Reading Sites, Building Stories

Doing architecture is an act of bricolage. New things take shape out of the existing. The architect makes do with the materials at hand. Accidents happen, incidents occur, circumstances meet. The site-specific nature of the architectural project opens up questions on how to work with materials at hand and as found, and how to capture, approach...

Women's Studies at the Architecture Department of Delft Technical University

This paper discusses the section for Women’s Studies at the Department of Architecture in Delft (ca. 1978-2000). It describes the circumstances that made it possible that such a section came to exist. And it investigates what the activities of the section were, and what the impact of this section has been.

Favelas and the normative, institutional Social Housing System in Brazil: discipline versus freedom, private versus public through the analysis of the unprivileged working class history

Most of today’s Brazilian Social Housing Institutional complexes are standardized mass buildings. They are planned in the periphery of cities, have no connection to public transportation systems and are disconnected from their respective local context. The planning approach to housing is compliant with ‘state simpli cation models’ which turn a...

ColorTracker

With the work-in-progress research project ColorTracker we explore color as a formal design tool. This project-based paper describes a novel software application that processes color composition of a place and transcribes the data into three-dimensional geometries for architectural design. The research comprises two parallel trajectories: a...

Designed Self-Help: Producing Closed Forms for Open Buildings

Designing Self-help sounds like a contradiction in terms. Indeed, a great deal of the scholarly accounts on self-help housing excludes the agency of the designer, stressing instead the roles of the policy maker and the owner-builder. In the architecture discipline, from the late 1950s through the 1980s the notions of open form, group form and...

Digital technology impacts on the Arnhem transfer hall structural design

The new Transfer Hall in Arnhem is one of the key projects to prepare the Dutch railways for the increased future demands for capacity. UNStudio developed a master plan in 1996 for the station area of which the completion of the Transfer Hall in 2015 will be a final milestone. The Transfer Hall is a merging point of passengers, commercial and...

Kine-Mould: Manufacturing technology for curved architectural elements in concrete

The production of architectural elements with complex geometry is challenging for concrete manufacturers. Computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) milled foam moulds have been applied frequently in the last decades, resulting in good aesthetical performance. However, still the costs are high and a large volume of waste is produced. This paper...

European high speed railway, understanding design contradictions for long-term urban architecture strategy

Architectural engineering of FRP bridges

This paper deals with the use of Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP's) in architectural and structural bridge design. The challenges and opportunities that come with this relatively new material are discussed. An inventory is made of recent engineers' solutions in FRP, followed by a discussion on architectural application of FRP's derived from the...

Designerly Visualisation: Conceptions, Methods, Models, Perceptions

If we wish to reach a deeper, more objective understanding of the phenomena of Architectural and Environmental Design, we need to develop and apply working methods that allow us to imaginatively analyse and consequently envision the formal issues which are at (inter)play: demonstrating their workings and effects in the ‘Real World’. First of all...

Model & scale as conceptual devices in architectural representation

This year we celebrate the tenth anniversary of our Computer Aided Manufacturing laboratory (CAMlab, http://www.camlab-bk.nl). From the start we provide laser cutting, CNC-milling and 3D-print facilities for the students and the researchers at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft. Over the past ten years we have delivered uncountable amounts of...

Engagement and Estrangement: Participation and Disciplinary Autonomy in Álvaro Siza’s S. Victor Neighbourhood

Citizens’ participation in the design process has been discussed since the aftermath of World War II as an instrument to promote a more humanist approach to habitat. However, it has been also accused of fostering populist outcomes where the designer is merely the hand of the people, challenging the traditional limits of architecture’s...

Design Methods for Young Sustainable Architecture Practice

This paper introduces landscape aesthetics as an innovative design method for sustainable architecture. It is based on the framework of a recent paper where the young and unfamous authors criticized three of the most prominent? architects today in regard to sustainable architecture and its aesthetics. Leading architects expressed their...

Frei geformte Betonbauteile: Finden einer Fertigungsmethode

Due to the complexity of the freeform shapes it is often not possible to distinguish any repetitive elements in freeform buildings at all. Most freeform building designs consist of many single or double curved surfaces which require complex shapes for the mould and element edges. Since the costs of the moulds (formwork) for precast concrete make...

Propositions for a study of Architecture with Landscape Methods: Could innovative design methods lead to Sustainable Spatial Development?

Contemporary architecture has been strongly influenced by the concept of landscape in recent times. The landscape analogy that accompanied architecture for a long time in tectonics or ornament is now transforming the concepts of form and space. The landscape analogy has moved from marginal subjects to the core of the discipline. We are looking...

European directive for tendering architectural services; a too strict interpretation by Dutch local authorities?

The legal position of architects in the European Union