Culture, Architecture and Nature

Culture, Architecture and Nature

Author: Sim Van der Ryn

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-30

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1134632894

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Gathering his most compelling essays and addresses from the last fifty years in one accessible volume, this book looks at the pioneering ideas that underpin Sim Van der Ryn’s ecological design philosophy. It offers a unique decade-by-decade retrospective of the key issues in environmental design, beginning with the most recent years and looking back to the 1960s. With an introductory chapter and further recommended reading for each decade, this book is key reading for any architect or designer practising today, and students will find a wealth of knowledge with which to support their studies. The author’s beautiful illustrations, painted in a corresponding timescale to the chapters, offer further insight into the way he understands the challenges of humanity’s stewardship of our planet.


Culture, Architecture, and Design

Culture, Architecture, and Design

Author: Amos Rapoport

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13:

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The three basic questions of EBS are (1) What bio-social, psychological, and cultural characteristics of human beings influence which characteristics of the built environment?; (2) What effects do which aspects of which environments have on which groups of people, under what circumstances, and when, why, and how?; and (3) Given this two-way interaction between people and environments, there must be mechanisms that link them. What are these mechanisms?Focusing on answers to these and other questions, "Culture, Architecture, and Design" discusses the relationship between culture, the built environment, and design by showing that the purpose of design is to create environments that suit users and is, therefore, user-oriented. Design must also be based on knowledge of how people and environments interact. Thus, design needs to respond to culture. In discussing (1) the nature and role of Environment-Behavior Studies (EBS); (2) the types of environments; (3) the importance of culture; (4) preference, choice, and design; (5) the nature of culture; (6) the scale of culture; and (7) how to make culture usable, Amos Rapoport states that there needs to be a ?change from designing for one?s own culture to understanding and designing for users? cultures and basing design on research in EBS, anthropology, and other relevant fields. Such changes should transform architecture and design so that it, in fact, does what it claims to do and is supposed to do ? create better (i.e., more supportive) environments.?


Architecture of Nature

Architecture of Nature

Author: Diana Agrest

Publisher: ORO Applied Research + Design

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781939621948

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Based on documentation originating in the environmental sciences, history of science, philosophy and art, Architecture of Nature explores the materiality and the effects of the forces at play in the history of the earth through the architect's modes of seeing and techniques of representation. This book presents the research work developed for the past eight years in the Advanced Research graduate studio "Architecture of Nature/ Nature of Architecture," created and directed by Diana Agrest at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of the Cooper Union. Architecture of Nature departs from the traditional approach to nature as a referent for architecture and reframes it as its object of study. The complex processes of generation and transformations of extreme natural phenomena such as glaciers, volcanoes, permafrost, and clouds are explored through unique drawings and models, confronting a scale of space and time that expands and transcends the established boundaries of the architectural discipline.


Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany

Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany

Author: Itohan Osayimwese

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2017-07-19

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0822982919

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Over the course of the nineteenth century, drastic social and political changes, technological innovations, and exposure to non-Western cultures affected Germany's built environment in profound ways. The economic challenges of Germany's colonial project forced architects designing for the colonies to abandon a centuries-long, highly ornamental architectural style in favor of structural technologies and building materials that catered to the local contexts of its remote colonies, such as prefabricated systems. As German architects gathered information about the regions under their influence in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific—during expeditions, at international exhibitions, and from colonial entrepreneurs and officials—they published their findings in books and articles and organized lectures and exhibits that stimulated progressive architectural thinking and shaped the emerging modern language of architecture within Germany itself. Offering in-depth interpretations across the fields of architectural history and postcolonial studies, Itohan Osayimwese considers the effects of colonialism, travel, and globalization on the development of modern architecture in Germany from the 1850s until the 1930s. Since architectural developments in nineteenth-century Germany are typically understood as crucial to the evolution of architecture worldwide in the twentieth century, this book globalizes the history of modern architecture at its founding moment.


The Culture of Nature in the History of Design

The Culture of Nature in the History of Design

Author: Kjetil Fallan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-26

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 0429891989

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The Culture of Nature in the History of Design confronts the dilemma caused by design’s pertinent yet precarious position in environmental discourse through interdisciplinary conversations about the design of nature and the nature of design. Demonstrating that the deep entanglements of design and nature have a deeper and broader history than contemporary discourse on sustainable design and ecological design might imply, this book presents case studies ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and from Singapore to Mexico. It gathers scholarship on a broad range of fields/practices, from urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture, to engineering design, industrial design, furniture design and graphic design. From adobe architecture to the atomic bomb, from the bonsai tree to Biosphere 2, from pesticides to photovoltaics, from rust to recycling – the culture of nature permeates the history of design. As an activity and a profession always operating in the borderlands between human and non-human environments, design has always been part of the environmental problem, whilst also being an indispensable part of the solution. The book ventures into domains as diverse as design theory, research, pedagogy, politics, activism, organizations, exhibitions, and fiction and trade literature to explore how design is constantly making and unmaking the environment and, conversely, how the environment is both making and unmaking design. This book will be of great interest to a range of scholarly fields, from design education and design history to environmental policy and environmental history.


Patterns and Layering

Patterns and Layering

Author: Kengo Kuma

Publisher: Gestalten

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783899554618

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Patterns and Layering is a journey into the activities of Kengo Kuma Research Lab. The book aims to establish the interrelation between patterns and layering within architecture. These two previously detached notions can now be integrated into one methodology mediated by structural concepts. Patterns and Layering is the first book to introduce this new interrelationship, which has the potential to begin a new architectural and design revolution.


The Return of Nature

The Return of Nature

Author: Preston Cohen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-07-09

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1317749774

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The Return of Nature asks you to critique your conception of nature and your approach to architectural sustainability and green design. What do the terms mean? Are they de facto design requirements? Or are they unintended design replacements? The book is divided into five parts giving you multiple viewpoints on the role of the relations between architecture, nature, technology, and culture. A detailed case study of a built project concludes each part to help you translate theory into practice. This holistic approach will allow you to formulate your own theory and to adjust your practice based on your findings. Will you provoke change, design architecture that responds to change, or both? Coedited by an architect and a historian, the book features new essays by Robert Levit, Catherine Ingraham, Sylvia Lavin, Barry Bergdoll, K. Michael Hays, Diane Lewis, Andrew Payne, Mark Jarzombek, Jean-Francois Chevrier, Elizabeth Diller, Antoine Picon, and Jorge Silvetti. Five case studies document the work of MOS Architects, Michael Bell Architecture, Steven Holl Architects, George L. Legendre, and Preston Scott Cohen.


The Cultural Role of Architecture

The Cultural Role of Architecture

Author: Paul Emmons

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1135765367

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Exploring the ambiguities of how we define the word ‘culture’ in our global society, this book identifies its imprint on architectural ideas. It examines the historical role of the cultural in architectural production and expression, looking at meaning and communication, tracing the formations of cultural identities. Chapters written by international academics in history, theory and philosophy of architecture, examine how different modes of representation throughout history have drawn profound meanings from cultural practices and beliefs. These are as diverse as the designs they inspire and include religious, mythic, poetic, political, and philosophical references.


When Culture Meets Architecture

When Culture Meets Architecture

Author: Qian Yin

Publisher: Design Media Publishing Limited

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789881545053

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As the most individualized civil architecture, buildings for cultural events are the best stage for architects to practise their dreams, to express their perceptions to architectural art and ambitions. When culture meets architecture, some memories, some scenes or an attitude will find its medium to exist as a real and touchable thing. Besides those architectures that record a history or provide information, such as museum, library, memorial, archives centre and the like, more and more multi-functions cultural centres were built in cities, where people gather together for social event, entertainment, or sports, and they are also the new plaza where people can impress their sense of the city s identification deeper. Selected buildings for culture around the world are included in this book, with an invitation to witness the meeting between culture and architecture."


Governing by Design

Governing by Design

Author: Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2012-04-29

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0822977893

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Governing by Design offers a unique perspective on twentieth-century architectural history. It disputes the primacy placed on individuals in the design and planning process and instead looks to the larger influences of politics, culture, economics, and globalization to uncover the roots of how our built environment evolves. In these chapters, historians offer their analysis on design as a vehicle for power and as a mediator of social currents. Power is defined through a variety of forms: modernization, obsolescence, technology, capital, ergonomics, biopolitics, and others. The chapters explore the diffusion of power through the establishment of norms and networks that frame human conduct, action, identity, and design. They follow design as it functions through the body, in the home, and at the state and international level. Overall, Aggregate views the intersection of architecture with the human need for what Foucault termed "governmentality"—societal rules, structures, repetition, and protocols—as a way to provide security and tame risk. Here, the conjunction of power and the power of design reinforces governmentality and infuses a sense of social permanence despite the exceedingly fluid nature of societies and the disintegration of cultural memory in the modern era.