Innovations are traditionally categorized into solely two groups, radical innovation and incremental innovation. However, Henderson and Clark felt that these two groups provide little insight on minor innovations that creates tremendous impact on the industry. Therefore, they bring forth a concept called architectural innovation, to classify innovations that modify the way in which components of a product are linked together while keeping the fundamental design concept the same. It is essential for firms to recognize the importance of architectural innovation in order to stay competitive because the failure to distinguish this innovation will result in the loss of market shares as shown by the example of Kasper and Canon.
Henderson and Clark proposed that once a dominant design has been determined, the architectural knowledge of that product is instilled in the organization’s knowledge information- processing procedures. Firms will tend to focus on the improvement of components rather than the linkage between them. In the event of an architectural innovation by their competitor, firm...
The Reid House was designed by W.G. Clark and Charles Menefee and built in John’s Island, SC in 1986. Menefee and Clark designed primarily in the American South. Clark and Menefee are known for their “tripartite vertical organization.” The base level normally consists of secondary bedroom(s)/studio spaces and services. The First floor is a “piano nobile of principal rooms with a double-height living space.” The attic level usually consists of the master bedroom and bath. The Reid House is set up in this fashion. The house is located in a modest setting, surrounded by house trailers and cheaply built houses. The image of the house was “derived from vernacular farm buildings as well as from more formal Palladian structures.” One author described the setting as “John’s Island, a peaceful landscape where truck farmers tend tomato fields carved out of scrub-pine and dwarf-cedar forests, and where the front yards of shacks are littered with junked cars, rusting agricultural machinery, and other decaying impedimenta of the Industrial Revolution.” The house is a three-story tower with two components. The first is a 20 ft. sq. section made of concrete block, housing the living and bedrooms, referred to as the “served space(s).” The second part, referred to as the “serving space(s),” is a wood-frame shed that holds the kitchen and the bathrooms. These two components are “joined at the fireplace and chimney, around which the stair winds.”
Dell Upton is a historian and renowned professor of architecture and Urbanism at the University of California. He has published several books on architecture; one of them is “Architecture in the United States”, published in 1998. In this book, Upton analyzes the architecture of the United States in different aspects, such as nature, money and art, thus depicting the great variety in architectural forms, and how throughout the decades, different interests have lead communities to different ways of building, different purposes and materials, thus reflecting their way of thinking and their relationship with the environment. By exploring so many different architectural styles, Upton reveals the great diversity and richness that has always, and continues to characterize American architecture.
Innovation has rapidly assumed a position of prominence in world competition on a global scale. To compete in this environment, organizations need a level of innovation. As competition becomes more global and time-based, organizations must develop and deliver new and superior products or services in less time. The challenge for modern organizations is to revitalize them so they can successfully and continuously develop newer products and enhance business development.
Kelley,T. (2005, Oct.). The 10 faces of innovation. Fast Company, 74-77. Retrieved 6th March’ 2014 from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=9&sid=1d6a17b7-c5f7-4f00-bea4 db1d84cbef55%40sessionmgr10&hid=28&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=18386009
...ir knowledge base through the lessons learned by working with a multitude of companies, each with their own distinct characteristics, they were able to transition from a product development company to a company that offers a strategic partnership that provides innovative solutions focusing on the business as a whole. Now, IDEO creates and enhances some of the most creative organizations on the globe. A major shift in the paradigm established in 2000 focus on invention and the individualist nature of product design. Innovative companies such as Procter & Gamble have benefited immensely from the years of innovative evolution and learning experienced by IDEO. The more IDEO learns, the more their customers learn. This in turn helps IDEO to further their knowledge base creating a continuous loop of design thinking seemingly driven by a perpetual motor that breeds success.
The Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei (I.M) is known as one of the greatest architects of the Twentieth Century. His long, brilliant career was highlighted by several internationally famous structures. While many of Pei’s buildings were generally accepted by the public, some of them precipitated fair amounts of controversy. The most notable of these controversial structures is his Glass Pyramid at the entrance of the Louvre in Paris. For these reasons, I.M. Pei seems to be an architect who exhibits interest in the avant-garde through both the creative design and aestheticism of his architecture.
Charles Jencks in his book “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture “shows various similarities architecture shares with language, reflecting about the semiotic rules of architecture and wanting to communicate architecture to a broader public. The book differentiates post-modern architecture from architectural modernism in terms of cultural and architectural history by transferring the term post-modernism from the study of literature to architecture.
Today, advances in technology and design are providing many opportunities for new and existing businesses to re-invent themselves and their marketing strategies.
Norman Foster is a British architect who was born in Manchester in 1935. He graduated from University School of Architecture (Manchester) in 1961 and won a scholarship to study Master’s Degree in Architecture at Yale University. Later in 1967 he teamed up with 4 other peers and established a practice called Foster + Partners which was founded in London and is now one of the most well-known international design practices.
What makes modern architecture? Before answering this, one would need to understand what the term “modern” exactly describes. In architecture, modernism is the movement or transition from one period to another, and it is caused by cultural, territorial, and technological changes happening in the world. In Kenneth Frampton’s Modern Architecture: A Critical History, he details these three major societal changes that impact and create modern architecture.
In the category of modern art, the field that I’m personally fascinated by is architecture. The reason I say this is that architecture is more than just a piece of art, but a masterpiece of the combination of intelligence, physics, and the work of the imagination. I just happened to be in luck when I visited the MOMA because the museum was currently exhibiting a special collection of archives and the designs of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The show displayed all the drafts of the most iconic buildings the Frank Lloyd Wright had designed in his career, and this made it very difficult for me to decide which piece I want to write about because every one were very intriguing.
This definition has extended the power of the theory to explain different types of disruptive innovations across a wide range of industries (Schmidt and Druehl, 2008).
With the interaction between the development of computational approaches in architecture and the contemporary forms of spatial design intelligence, some new architectural design theories emerged to make differences between architects and control designing processes. These theories are almost employed in all designing realms, from architecture to urban design to provide fields of ideas and solutions that privilege by complexity. Most of these theories are oriented to relay on understanding and using computational methods to generate exotic and complex geometries. In this respect, three of these theories will discussed and tested against three buildings. The theories are: parametric design, genetic architecture and emergence, which characterize some of the contemporary architectural design approaches.
The role of the architect is a question that evokes a spectrum of answers from Norman Foster’s definition; ‘Architect is an expression of values… the way we build is a reflection of the way we live.’ [Foster, cited in Tholl, 2014: Online] This debate of who and what an architect should be and do is not a recent one to emerge but has lead many architects and designers as far back as Vitruvius [15BC] to produce documentation on what they believed to be the make-up of an architect. In Vitruvius’ ‘The Ten Books On Architecture’ he quickly establishes two fragments that make an architect, the manual skill and the theory and scholarship.
There are 25 major specialties in engineering that are recognized by professional societies. In any one of those 25 specialties, the goal of the engineer is the same. The goal is to be able to come up with a cost effective design that aids people in the tasks they face each day. Whether it be the coffee machine in the morning or the roads and highways we travel, or even the cars we travel in, it was all an idea that started with an engineer. Someone engineered each idea to make it the best solution to a problem. Even though engineer’s goals are similar, there are many different things that engineers do within their selected field of engineering. This paper will focus on the architectural field of engineering.