Lecture1-Exeter Library

09/10/10
Lecturer: Karl Daubmann

By investigating the case of Exeter Library by Louis Kahn, we could see the whole comprehensive aspects of the architecture which came into play from the beginning of project to the completion. The project evolved through multiple cycles of revisions, adjustments, negotiations and compromise and finally became what we now see in the site. The examples of how those constraints was dealt with by the architect were suggested as below in the lecture:

1. Cost issue raised
: almost 1 million dollars over budget at the first construction estimate
- reduce the size of the building
- change the material for the central hall from brick to concrete
> led to the concrete atrium space wrapped by the brick masonry enclosure outside as it is now.

2. Code issue raised
- mezzanine (1/3 of floor it serves : 9164 for main floor, 3024 for mezzanine level)

Lecture2-On Domestic Space

09/14/10
Lecturer: Caroline Constant

The familiarity of dwelling obscures our ability to discern the origins and purposes inherent in the forms of domestics space and their hidden power relations.

The lecture mainly focused on reinterpreting housing plans to unpack and disclose the relation between architecture and different social, cultural and political contexts where it was designed.
Plan as the primary document type in architecture is a good record which allows us to track how domestic space was developed and designed by looking at spatial relation between rooms, access and etc. The social status of different occupants and power relationships (relation to the owner), gender distinction and changing life styles are explicitly or implicitly reflected in architectural plans.

Lecture3-Typology

09/17/10
Lecturer: Lars Graebner



The theory of typology is the study of the beginning of architecture, It is not device to justify the mechanical repetition the frame work of dialectic discourse which generates the new by transforming the old. - in the lecture by Lars

My precedent research on VM House by the Danish Architect, BIG, shows how the typology can act as a generative tool throughout the design development. The basic massing diagram is the new variation of the old reinterpreted and transformed by the architect. The idea of the skip-stop section in M building(2) was borrowed from Le Corbusier's Unite d'habitation(1) which has enabled the diverse two-stories housing units with cross-ventilation.

Lecture4-Eurogreen

09/21/10
Lecturer : Douglas Kelbaugh


A city is not a large building, it is a large living, lively vibrating organism, ever-changing,
that cannot be composed or designed in the same way that a building can.

The lecture started with criticism on the modern urbanism led by Le Corbusier and CIAM(International Congresses of Modern Architecture), which once was dominant urban planning agenda and has shaped a modern city as what a city looks like today. The insertions of super highway system and high-rise apartment blocks have produced disconnections and unresolved edge conditions within a city and between a city and a rural area.

Housing is about putting your love and affection into the details, windows, doors, entries and lobbies. It is not about creating amazing shapes.

He argued that we should look at the model of European cities as an alternative of urban design: grid system in smaller scale rather than cul-de-sac along one single linear paths, low-rise buildings with more diversity and integrated sustainability technologies(passive solar heating, solar or wind energy production.)
New mobility is not so much about providing new transportation systems. What makes a city more walkable is establishing infrastructure connecting disconnected nodes of different transportation modes such as bus, bike and train.

Lecture5-Codes

09/28/10
Lecturer : Karl Daubmann


As addressed in the lecture, the FOA's proposal for the New World Trade Center is interesting example in that it used the egress system as a key design concept. The simple and rational design approach for the exit-circulation system led to the unique high-rise building form: the four separate volumes wavy in vertical direction are designed to touch and connect to the neighboring one at different levels, while they go down from the top to the bottom. This design strategy enables occupants to transfer to the other stairways and have alternative exit paths in case one becomes unavailable.

We often underestimate the extent to which regulation defines the form, material and space of architecture and impact our environment. How successfully and smart we deal with those inevitable constraints determines our performance in practice.

Diagram 1. Mixed Occupancy

This diagram describes the fire rating requirement for the mixed occupancy(a building has more than two different occupancy types.) If you want to put an assembly space in the occupancy type-R building(with no sprinkler system), you need to separate the two spaces with a 2 hour fire-rated wall or enclosure.

Diagram 2. Accessory Occupancies