Deals with topics and insight into the design and architecture of next-generation computing systems that deal with human and social problems. Processor and Internet technologies form the subject matter and focal point, while information and knowledge on the Internet delivered by next-generation mobile networks form the technical core presented.

A discussion of the many-faceted relationship between aesthetic theory and architecture. It analyzes the relationship between buildings and designs, explores the notion of architectural experience, and covers modern architecture's aim to deepen the connection between usefulness and design.

To meet the stability requirements for moving quadruped robots, it is important to design a rational structure for a single leg and plan the trajectory of the foot. First, a novel electrically driven leg mechanism for a quadruped robot is designed in this paper to reduce the inertia of the leg swing. Second, a modified foot trajectory based on a compound cycloid is proposed, which has swing-back and retraction motion and continuous velocity in the x-axis direction. Third, a Simulink (...) platform is built to verify the correctness of the proposed foot trajectory. The simulation result shows that when the flight phase and the stand phase switch, the impact of torque is smaller than the foot trajectory before modification. Finally, an experimental platform is constructed, and a control algorithm is written into the controller to realize the foot proposed trajectory. The results of the experiment prove the feasibility of the leg mechanism and the rationality of the proposed foot trajectory. (shrink)

Habermas's conception of deliberative democracy could be fruitfully supplemented with a discussion of the "institutional design" of civil society; for example the architecture of public spaces should be considered. This paper argues that Hegel's discussion of architecture in his 'Aesthetics' can speak to this issue. For Hegel, architecture culminates in the gothic cathedral, because of how it fosters reflection on the part of the worshiper. This discussion suggests the possibility that architecture could foster a similar (...) kind of intersubjective reflection. To make his thoughts more pertinent for current debates, Hegel's views are adapted to fit three contemporary secular institutions. (shrink)

Defining biomimetics as the imitation of models, systems and elements of nature for the purpose to solve human complex problems, the essay considers some examples of that activity, like display technologies, and nanoscientific innovations. According to the literature on the subject, the further section of the article examines the possibility of giving a conceptual framework for biomimetic processes, starting from the observation of its current insufficient development both on the logical level and on a wider philosophical one. The fourth section (...) discusses the way through which an approach oriented to philosophical anthropology and recent perspectives on imitation can help us to understand this kind of phenomena at the intersection of human and animal fields. In the final sections, the text discusses the consequences of the biomimicry approach in the specific case of architecture and tries to draw some conclusions on the way an anthropology and an aesthetics of human mimicry and imitation can be re-shaped including biomimetics among their assumptions. (shrink)

Cognitive architectures are unified theories of cognition that take the form of computational formalisms. They support computational models that collectively account for large numbers of empirical regularities using small numbers of computational mechanisms. Empirical coverage and parsimony are the most prominent criteria by which architectures are designed and evaluated, but they are not the only ones. This paper considers three additional criteria that have been comparatively undertheorized. (a) Successful architectures possess subjective and intersubjective meaning, making cognition comprehensible to individual cognitive (...) scientists and organizing groups of like-minded cognitive scientists into genuine communities. (b) Successful architectures provide idioms that structure the design and interpretation of computational models. (c) Successful architectures are strange: They make provocative, often disturbing, and ultimately compelling claims about human information processing that demand evaluation. (shrink)

Drawing on a series of exhibitions curated and installed at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal throughout the 1990s and the early millennium, this essay analyzes how architecture and its representation in museological exhibitions have innovated forms of communication and display practices, transcending the traditions established by the fine arts paradigm since the late eighteenth century. The author argues that in addition to providing a heightened recognition of the narrative and performative potential of the exhibitionary setting, the (...) discourses and tensions specific to architecture and architectural practice have led to a rethinking of the communicative potential of the exhibition environment. Principles inherent to architecture—spatiality, materiality, and the experiential—are fruitful when considering the possibilities of exhibition design to elucidate multiple levels of meaning, and these principles have led to architecture’s coming-of-age in the museological environment in ways that are specific to re aedificatoria—the art of building itself. (shrink)

The automobile has reshaped our conceptions of space and our modes of accessing and penetrating the urban and non-urban territory in multiple ways, revolutionizing how architects perceive the city and contributing significantly to the transformation of the relationship between architecture and the city. Despite the fact that many architects and architectural critics and theorists have been attracted to automobile vision, in the field of history and theory of architecture and urban design, many questions concerning the impact of (...) the automobile on our perception of the city and its territory have not yet been explored in depth. This is surprising when one considers that no other single factor changed the city so drastically during the twentieth century as the pervasive presence of the automobile. The article examines three different cases of architects—John Lautner, Alison and Peter Smithson, and Aldo Rossi—who tried to construct new visual regimes in photography from the car. The main objective is to present how new visual regimes in photography from the car informed in various ways the visual attitudes in their designs of buildings. The interexchange between the ways of capturing the views from the car and the formation of new design methods can explain the necessity to establish a new theoretical framework offering the possibility to historians of architecture and urban design to address in a sharp and concrete way the reciprocal relation between automobile vision and design approaches. (shrink)

In the 1990s, Building Information Modeling (BIM) software significantly altered architectural approaches to planning and building. Based on parametric methods, BIM technologies sought to simulate the construction process prior to a building’s realisation. These computer simulations challenged the existing practice of representing a building through plan, section and elevation, proposing that one computational model could create a more efficient way of building. The history of BIM explorations and applications, while hardly linear, can be traced back to developments in computing since (...) the post-war period. This article maps some of these histories by examining how the computational model became an organisational infrastructure, collecting data about design and building parameters, and facilitating knowledge transfer across industries. Special attention will be given to the foundational role of Charles Eastman’s work on a Building Description System (BDS) in the 1970s, as well as Robert Aish’s contribution to RUCAPS, one of the earliest applications of Building Modeling for the design of parametric structures. I will further address research on interface technologies and computational curve modelling as well as the popularisation of Building Information systems through the office of Gehry Partners. By highlighting the interrelated nature of technology and cultural shifts in the making of BIM, this contribution sheds light on the epistemic status of computer simulations in architecture, and the dynamics of the design and building processes in which they are used. (shrink)

Much of the literature exploring the intersection between Deleuzo-Guattarian philosophy and architecture have focused on abstract theory, experimental projects and practices at the margins of the profession. But, one may ask, what of the mainstream, commercial practices that produce the offices, housing, shops, schools and community buildings that we see and engage with in our day-to-day lives? What of the everyday design decisions made by professional architects and technicians sitting at their desks and drawing boards? Are these to (...) be excluded from architecture's engagement with Deleuzo-Guattarian philosophy? As I will show in this paper, Deleuze and Guattari's proposals for the strata and the machinic assemblage are drawn from their underlying attempt to expand Hjelmslev's planar composition from a tool used to analyse language to a conceptual framework used to analyse the formation and evolution of all things. There is nothing within the conceptual framework of the strata/machinic assemblage to suggest, therefore, that they should not be used to analyse such practices. With this in mind, this article considers how these concepts can be translated through and help provide new insight into a real-world design sequence taken from mainstream, commercial architectural practice. In doing so it will show how such practices can offer Deleuzo-Guattarian scholars a more nuanced insight into this conceptual framework and the concepts that form it. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Radical Constructivist Structural Design Education for Large Cohorts of Chinese Learners” by Christiane M. Herr. Upshot: In the target article, Christiane Herr offers an insightful characterization of how von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism can be implemented in structural design education in architecture. In this commentary, I articulate possible connections between research on problem solving and problem posing in mathematics education and design processes in structural design education as described in the (...) target article. (shrink)

A multi-disciplinary study of the house that the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein built for his sister in Vienna between 1926 and 1928, this book weaves together ideas taken from a number of disciplines_sociology, political science, aesthetics, architecture, urban planning, and philosophy_to develop a complex, multifaceted interpretation of the purpose and design of the house, which, in turn, is used to ground a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophical works emphasizing their mystical nature and practical purpose.

This edited collection provides insight into understanding architecture and urban design as technology. In order to understand how and why we live in built environments, we are in need of a conceptual framework that takes into account what role architecture as technology plays in our being and becoming in the world.

This article offers a critical overview of Virilio's engagement with the world of architecture. It surveys his involvement with the actual design process, and charts the development of his theoretical work from his early interest in typology to his more recent fascination with dromology. The article highlights the positive contributions made by Virilio in these fields, but so too it seeks to expose the 'Achilles' heel' in his approach. Virilio's work is shown to be plagued by a consistent (...) aestheticizing impulse, which acts as a form of anaesthesia and 'numbs' the concern for the political. Virilio can therefore be compared to Futurists such as Marinetti, and the shortcomings which Walter Benjamin found in Marinetti's work can be seen to be echoed in that of Virilio. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the model of decentralized groupwise e-commerce through regional chains combined with edge computing algorithms and design and implement it. A blockchain-based architecture for remote sensing resource and service transactions is proposed. The architecture utilizes the characteristics of nontamperable and traceable data on the blockchain to solve the problem of mutual distrust between the transaction parties, uses MongoDB for data retrieval and filtering to solve the problem that it is difficult to query flexibly (...) on the blockchain, uses the file platform to save public resources to solve the problem that it is very expensive or even infeasible to store images or large texts in the blockchain, and ensures remote sensing resources and services related to the effective storage of images and description texts. The Ethernet features are described and analyzed to assess their suitability as a technical basis for the corresponding solutions. To assess the ability of the Ethernet-based system to solve solvable problems, its practical use cases are analyzed. The results of the analysis show that five main issues need to be addressed when applying Ethernet to e-commerce, namely, low scalability, lack of distributed storage, lack of convenience, reliability, and functional integrity. To exploit the idea of using blockchain technology to solve complex problems and to overcome the challenges identified in the existing Ethernet-based implementation solutions, an optimization idea is proposed by creating a multiblockchain architecture based multimodule solution in the Ethernet framework. Finally, the application prospects of the proposed information system are discussed. (shrink)

This research concentrates on the design and analysis of an algorithm referred to as Virtual Network Configuration (VNC) which uses predicted future states of a system for faster network configuration and management. VNC is applied to the configuration of a wireless mobile ATM network. VNC is built on techniques from parallel discrete event simulation merged with constraints from real-time systems and applied to mobile ATM configuration and handoff. Configuration in a mobile network is a dynamic and continuous process. Factors (...) such as load, distance, capacity and topology are all constantly changing in a mobile environment. The VNC algorithm anticipates configuration changes and speeds the reconfiguration process by pre-computing and caching results. VNC propagates local prediction results throughout the VNC enhanced system. The Global Positioning System is an enabling technology for the use of VNC in mobile networks because it provides location information and accurate time for each node. This research has resulted in well defined structures for the encapsulation of physical processes within Logical Processes and a generic library for enhancing a system with VNC. Enhancing an existing system with VNC is straight forward assuming the existing physical processes do not have side effects. The benefit of prediction is gained at the cost of additional traffic and processing. This research includes an analysis of VNC and suggestions for optimization of the VNC algorithm and its parameters. (shrink)

On 15 October 1959, Rudolf Carnap, a leading member of the recently founded Vienna Circle, came to lecture at the Bauhaus in Dessau, southwest of Berlin. Carnap had just finished his magnum opus, The Logical Construction of the World, a book that immediately became the bible of the new antiphilosophy announced by the logical positivists. From a small group in Vienna, the movement soon expanded to include an international following, and in the sixty years since has exerted a powerful sway (...) over the conduct of the philosophy of science as well as over wide branches of philosophy, economics, psychology, and physics. The site of Carnap’s lecture that day, the Dessau Bauhaus, was a stunning building designed by Walter Gropius and dedicated just three years earlier. Protected by its flat roof and glass walls, the artists, architects, weavers, and furniture designers had made the school a citadel of high modernism. It was here that Carnap addressed an enthusiastic audience on “Science and Life.” “I work in science,” he began, “and you in visible forms; the two are only different sides of a single life.”1 In this paper I will explore this “single life” of which the new philosophy and the new art were to be different facets; in the process, I hope to cast light on the shared modernist impulses that drove both disciplines in the interwar years. 1. Rudolf Carnap, lecture notes for his Bauhaus lecture, “Wissenschaft und Leben,” prepared 1 Oct. 1929 and delivered 15 Oct. 1929, transcription from shorthand by Gerald Heverly, Carnap Papers in the Archives of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Libraries, University of Pittsburgh , document RC 110-07-49. Quoted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh. All rights reserved. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Peter Galison is associate professor in the departments of philosophy and physics at Stanford University, where he co-chairs the program in the history of science. His primary interest is in the history and philosophy of experimentation, the subject of his How Experiments End and Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research, edited with Bruce Hevly . His current project is entitled Image and Logic: The Material Culture of Modern Physics. (shrink)

This book discusses concepts of good design from social perspectives grounded in anthropology, sociology and philosophy, the goal being to provide readers with an awareness of social issues to help them in their work as design professionals. Each chapter covers a specific area of good practice in design, explaining and applying a small set of related concepts to a series of case studies, and including a list of additional sources recommended for further study. The book does not (...) assume any specialized, technical background knowledge; it is not a how-to book that offers technical instruction. Yet, it focuses on the assessment of designs, addressing concepts qualitatively. Based on an established university course on Design and Society at the Centre for Society, Technology, and Values that the author offers for students from a variety of disciplines, the book represents a valuable resource for students in engineering, architecture and industrial design – helping prepare them for careers as design professionals – and for all readers in design-related professions interested in understanding a side of design that they may well never have considered systematically. Because of its broad scope and non-technical presentation style, the book may also appeal to general readers interested in social issues in design and technology. (shrink)

At the turn of the 21st century, topology, the mathematical study of spatial properties that remain the same under the continuous deformation of objects, has come to invest all fields of aesthetics and culture. In particular, the algebraic topology of continuity has added to the digital realm of binary information, the on and off states of 0s and 1s, an invariant property, which now governs the relation between different forms of data. As this invariant function of continual transformation has entered (...) the field of automated computation, the culture of binary digits has shifted towards a new level of calculation derived from the introduction of temporal quantities into finite sets of algorithmic instructions and parameters. This new level of topological computation, it will be argued, defines new operative procedures of control, constantly adding axioms at the limit of calculation through an invariant function that establishes a smooth or uninterrupted connectivity between distinct data. The establishment of a continual function between distinct forms of data is based on homeomorphism or topological isomorphism between data objects, of which parametricism, as the new global style for architecture and design, is a perfect example. (shrink)

This volume provides the reader with an integrated overview of state-of-the-art research in philosophy and ethics of design in engineering and architecture.

This book critically examines the philosophy of the term 'transgression' and how it shapes the utopian vision of contemporary urban design scenarios. The aim of this book is to provide scholarly yet accessible graphic novel illustrations to inform narratives of urban manifestos. Through four select case studies from the UK, Cyprus and Germany, the book highlights the paradoxes and contradictions in architecture and provides detailed evaluation of the limits and contemporary forms of sustainable urban regeneration. The book proposes (...) an 'utopian urban vision' approach to social, political and cultural relations, trends and tensions both locally and globally, and seeks to inspire an awakening in architectural discourse. The book argues that the philosophical undermining of transgression is the result of a phenomenon from a different perspective -- its philosophical background, its social construction, its experimental research process and its design implications on the city. As such, the book provides a critical examination of how architectural design interventions contribute to sustainable urban regeneration, gentrification and can impact local communities. This book provides a significant contribution to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as early career researchers working in architecture, planning and sustainable urban design. It offers effective guidance on adopting the state-of-the-art graphical illustrations into their own design projects, while considering contradictions between architectural discourse and the philosophy of transgression. (shrink)

The essays compiled in this book explore aspects of Walter Benjamin's discourse that have contributed to the formation of contemporary architectural theories. Issues such as technology and history have been considered central to the very modernity of architecture, but Benjamin's reflection on these subjects has elevated the discussion to a critical level. The contributors in this book consider Walter Benjamin's ideas in the context of digitalization of architecture where it is the very technique itself that determines the processes (...) of design and the final form. This book was published as a special issue of Architectural Theory Review. (shrink)

Combining genetic algorithms that produce complex, fluid, biomorphic shapes with probabilistic systems that incorporate randomness, the designers attempt to mimic adaptive systems in natural evolution in order to arrive at intelligent design solutions. The design processes are said to be interactive and sensitive to varying conditions, behaving like an exceptionally perceptive and adaptive organism during an evolutionary process (Somol 2004: 8687); this process can be compared to the recent attempt by the architectural avant-garde to move beyond the semiotic (...) interests of deconstructionism and tap into the authority of the natural sciences. In some sense, an analogy can be drawn to natural evolution. In the natural world, adaptation and change result from an iterative progress, from one generation to the next, driven by mutation, recombination, and the survival of the fittest in the sense of selection. Following the model of nature in architecture, as proposed by some proponents of parametricism, should not be expected to make buildings more precisely adapted to particular circumstances and optimally functional. Evolutionary theory is used in contemporary architecture as a form of legitimization. It can also cast light on ethical issues, not reducing the human mind's creative intelligence to some sort of genetic determinism, developing in the free market of social choice. Therefore, searching for better ways of managing resources should be at the core of an adaptive concept of architecture. (shrink)

The debate on whether and how the Internet can protect and foster human rights has become a defining issue of our time. This debate often focuses on Internet governance from a regulatory perspective, underestimating the influence and power of the governance of the Internet’s architecture. The technical decisions made by Internet Standard Developing Organisations that build and maintain the technical infrastructure of the Internet influences how information flows. They rearrange the shape of the technically mediated public sphere, including which (...) rights it protects and which practices it enables. In this article, we contribute to the debate on SDOs’ ethical responsibility to bring their work in line with human rights. We defend three theses. First, SDOs’ work is inherently political. Second, the Internet Engineering Task Force, one of the most influential SDOs, has a moral obligation to ensure its work is coherent with, and fosters, human rights. Third, the IETF should enable the actualisation of human rights through the protocols and standards it designs by implementing a responsibility-by-design approach to engineering. We conclude by presenting some initial recommendations on how to ensure that work carried out by the IETF may enable human rights. (shrink)

This paper investigates the substation inspection problems of multimobile robots for large power stations in smart microgrids. Most multirobot inspection robots generally face the challenge of path planning, while the current widely used biological excitation neural network methods often have the defect of the neuronal active field near boundaries and obstacles. To end this, we propose an improved biological excitation neural network method for path planning based on a detailed architecture and ontology framework, through which the single-point inspection, multipoint (...) inspection, and full-area inspection tasks of substations in smart microgrids can be well completed. Simulation results show that the designed IBENN-based multirobot collaboration inspection system can effectively shorten the path as well as the number of turns and then show better performance than most existing results when implementing various substation inspection tasks. (shrink)

The answer to the question of whether there is a tension between the insight that the concept of dispositif reveals to us the variability of objective reality and the theory that the design of an architectural object depends on the various elements captured by the concept of dispositif The primary thesis of this paper is that the application of dispositifs in the field of architecture helps us to better understand this concept – from Michel Foucault to Gilles Deleuze (...) to Giorgio Agamben. In other words, the paper presents arguments that the unstable philosophical concept of dispositif can be made more precise through the experiences of architectural practice and theory. On this occasion, I would like to show not only why architects need philosophy, but also, conversely, how an architect and his practice can help philosophers. (shrink)

Using the example of architecture, this article defends the thesis that designing should not be regarded as a kind of experimenting. This is in contrast to a widespread methodological claim that design processes are equivalent to experimentation processes. The contrary thesis can be proven by focusing on actual practices, techniques and design strategies. Closely connected with the thesis is an even more important epistemological claim, which contends that designing serves not only to develop artefacts but is also (...) a means of acquiring genuine knowledge. When the epistemic relevance of said practices, techniques and strategies is reassessed, designing emerges clearly as an independent epistemic praxis. To defend the thesis, the present article draws on and analyses empirical material from an ethnographic field study in order to back up the conceptual analysis. (shrink)

A half-century ago the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck encouraged designers to think about “space and time” not as abstractions in themselves but rather as cultural events better approached through the medium of “place and occasion.” Van Eyck made this point on the basis of his own travels and through his extensive readings in cultural anthropology, and his prescience is only now acquiring the credibility that it deserves through the work of a multitude of interdisciplinary researchers. Phenomenologists argue that we (...) are embodied organisms-acting-within-environments, and these inhabiting abodes are constructed of both material and cultural dimensions. We are thus preeminently social in our range of self-consciousness, and intensely ceremonial in every facet of our being. Evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists are currently locating the origin and development of our most basic social behaviors far in our pre-human past; neuroscientists are today modeling our social circuits in the deepest reaches of our brains. Architecture would gain much from an updated cultural theory grounded in these new models of human existence. (shrink)

Architectural ethics has only begun to consider in earnest what it means, in a moral sense, to be an architect.1 The academy, however, has yet to adequately to explore the ethical problems raised,2 to evaluate the types of moral issues that arise, and to develop moral principles or moral reasons that should guide decisions when encountering these moral issues inherent in certain project types. This is the case despite the practice of architecture entailing “behaviours, our choices of which may (...) be illuminated by ethical analysis.”3 Although distinguishing practice from product allows ethical critique of the practice involved in designing buildings, and recognises the significance of the architect’s moral agency, there remains very little empirically-based understanding of how the architect, once identified as a moral agent, operates as such, and still less about the circumstances in which ‘professional’ conduct may be at odds with ‘ethical’ behaviour. (shrink)

Architecture has become an important discourse for new expressions of post-national identity in general and in particular for the emergence of a `spatial' European identity. No longer tied to the state to the same degree as in the period of nation-building, architecture has become a significant cultural expression of post-national identities within and beyond the nation-state. The article looks at four such discourses, first, taking the Millennium Dome in London and the Reichstag in Berlin, we show that (...) class='Hi'>architecture can express in a reflexive way contested and ambiguous national identities; second, the case of architecture in post-communist European societies illustrates the dual identity of architecture as a project of building and of re-building; third, the EU's search for a cultural form is discussed with respect to the architectural designs on the Euro banknotes; and finally the question of architecture as a relation to a lived space is considered with regard to cityscapes as yet another expression of a tendentially spatialized European identity. (shrink)

At first sight, classical architecture, with its continuous revivals and reworking of the forms of Greek and Roman building, would appear to offer a privileged field in which to apply Warburg's central notion of the survival of classical forms and his view of art history's unfolding as a process of remembrance. Yet Warburg himself did not write on architecture. The topic has also largely vanished from the pages of the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, though in (...) the past the journal has been the venue for influential publications on classical architecture. By comparing two Warburg circle publications from 1949 — Fritz Saxl and Rudolf Wittkower's British Art and the Mediterranean World and Wittkower's Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism — this article shows that architectural history of this kind, developed in the context of the Warburg Institute, is connected not only to Aby Warburg's ideas on Nachleben der Antike and Mnemosyne, but also to the organization and holdings of the Warburg Institute Library. Working in the Warburg Library gives architectural historians the intellectual space to think about architecture in terms of design issues, but moreover as an actor shaping society and culture. This article concludes that Warburg's thought offers important, and thus far hardly explored, starting points for new investigations of the built classical heritage. (shrink)

At first glance, relating philosophy and design does not seem trivial, but there are several elements that make it possible to develop such a hypothesis beyond the context of the philosophy of technology. In this article, the main objective is to explore some aspects of design in the world and in Brazil, emphasizing how much its bases dialogue with the principles of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. To do so, in the first section, I develop a bibliographical analysis of the (...) history of design, exposing its roots in art and architecture, as well as the passage from affirmative design to the philosophy of design. In the second section, I discuss some studies on design and philosophy in order to support the formation of critical-speculative design from contemporary art, and later, to address the main hypothesis of the study, that is, that there is a very interesting gain in relating studies of Gadamerian hermeneutics in what I call philosophical-hermeneutical design, which allows thinking about the history, identity and ontological preconceptions of design and expand horizons of philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

In the last decades, researchers have been considering some fundamental issues such as energy saving, global warming, greenhouse emissions, and non-renewable energy to make models of house environmental standards to achieve a suitable consumption pattern for saving energy. In architecture, using natural energy is one of the essential pillars of design because it was one of the criteria of designing, which was considered on climate and geography, and it has been a high performance of climate adaptation in the (...) modeling of traditional houses. In this research, Azerbaijan is selected to evaluate the practical features of traditional Iranian houses designed in the cold climate, and criteria for developing sensible solutions to achieve a suitable design model for energy saving are provided. The primary purpose of this paper is to evaluate and identify the features of climate design in traditional houses in a cold climate, which are suitable residential buildings for energy management, and to identify the components affecting energy saving. The data collection method is based on checklists, observation, considering the orientation, density, solar radiation angle in the region, documentary, analysis of maps, and adaptation of the architectural plan of the studied houses with the pattern of solar radiation in the area. This research discusses the design criteria for future structures and their adaptable measures based on the obtained results. Finally, it is declared that the traditional architectural design model follows the region’s climatic conditions, and considering the current climate and energies, traditional houses were designed; therefore, the best model for maximum use of available energy is climatic design. As a result, suggestions are made regarding residential architecture design to save energy. (shrink)

Against transmission -- For attention -- Education in the minor key -- Anthropology, art and the university.

In this article we offer a single case study using an action research method for gathering and analysing data offering insights valuable to both design and research supervision practice. We do not attempt to generalise from this single case, but offer it as an instance that can improve our understanding of research supervision practice. We question the conventional ‘dyadic’ models of research supervision and outline a more collaborative model, based on the signature pedagogy of architecture: the design (...) studio. A novel approach to the supervision of creatively oriented postgraduate students is proposed, including new approaches to design methods and participatory supervision that draw on established design studio practices. This model collapses the distance between design and research activities. Our case study involving Master's Research Students supervision in the discipline of Architecture, shows how ‘connected learning’ emerges from this approach. This type of learning builds strong elements of creativity and fun, which promote and enhance student engagement. The results of our action research suggest that students learn to research more easily in such an environment and supervisory practices are enhanced when we apply the techniques and characteristics of design studio pedagogy to the more conventional research pedagogies imported from the humanities. We believe that other creative disciplines can apply similar tactics to enrich both the creative practice of research and the supervision of HDR students. (shrink)

In his Languages of Art, Nelson Goodman proposes a theory of artistic notation that includes foundational requirements for any system of symbols we might use to specify and communicate the features of an artwork, in architecture or any other art form. Goodmans' theory usefully explains how notation can reveal linguistic-like phenomena of various art forms. But not all art forms can enjoy benefits of a full-blown notational system, in Goodman's view, and he suggests that architecture's symbol systems fall (...) short in this regard. It is a shortcoming of architecture, he believes, that its notation cannot communicate the sum of a given work's essential features. Against this view it may be argued that artworks are generally and inimically historical in character, such that an inability to capture this dimension may result in a failure to pick out the identity of a work. As a consequence, the suggestion of that inability looks like a shortcoming of the general notational theory rather than of the art form or its notation per se. I defend Goodman's background formalism against the criticism that an ahistoricist notation cannot possibly be adequate. But I reject his view that no actual architectural notation can satisfy the formal criteria of his theory. In particular, I propose that the foundational theory for Computer Aided Design (CAD) described by the architect William Mitchell satisfies Goodman's criteria and so yields a notation that enables communication of an architectural work's essential features. If, as I suggest, such a notation is feasible, then we have an additional result that Goodman foresees: a means of abstracting future architectural works from their historical contexts. This in turn yields a consequence at which Goodman only hints-that such architectural works can be intellectually grasped and physically constructed along purely formalist lines. One practical result here is that we introduce economical solutions to architectural design. On a theoretical level, we also expose the inessential character of historical properties to creating or understanding architecture, at least with respect to future possible works. (shrink)

The methodology of eunomics -- Means, ends, and the idea of freedom -- The politics of affirmative freedom -- Natural law, sovereignty, and institutional design -- Why pluralism fails a pluralist society -- Obsolescent freedoms.