potentials of perception and action that an environment can afford to users and questions the criterias on which we can do specific physical measurments on qualitative dimensions. But it also questions the aesthetic criterias that are involved by active uses and the embodiement of « references » that guide architectural thinking. In a large definition, ecology is a multidisciplinary approach to the study of living systems, their environment, and the reciprocity that has evolved between the two. It leads to distinguish physical reality from a perceptual reality. Our analysis focuses on the active relation we can have when practicising the built structures and using its environmental potentials. Walking, sitting, talking, all our practices of architecture awake and use perceived ambient factors like sound, light and heat. Although many works show links between architectural spaces and social uses and teach us some important facts, the role of ambient factors is not clearly taken into account. Many works about environment psychology tend to define criterias based on assessment (good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, etc.) and effects on behaviors. Our approach does not aim at showing the effects of environment on judgments or behaviors (in that respect, it is not behaviorist). Rather we try to show the modalities by which the reciprocity between man and environment is experienced in different architectural forms in order to inflect projectual thinking. We are interested in following the questions :-how is perceived and structured an ambient environment, and how does it involve our action in every day life ?-how could knowledge on this issue inflect architectural and urban principles of conception and their references ?

This article presents the design methods and results of research conducted by Master's degree students on situating an architectural intervention in the protected natural landscape of Park Forest Košutnjak. The aim was an attempt to put this important, albeit widely neglected, park forest back on the cultural map of Belgrade. This meant that a high level of urbanity could be achieved by way of reorganising its structure, increasing its vitality, attractiveness and accessibility, while preserving its value as heritage landscape. Architecture does not regard nature simply as a physical backdrop for the built structure. The elements and rhythms of complex natural phenomena, through topography, climate and vegetation, become an inspiring part of the architectural discourse. Thus, nature and architecture are allowed to intersect and intertwine, affecting the process of urban living and creating a new cultural landscape. This article suggests that the treatment of protected landscape requires a new architectural paradigm, in which nature and architecture would form a unique place-based system. This approach would contribute not only to resolving the problem of how to revitalise a park forest but also to raising awareness of the adaptive quality that such a place possesses in the context of environmental change.

There is an assumption that architecture can provide an evocative vision of an artificial environment using digitized and wireless communication technology. It is a ideal based on perception of virtual space, where distance is minimized through the continual process of breaking barriers in non-visible planes. It is the domain of the mind, in which the object becomes real by individual choice. It is conceived in a plane known as virtual space or cyber space. Marcos Novak describes it as “space created as habitat for our imagination”. What are the new tendencies in Architecture? These are unknown yet. There is an incursion in different areas, it is seen that the scope of architecture includes Transparency, mix media, layering, transarchitecture, and hypersurfaces. It is an expression of high-speed technology in the process of change, pointing to the new frontier of “Space”. My focus is toward the integration

Architecture and city have been the subject of various debates globally throughout the course of history. The contemporary debate on the subject is marked by impacts of change, transformation and forces of the global market. Globalization and the changes in the everyday cultural activities affect the new meanings of the "city" and "urban life". These transformations invite a new analysis of architecture and urbanity in view of the heterogeneous urban fabric. Especially, in Istanbul, the concept of urban transformation has gained momentum parallel to social, political, economic, geographic and cultural transformations of everyday life. Consequently, it becomes critical to reflect their impacts on the architectural design curriculum to enable a future conscious education. Contemporary everyday life should be focused on when approaching the city as a source and resource, and the city should be worked on actively to understand its complex and stratified structure. In this sense, the main aim of this paper is to discuss a design approach adopted by Turgut for various level design studios between 2007-2013, focusing on the 6th semester architectural design studio of Maltepe University during the Spring Semester 2013, which in particular works on an urban housing project in Hasanpaşa-Fikirtepe, a controversial current urban transformation area in Istanbul. The main purpose of this studio is to discuss the dynamic structure of Istanbul as a metropolis and to provide contextual and conceptual design solutions for new forms of urban housing. The "city" and "place" are considered as the main theme for the design approach. The process is intented to focus on the creation of a contemporary scenario; forming a new, multi-layered and multi-functional context, and creating different temporalities and spatialities on different layers in between the private and public areas, using the stuructural and social landscape of the metropolis as a main tool.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the potentials of utilizing the notion of scale as a methodological tool during a process of architectural design. This design method is exercised through a framework of Architecture and Nature design studio, within the program of undergraduate studies, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade. The major architectural challenge was the issue of scale of a design (micro) in relation to the scale of the context (macro), proposing micro design as macro concept, the overall significance of concurrent perception of the whole and its parts. The proposed design method is based on simultaneous design procedures in opposing scales. In architectural design, scale is commonly perceived as a mere tool for optimizing and communicating the project. During the course of design process, answers for each architectural question are searched for in the scale of the context (a network - topography), as well as in the scale of a detail (a dot – element). Within such a framework, students were expected to give a proposal for localized programmatic and spatial intervention that, as an impulse point, has the potential influence on and affects the ground of the overall context of the War Island.

2016

Urban centers all around the world are striving to reorient themselves to promoting ideals of human engagement, flexibility, openness and synergy, that thoughtful architecture can provide. From a time when solitude in one's own backyard was desirable, today's outlook seeks more, to cater to the needs of diverse individuals and that of collaborators. This thesis is an investigation of the role of architecture in realizing how these ideals might be achieved, using Mixed Use Developments as the platform of space to test these designs ideas on. The author also investigates, identifies, and re-imagines how the idea of live-work excites and attracts users and occupants towards investing themselves in Mixed Used Developments (MUD's), in urban cities. On the premise that MUDs historically began with an intention of urban revitalization, lying in the core of this spatial model, is the opportunity to investigate what makes mixing of uses an asset, especially in the eyes to today's generation. Within the framework of reference to the current generation, i.e. the millennial population and alike, who have a lifestyle core that is urban-centric, the excitement for this topic is in the vision of MUD's that will spatially cater to a variety in lifestyles, demographics, and functions, enabling its users to experience a vibrant 24/7 destination. Where cities are always in flux, the thesis will look to investigate the idea of opportunistic space, in a new MUD, that can also be perceived as an adaptive reuse of itself. The sustainability factor lies in the foresight of the transformative and responsive character of the different uses in the MUD at large, which provides the possibility to cater to a changing demand of building use over time. Delving into the architectural response, the thesis in the process explores, conflicts, tensions, and excitements, and the nature of relationships between different spatial layers of permanence vs. transformative, public vs. private, commercial vs. residential, in such an MUD. At a larger scale, investigations elude into the formal meaning and implications of the proposed type of MUD's and the larger landscapes in which they are situated, with attempts to blur the fine line between architecture and urbanism. A unique character of MUD's is the power it has to draw in people at the ground level and lead them into exciting spatial experiences. While the thesis stemmed from a purely objective and theoretical standpoint, the author believes that it is only when context is played into the design thinking process, that true architecture may start to flourish. The unique

Built environment is a continuously evolving dynamic entity. The role of designers is to mediate between stability and change. Design is thus an act of morphing built form and space to align people and their environment with change, yet retaining the vitality of fundamental human needs– dwelling, community and place. The transient nature of the built environment and indeed life is as crucial as the three physical dimensions of our perception. This paper explores the above discussed theme in the context of today's "network culture", where digital network technology has become a dominant cultural logic. Contemporary life increasingly dwells in the virtual information realm, apart from our familiar physical environs. Boundaries of time and space are shrinking, and fundamental notions of "program" and "typology" are being challenged. Consequently, built environment will be characterized by homogeneity and generic nature of spatial use and character. Having said so, the "atemporality" and "location free" nature of activities and virtual interactions that have become possible, should only reinforce the need for the "local" / "specific" / "physical". This forms the premise to envision a new adaptable spatial system equipped to bring about an appropriate local-global / real-virtual relationship.