There are certain moments in one’s life that changes paradigms and sometimes even leads to life changing insights & long life commitments. The most prominent of those moments in my life was somehow related to space & architecture, my current passion and vocation. The first of those moments was moving out of my childhood home located in a crowded apartment buildings into a spacious house with a garden within a district that has beautifully designed houses with lots of space and greenery. It was then that I first realized how space can influence the way we think, feel and work. Just the mere change from living in an overcrowded neighbourhood with stacked apartment buildings, streets with overflowing waves of pedestrians and little room for …show more content…
The pioneering facilities such as the space syntax lab offers a chance for me to examine how technology can play a role in exploring topics such as the spatial dimension in the design process without losing sight of the spatial essence. The fact that the campus is located in London, a city rich in its architectural heritage, multicultural societies and urban textures makes me more eager to become part of the …show more content…
I consider myself fortunate enough that I was able to not only work on a diverse set of projects with different scale, but I was also given the opportunity to coordinate some of them. This has endowed me with a better sense of project planning, a broader understanding of the design process as a whole and an appreciation to team effort. My work placement as research and teaching assistant has further helped me develop my confidence in guiding and motivating a small group of students through the different phases of their design projects. Getting to interact with students has helped foster my interpersonal skills. It has also kept me updated on what's new in the world of architecture and urban design. Meanwhile, working as a research assistant has also helped me improve my writing and research skills which are essential tools for any graduate studies candidate. In the past few months I took part in a competition where my project revolved around transforming one of Cairo’s fragmented settlements into an integrated and sustainable neighbourhood and this had led to me attending a forum on “Sustainable Infrastructure” in Detroit. The Symposium was transforming experience for me as I was able to see first-hand the decline of large city such as Detroit and the local efforts
Finally in 1991, the federal government initiated a ‘Better Cities Program’ which aimed to make Australian cities sustainable and more liveable. It encoura...
...ace we carry. In fact, he asserts that Descartes dichotomy (between mental (res cogitans) and material space (res extensa) (Lefebvre 39) these ways of knowing space involves and propagates a fundamental misunderstanding of the ways in which space structures our lives. To apprehend, physical, mental and social elements as one, he introduces his conceptual triad - spatial practice (perceived), representation of space (conceived) and representational spaces (lived), in order to reconfigure the ways in which representation functions in our experience of space. In Lefebvre’s system, representation pervades all spatial experience. The physical, mental and social now have the required setup to be conceptualised in a unifying meta-theory. Lefebvre does this by, “bringing the various kinds of space and the modalities of their genesis together with one theory” (Lefebvre 16).
The following case study critiques Upton’s vision to establish a sustainable community through implementing comprehensive sustainable strategy. The urban periphery development is thought to demonstrate superior execution of sustainable principles in development (Jackson 2007). As a parallel, the report focuses on the development of Upton’s design code and demonstrates how large -scale mix-use developments can incorporate sustainable practice and principles of urban growth.
Using the quote by Habermas as a starting point, select up to two buildings designed in the twentieth century and examine what ‘sudden, shocking encounters’ they have encountered, or created. Analyse the building’s meanings as a demonstration of an avant-garde, or potentially arriere-garde, position.
“Form follows function.” Every great Modern architect thought, designed by and breathed these very words. Or at least, their design principles evolved from them. Modern architects Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pierre Chareau, and Rudolf Schindler to name a few believed that the function determined the space whether the space was solely for a particular purpose or they overlapped to allow for multiple uses. Form didn’t just follow function, function defined the space. By focusing on the relationship between the architecture and the interior elements, Chareau’s Maison de Verre expanded the idea of functionalism to include not only the architecture but also the space it creates and how people function within that space.
Within Canada, brownfield redevelopment is a vital component in creating sustainable communities because it supports present-day land realities through the utilization of current infrastructure, inclusion of new green technologies and greenfield conservation. Brownfields are known as a former industrial or commercial site where future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination. They include decommission refineries, former railway yards, crumbling warehouses, abandoned gas stations, and other commercial properties where toxic substances may have been used or stored (National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 1). In Canada today there are about 30’000 brownfield sites waiting to be redeveloped (Nat’l Rnd Tbl on the Env. and the Econ., 2). Through remediation, developers “seek to capitalize” on the current poor conditions (Hardisty, 242). This intensive process involves a great deal of research, technology and laborious methods to stop and reverse the sites environmental damage (Hardisty, 242). Nevertheless, once completed, brownfield redevelopment sites have numerous benefits that support sustainability. However, since it is unfeasible for a human economy to have no impacts on the environment, we will consider the model presented by the Worldwatch Institute (Worldwatch Institute, 6). Within their book, State of the World: Our Urban Future, sustainability can be seen as “improving public health and well-being, lowering its environmental impacts, increasingly recycling materials, and using energy with growing efficiency” (Worldwatch Institute, 6). Thus, sustainable cities are not fully sustainable, but having in mind the goal of sustainability. Brownfield redevelopment can help nurture this goal th...
...structure." Sustainable City Network, Inc.: Sustainability - Balanced Information & Intelligent Solutions for Municipal Professionals. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. .
On a positive note, there are designers who have accomplished what seems like the impossible and created spaces that stand timeless in their place. The Eiffel Tower, Grand Central Station, Sydney Opera House are just a few examples of spaces that provide a unique experience for the people and contribute to the identity of the city.
space could be your own personal life, your vocational life or cultural interaction within the community.
Many architects have different definitions of what Space architecture is. Schindler declared in 1912 that he had “finally discovered the medium of his art: Space.” (Mattens 105) After this discovery Schindler had many architects and theorist began to study what he had discovered. Herman Sorgel argued that “architecture is not the art of space, volumes, and planes; rather architecture is just are of space alone.” (Mattens 105) Space Architecture in many ways has connections to portraying modernism.
The author explains architecture as an identification of place. Architecture starts with establishing a place. We define ‘place’ as a layout of architectural elements that seem to accommodate, or offer the possibility of accommodation to, a person, an activity, a mood, etc. We identify a sofa as a place to sit and relax, and a kitchen as a place to cook food. Architecture is about identifying and organizing ‘places’ for human use.
In a world where over half of the human population calls a city their home, the need to restructure and revolutionize the way we design our urban environments has never been greater. Currently, the notion that these vast metropolises of metal, concrete, and sludge could one day be fully realized pillars of sustainability is certainly laughable. However, when these same cities are constantly growing and multiplying across the globe, all the while using a greater and greater chunk of our planet’s energy, this impossible task becomes a necessary focus. To strive towards the closed, continuous loop of “true” sustainability could greatly alter the image of the modern city. Any improvement over the current state of urban affairs could carry weight, and even if that goal is not entirely fulfilled, the gained benefits would be immense.
It has taken 20 to 30 years, based on images taken in space of the Earth during the late 1960s, for people to realize that the environment ‘is like a bathtub of limited capacity’. Cities have been developing based on human culture whilst trying to be sustainable at the same time. Although it may be sustainable, the production process and the energy producing systems where they burn fossil fuels, contributes to the amount of carbon emissions that we produce each day. Green city is an expression for eco-city which is a city built off the principles of living within the means of the environment. It has been perceived as a concept rather than it circumstantially solving an ecological collapse like the ‘green Disneyland’ in Masdar City described
Cities all over the world are developing. As war ended in 1942, a significant number of people move to the city because they want to improve life. This urbanization process is causing a number of problems and should be met by sustainable development policies. In the beginning, it is important to know the definition of sustainable development. There are some definitions for sustainable development, but simply they say that sustainable development is a development which using resources now and preserving them for future generations (Adams, 1999, p.137). This concept has been agreed internationally at a Rio Conference in 1992 to be implemented by all government policies which mostly known as “Agenda 21” principles (Adams, 1999, p.141). This paper will show that traffic jams and housing problems caused by urbanization can be met by sustainable development policies. The structure of this paper will first explain the situation that leads to traffic jams and housing problems. Next, it will elaborate the sustainable development solutions, implications for the solutions, and evaluations how effective the sustainable development solutions solved the problems.
We all know the urbanization rate is an index to value the development of a country. However, though urbanization provides great convenience to some individuals, it also brings about negative effects. Problems such as pollution, overcrowded and the high unemployment appear during the process of urbanization and they are hard to cope with. In face of the sequence of problems, a new way of development ----sustainable development was put forward. Just like its literal meaning, the word sustainability has something to do with continuity. It was used since 1980s and first appeared in Britain law in 1993. Sustainable development can help solve parts of the problem caused by urbanization, including environmental damage, overuse of resources, and natural disasters.