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ADAPTIVE RE-USE

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:32:00 +0000

Mehta, Madan, James Johnson, and Jorge Rocafort, Architectural Acoustics: Principles and Design, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999 ADAPTIVE RE-USE Buildings often outlive their function; however, their inherent durability often gives the building another life. There is a long tradition of buildings being adapted to suit new functions. Roman basilicas were converted to serve as worship spaces for the nascent Christian church. In medieval times, Roman fortifications were resurrected to form part of the fabric of the mercantile cities. It was not until the advent of ready demolition and the mechanization of the building process during the Industrial Revolution that the practice of adapting old buildings to new uses became less the norm.

Following World War II, the pace of change in urban form, precipitated by technological advances and social upheavals, quickened. As buildings became obsolete and shifting land values directed economic development away from central cities, particularly in North America, large-scale demolition became commonplace. In some cases, well-built warehouses and industrial structures stood on land that had become more valuable for other commercial and office uses, further accelerating demolition. Housing that stood in the pathway of proposed highways was also torn down. Urban renewal stopped short of its promise, and vacant buildings quickly became vacant land. To combat these failures, preservation strategies were developed that employed the existing built environment to suit new uses.

There are four distinct building types in which adaptive re-use of older structures can be seen. Public buildings, which includes large transportation facilities like train stations and civic buildings built in the 19th and 20th centuries being converted to new public and private uses. Industrial buildings, with their large clear structural spans and, typically, large expanses of windows or skylight, lend themselves particularly well to housing an enormous variety of new use groups. Private buildings, like large houses, can serve multiple functions because of the inherent flexibility of the prototype. Finally, commercial buildings, the structures that are so emblematic of the advances in architectural technology in the 20th century, are being recycled with different uses, presenting unique preservation problems, as architects must address issues related to preserving buildings that employed contemporary technology.

The U.S. government owns many magnificent historic structures and has taken the lead in finding new uses for its stock of buildings, serving as an example for private sector development. In Washington, D.C., the Pension Building, an imposing brick edifice, was constructed shortly after the Civil War to provide office space for agencies distributing pensions to war veterans and their families. Its primary distinctive feature is a large, central skylit atrium space that allows the ring of offices access to natural light. The building stood dormant for many years until a major restoration project started in 1984 enabled the National Building Museum to occupy the lower floors of the building, with the bulk of the building retained for government offices. The soaring splendor of the building’s interior serves as an excellent advertisement of its function as a museum for the built environment.

Also in Washington, D.C., is the Old Post Office Building, another atrium building. Completed in 1899, the neoRomanesque building was almost demolished in the early 1970s. Fortunately, as a result of the dedicated efforts of local preservationists and the daunting cost of demolishing such a huge structure, the building was renovated in 1978. The three lower levels of the building, including the atrium, were converted to restaurants and retail, with the perimeter of the building on the upper level retained as office space.

One of the most well-known re-uses of a dormant train station is Gae Aulenti’s remaking of the Gare d’Orsay in Paris as the national museum of art and civilization. Originally opened for train traffic in 1900, both the building’s short platform lengths and changes in travel patterns lead to the abandonment of the station shortly after World War II. Reopened as a museum in 1986, the renovation makes use of the original attached hotel within the head house as exhibition space. Built within the volume of the train shed are smaller structures that house more intimate display space for sculpture. Despite the somewhat awkward intrusion of these galleries within the shed, the sense of the original great volume of the space is still preserved.

In the United States, the nation’s private railroad system developed a legacy of magnificent structures throughout the country. When train traffic declined following World War II, these buildings, centrally located in the downtowns of virtually every American city, sometimes were virtually abandoned or, worse, torn down in the case of McKim, Mead and White’s Pennsylvania Station in New York. Union Station in St. Louis (Theodore C.Link), built in 1894 and renovated and modified in the early 1980s, is a good example of an important building restored to a new life. The barrel-vaulted Grand Hall functions in much the same way as it was originally intended, now serving as a hotel lobby and entrance to a multiuse complex that includes a parking garage and a restaurant and retail center within the former train shed. The shed, the largest of its type ever built, is organized into “neighborhoods” to make the integration of the building’s multiple functions more coherent. When Union Station was renovated, the ornate and eclectic spaces within the head house were restored and glass was inserted into the vaulted train shed, flooding the interior with natural light.

In Philadelphia, a large commuter train station built for the Reading Railroad in 1893 became redundant in 1984 when a subterranean tunnel was constructed below it, linking the area’s railways to a regional network. The beautiful steel and glassvaulted shed and Renaissance revival terra-cotta facade were empty for several years as several different alternatives were studied for a possible re-use. Critical to the success of the project was the maintenance of the historic food market below the train shed. The Pennsylvania Convention Center, built in 1992 (Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback and Association), incorporates the Reading Terminal into the new construction, maintaining both this vital piece of urban architecture and the market’s social importance in the city fabric. The head house serves as the ceremonial entrance for the convention center as well as a hotel. The train shed links the entrance from the principal street to the new large convention center that spans over two adjacent blocks

The first International Style skyscraper, the PSFS Building (George Howe and William Lescaze), also in Philadelphia, was constructed in 1932 and served for many years as the headquarters for a local bank and office building. The building had retail on the ground floor with a cool modern banking hall on the second floor. After the bank went out of business in the early 1990s, the building stayed dormant for many years. Despite the high esteem held for the building locally, its relatively small floor plate did not attract the interest of businesses seeking space where the need for a large floor negated the desire to have ready access for natural light. Fortunately for the building, developers converted it to a hotel that uses the original banking hall as a multipurpose room. The former retail space now serves as a ground floor lobby and restaurant. The renovation is truly successful and the building retains its landmark neon sign, first lit to advertise the bank during the depths of the Depression.

Private buildings that have been adaptively re-used range in size and character from urban townhouses to urban palaces and castles set alone in the countryside. Museums are the most common new use for these buildings, often commemorating the house and holdings of the original occupant, as in the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, and the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina. Alternatively, the urban mansions are often converted to art museums, making use of the variety of spaces, both small and grand. Institutions like the CooperHewitt Museum in the former Carnegie mansion and the Frick Museum, both in New York City, serve as excellent display space for sculpture and paintings of all manners of style and size. In European countries like France, Spain, and Portugal, châteaus and castles have been converted into hotels. The Spanish government, in particular, has made the conversions of these castles into paradores for the latter half of the 20th century a matter of restoration policy

Industrial buildings offer the most flexible typology for conversion. Mills and old factory structures are typically solidly built and often offer large expanses of natural light. Industrial buildings are generally anonymous buildings that, in the early part of the 20th century, were executed, if not by architects, then by highly competent vernacular builders. The prototype was a relatively recent phenomenon, and the pace of construction of these buildings accelerated during the time of great urban industrialization that coincided with a particularly eclectic period in architecture. Consequently, these buildings hold important social and physical significance in the urban context. The solid structures of these buildings may have contributed to their longterm survival; in some cases, the cost of demolition made their destruction not as viable an option, allowing time for alternative uses to be found

Housing has been a popular choice to occupy these spaces. In the United States, the vanguard of the movement to convert former industrial properties to housing was the SoHo neighborhood in New York City. What started as flexible and inexpensive space serving as artist studios became coveted by those looking for expansive living quarters in neighborhoods that the artists had helped to become fashionable. Outside of New York, one of the better-known early preservation and conversion projects is Lowell Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mixed-use complex that helped to revitalize a portion of that moribund town.

These mill buildings are now also adapted to house the industries of the information age, the economic successor to the industrial revolution. Offices for computer technology firms, professional offices, and material and product showrooms in early 20th-century industrial loft buildings are such a commonplace sight in urban centers that it is often forgotten that those buildings were not originally constructed to house those functions. One particularly striking conversion is the Templeton Factory in Glasgow, Scotland, a former carpet mill built in a colorful and stylized Venetian Gothic style in 1898. The building complex was considered for demolition following its abandonment in 1978 as the result of changes in manufacturing technology. Preservation as a museum was rejected. In the early 1980s, a scheme was devised to convert the building into a hybrid research and business incubator center run by a local government development agency.

Winston Churchill’s aphorism—“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us”—rings true. Preservationists seeking to link the past with the future take exception to this rule as we continue to shape our buildings, adapting them to new functions. Adaptive re-use as a tool used by architects, like the larger preservation movement, is a 20th-century phenomenon. The preservation of older buildings by giving them new uses also serves as part of an overall strategy for urban designers, city planners, and the consortium of public and private forces that view this approach as a tool of economic development. The supply of older and significant buildings is a source of sound urban ecological regeneration. As preservation practice evolves, the emphasis is shifting away from strict restoration to an attitude that frees the building from its former use.

Acoustics

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:26:00 +0000

As Charles Garnier prepared the design for the Paris Opera House in 1861, the lack of acoustical design information and the contradictory nature of the information that he found forced him to leave the acoustic quality to chance and hope for the best. With few exceptions, this was the condition of architectural acoustics at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1900, with the pioneering work of Wallace Clement Sabine, the dark mysteries of “good acoustics” began to be illuminated. In his efforts to remedy the poor acoustics in the Fogg Art Museum Lecture Hall (1895–1973) at Harvard University, Sabine began experiments that revealed the relationship among the architectural materials of a space, the physical volume of the space, and the time that sound would persist in the space after a source was stopped (the reverberation time). Predicting the reverberation time of a room provided the first scientific foundation for reliable acoustic design in architecture. This method is still regularly used as a benchmark to design a range of listening environments, from concert halls to school classrooms.

The first application of this new acoustical knowledge occurred during the design of the Boston Symphony Hall (1906) by McKim, Mead and White. Original plans for the hall called for an enlarged version of the Leipzig Neues Gewandhaus (1884), a classical Greek Revival theater. The increased size would have been acoustically inappropriate, as it doubled the room volume, leading to excessive reverberation. Sabine worked with the architects to develop a scheme with a smaller room volume in the traditional “shoe box” concert hall shape. The Boston Symphony Hall remains one of the best in the world. Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium Building (1889) in Chicago was praised for its architectural and engineering achievements as well as for the theater’s superb acoustics. As the profession of acoustical consulting emerged in the design of listening spaces, the firm of Bolt, Beranek and Newman made a significant impact on the development of architectural acoustics in the 20th century. Their work with architects Harrison and Abramovitz on Avery Fisher Hall (1962) in New York City represented a legitimate attempt to incorporate new scientific principles of acoustical design rather than merely copying previous halls that were known to be good. Although it presented several failures, one key acoustic point gleaned from a study of European halls for Avery Fisher Hall was that the room should hold 1,400 to 1,800 seats. Yielding to economic pressures, the architect increased seating to almost 3,000.

A more successful implementation of modern acoustical theories is the Berlin Philharmonic (1963). Architect Hans Scharoun’s vision of a hall in the round blurs the traditional distinction between performer and audience. The approach posed quite an acoustical challenge, given the directionality of many orchestral instruments; it required an extremely unconventional acoustical design. The resulting “vineyard terrace” seating arrangement resolved many potential acoustical difficulties while creating a spatial vitality that resonates outward to form the profile of the building. This collaboration between Scharoun and the acoustic consultant Lothar Cremer engendered a truly inspired architectural design.

New techniques for improved acoustic environments are applied in many building types, including school classrooms, music practice rooms, church sanctuaries, movie heaters, transportation hubs, and industrial facilities. Simultaneously, with more and more exposure to digital-quality sound, clients have become keenly aware of their sonic environment and expect high levels of performance. Speech intelligibility in classrooms has been related to learning, with efforts to reduce excessive background noise from mechanical equipment. The issue has become the focus of a U.S. federal government assessment and proposal for a nationwide acoustical standard for schools. Additionally, careful selection of materials, their quantities, and their locations in classrooms are important to enhance speech intelligibility. Music practice spaces require adequate room volume with both soundabsorbent and sound-diffusing materials to control loudness and reduce the risk of noise-induced hearing loss to musicians and teachers. Religious liturgy relies more heavily on intimate spoken sermons, cathedral-like choir singing, and high-powered amplified music in many denominations. These trends, coupled with a prevailing increase in sanctuary size and the desire for more congregational interaction, have demanded sophisticated sound reinforcement systems and carefully configured room acoustic design strategies to strike a balance among divergent sonic criteria. Digital surround sound, the new standard in movie theater entertainment, incorporates the environmental acoustic character as part of the movie sound track, which should not be colored by the theater space. This requires very low reverberance, low background noise levels from mechanical equipment, and exceptional sound isolation from adjacent theaters. Unintelligible announcements, the bane of transportation hubs, have been the focus of many recent acoustical studies, affirming the need to consider room geometry, size, and material selection as they play as great a role as the actual announcement system itself in the success of these spaces.

Many meaningful advances in acoustic knowledge were made in the 20th century. The application and integration of this information within architectural design leaves much room for advancement. Alvar Aalto’s famous acoustical ray tracing diagrams for the lecture room of the Viipuri Public Library (1933–35) in Viipuri, Finland, represent acoustical thinking in the earliest phases of design. Developing sophisticated methods to assimilate newer acoustical knowledge as part of the architectural design process is the work at hand in the 21st century.

Richard Buckminster Fuller

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:19:00 +0000

The American Richard Buckminster Fuller has been variously labeled architect, engineer, author, designer-inventor, educator, poet, cartographer, ecologist, philosopher, teacher, and mathematician throughout his career. Although not trained professionally as an architect, Fuller has been accepted within the architectural profession, receiving numerous awards and honorary degrees. He thought of himself as a comprehensive human in the universe, implementing research for the good of humanity. Born in Milton, Massachusetts, on 12 July 1895, he was the son of Richard Buckminster Fuller, Sr., and Caroline Wolcott (Andrews) Fuller. His father, who worked as a leather and tea merchant with offices in Boston, died when Fuller was 15 years of age. Fuller’s first design revelation came to him when, in kindergarten in 1899, he built his first flat-space frame, an octet truss constructed of dried peas and toothpicks. As a boy, vacationing at his family’s summerhouse on Bear Island, Maine, he became an adequate seaman and developed an appreciation of nature’s provision of principles of efficient design. He followed the philosophy of Pythagoras and Newton, that the universe comprises signs, or patterns of energy relationships, that have an order to them. Fuller used the term “valving” for the transformation of these patterns into usable forms. According to Fuller, these patterns in nature were comprehensive and universal. “Synergy” was the name that Fuller gave to the integrated behavior patterns discovered in nature.

Fuller attended the Milton Academy (1904–06) and Harvard University (1913–15) and was expelled twice while at Harvard. He worked in a few industries and then enlisted for two years of service in the U.S. Navy (1917–19). This experience in industry and with the Navy helped him gain knowledge of technical engineering processes, materials, and methods of manufacturing, which he would apply this knowledge to future inventions. When one of his two daughters, Alexandra, died of influenza at age four (1922), Fuller became obsessed with her death. Five years later, on the brink of suicide, he decided instead to devote the rest of his life to helping humanity by converting ideas and technology designed for weaponry into ideas for “livingry.” At the age of 32, he started an experiment, Guinea Pig B (the “B” stood for “Bucky,” his nickname), to discover how an individual with a moral commitment and limited financial means could apply his knowledge to improve humanity’s living conditions by technological determinism. This experiment continued until his death at age 88. Thus, his technological and economical resources belonged to society. He believed in the same moralistic drive to develop better housing for the masses through mass production that many of the European modernists did, but Fuller’s forms and design principles were quite different.

Among the proliferation of books that Fuller published during his life, the first, (1928), propagated his lifetime philosophy. The term “4D” meant “fourth-dimensional” thinking, adding time to the dimensions of space to ensure gains for humanity instead of personal gains only. The first patent of the 4D designs was a mass-production house, first known as 4D and later as the Dymaxion House (1927 model; 1928 patent). A hexagonal structure supported on a mast, the house was to be air deliverable and based on his strategy of “design science,” which sought to obtain maximum human advantage from minimum use of energy and materials. Using the analogy of airplane technology, he chose materials such as steel- alloy cables and the Duralumin mast. After developing the Dymaxion House, Fuller was to engage in developing prototypes of the Dymaxion Vehicles (1937) and the Dymaxion Bathroom (1940). Later he developed the Dymaxion Deployment Unit (1944), a lightweight corrugated-steel shelter made from modified grain bins. Thousands of these units were bought by the U.S. Army Air Corps for use as flight crew quarters. The Dymaxion Deployment Unit became the basis for Fuller’s Wichita House (1946). These houses were built to be used as full-size family dwellings, weighing four tons each, and were to be assembled on aircraft production lines built during the war. Another of Fuller’s Dymaxion inventions was the Dymaxion Airocean World Map (1946). This map transferred the spherical data of a globe onto a two dimensional surface.

Construction plan of the geodesic dome

Fuller, however, is best known for inventing the geodesic dome (1954), a triangulated space-enclosing technology. According to Fuller, this type of structure encloses the maximum internal volume with the least surface area. Designs such as the domes were based on synergy and its connection with mathematics, using such forms as the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron. Fuller brought into the dome structure ideas concerning the dome’s tensile ability by introducing a new structural geometry and advancing mechanics into the dome form. He tried to emulate in this structure the atom’s form, including the compound curvature trussing of its dynamic structure. Although this domical design was not new in its elementary form, it was new in its manner of employing these principles in a human-made structure. Numerous domes have appeared all over the world for domestic as well as large-scale industrial use, including the Union Tank Car Company (1958), Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the Climatron Botanical Garden (1961), St. Louis, Missouri; the U.S. Pavilion (1967) at Expo ‘67, the World’s Fair, Montreal, Canada; and the Spruce Goose Hangar (1982), Long Beach, California.

As noted by architectural historian Kenneth Frampton in his book, (1980), Fuller has influenced future generations of architects, most notably the Japanese group the Metabolists, the British group Archigram, Moshe Safdie, Alfred Neuman, Cedric Price, and Norman Foster. A few semiotician scholars liken him to Joyce, but whereas Joyce sought to obscure language intentionally, Fuller sought to emphasize a precise meaning. Often he would invent words for this purpose, as displayed in his numerous writings and lectures. Later in life, he entered into partnership with Shoji Sadao in New York and Sadao and Zung Architects in Cleveland, Ohio (1979–83). Fuller died on 1 July 1983 in Los Angeles, California, from a massive heart attack; his wife died three days later.

IL Forte Di Fortezza

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:05:00 +0000

Begun under Francis I in the year 1833; completed by Ferdinand I in the year 1838’ reads the Latin inscription over the gate of a monumental fortress that dominates the village of Fortezza (originally called Franzensfeste) in Alpine northern Italy, near the border with Austria. Strategically positioned to oversee the entrance to the Eisack Valley, this brooding redoubt was constructed by the Habsburgs to protect their empire from growing anti-imperialist fervour fomented by the French revolution.

In just five years, 6,000 workers and soldiers constructed the complex under the direction of regimental engineer Franz von Scholl. Resembling a small town, it consists of three separate fortified enclaves hugging the contours of the hillside site. Executed in a functional yet heroic stripped classical language, it was built to last, an impregnable bastion of imperial power.

Despite the Habsburgs’ impressive mobilisation of men and resources, the revolutionary threat failed to materialise. The fortress soon became redundant, ‘built for an enemy who never came,’ according to local historian Josef Rohrer. By the end of the 19th century this supreme manifestation of military and imperial hubris was serving as a humble powder depot. In 1918 Franzensfeste came under Italian rule and became Fortezza (though German is still widely spoken in the region) and the complex was used by the Italian army until 2003.

The heroic stripped classicism of the fort informs the new additions

Relinquished by the military and acquired by the province of South Tyrol, it now has a new incarnation as a historic monument and place of cultural exchange. In 2008 it was one of the four venues for Manifesta 7, the European biennale of contemporary art, and in 2009 it hosted the Landesausstellung, a regional arts festival. With its massive walls and labyrinthine underground passages, the fortress provided an apt backdrop to the festival’s theme of freedom, set against the historically defensive culture of the Tyrol.

The fort overlooks a lake. A pair of new walkways rationalize circulation

Local architects Markus Scherer and Walter Dietl were commissioned to restore the structure so it could cope with the new demands of exhibitions and tourism. Preserving the existing buildings while also emphasising the distinctive character of the architecture was key to Scherer and Dietl’s brief. The thick granite walls were restored, roofs waterproofed and windows repaired. Walled-off spaces were opened up and unsympathetic later additions removed. Throughout, the process has been a tactful cleaning up and drilling down to the raw form and structure of the fort, which itself acts as a cue for the new interventions.

From the entrance courtyard behind the main gate, the extent of the complex is not immediately obvious. Minimally articulated stone structures that once housed barracks, stables and stores now accommodate a visitor centre, bar, restaurant, children’s play area and an exhibition space spread over an enfilade of rooms. Carefully restored vaults of exposed brickwork and plastered walls, some embellished with murals, convey a powerful sense of the past. A 22m-deep vertical shaft was driven through the rock to connect the lower fortress with a subterranean cavern. A dark concrete staircase with a golden handrail spirals up through the shaft, terminating in a partially destroyed powder magazine, which was restored and reconfigured as a new circulation pavilion.

New parts have the same tough, stripped-down spirit as the original architecture. Thick concrete blocks are used to form simple buildings and enclosures. Between the blocks, layers of sand were flushed out to produce an irregular horizontal joint pattern and the surface of the concrete was roughened by sandblasting with fine granite particles to match the colour of the existing stone. The weatherbeaten effect mimics the passage of time, so the new interventions have the feel of a modern ruin.

The most dramatic new addition is a double deck arrangement of dog-leg shaped catwalks that swing out precipitously over a lake at the lowest level to connect the exhibition spaces and complete the visitor circuit. Like the new doors, grilles and handrails, the bridges are made of galvanised steel coated with a rough black patina. Thin and sharp like a blade, the dark steel crisply counterpoints the massive stone walls. This intelligently judged reciprocity between architectures, eras and functions is emblematic of the surprising rebirth of an extraordinary piece of 19th-century military history.

The Most Expensive Development in US History Tries to Redefine Junkspace Urbanism on The Strip

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:12:00 +0000

Las Vegas is universally dismissed as non-architectural or anti-urban. At night, neon signs and electronic billboards orientate the car driver and conveniently overshadow the city’s junkspace context of car parks. They signal Vegas’ immersive gambling enclave hugging the four-mile Strip yet, while old signs are regularly taken to the neon graveyard

in the Nevada desert, little contemporary architecture has replaced them. The Strip’s relative resurgence at the hands of entrepreneur Steve Wynn reached its height with the 1998 Bellagio hotel and casino, now owned by gambling giant MGM Mirage. With its eight-acre lake and artsy dancing fountains, it was merely another thematic step from Vegas’ mid-century modernism of the Rat Pack era.

Now off the Strip, and attached to Bellagio by a three- stop tramline, is City Center, where starchitecture is a keypart of the development gamble. It took MGM Mirage five years to build and cost a cool $8.5 billion. Replacing the immaterial graphic skyline with a veritable architectural zoo, this compact ‘city within a city’ transforms 27 hectares etched out of land adjoining the Strip on which a third-rate hotel and multi- storey car park once stood.

When Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown wrote Learning from Las Vegas in 1972, examining the cultural context of the city as a generator of form, they critiqued mindless Strip development and reinvented the casino as a quasi-public space that spills out and engages the street in an update of the Roman piazza. In a city where context and use has been so out of tune with reality, and what seems to be reality is not, MGM Mirage now claims to have shifted the Vegas paradigm.

The ramped entry street indeed leads you to a piazza in front of Pelli Clarke Pelli’s hefty crystalline Aria Resort. At the hub of one of three blocks on the Gensler-designed masterplan, building and piazza are bonded by a huge curving waterwall. Everything radiates from here and, instead of a spilled-out casino, there is the first of many art installations on the site. The overhead monorail shuttles visitors between ‘historic’ Vegas (neighbours Monte Carlo and Bellagio) and new Vegas (Studio Daniel Libeskind’s shopping centre, Crystals). Negotiating Aria’s labyrinth of foyer casino to find the elevators to the rooms is a bore. Up front, the building lamely accommodates the fleecing space that pays its way, and Aria suffers as a result.

The pharaonic undertaking of CityCenter engaged seven architects, 60 interior designers and over 250 design consultants in total, in a project which took only five years to build from inception in 2005, picking up a LEED Gold certification for sustainability. It is too soon to know whether CityCenter is economically sustainable, but its tactics are a unity of art and architecture, mixed programme (70 per cent non-gaming allocation, for dining, hotels, spas and so on) and the semblance of civic identity across the pedestrian- friendly district. There may be high-end hotels – two with retail apartments – but no housing for the workers of this place of pleasure, or food shops, as occupants eithereat out or order in.

At CityCenter’s gateway is KPF’s Mandarin Oriental, an elegantly simple and tactile building with a facade of interlocking motifs of vertical stainless steel panels and fritted glass. It bears a standard tall atrium, but the upper-floor podium, complete with ballroom and huge window overlooking the Strip, feels genuinely fresh – for Vegas.

With a pocket park lying between Aria and Crystals, punctuated by a Henry Moore sculpture, a snatch of the European post-war city and way-finding signage on the pedestrian space, the idea was that visitors could navigate buildings outdoors. Yet the quality of the seamlessless falls into being rather airport-like at Aria’s rear conference centre, and you half expect to find an outdoor smoking room there.

Crystals, with its multi- faceted glass canopy that feels like a reworked New York Guggenheim, is punctuated by David Rockwell’s three-storey tree house nudging the oculus in the roof. It forms a fraternal union on the street with Murphy/Jahn’s Veer Towers,

a pair of 37-storey residential blocks leaning 5° from centre and sporting yellow fritting and sun-shading fins.

Tucked away on the north-west corner, Rafael Viñoly’s Vdara hotel and spa plays a symbolic card, a low-key crescent form of patterned glass amply kitted out with art (a Frank Stella painting in reception lends gravitas) and the Silk Road restaurant (a smouldering gold bazaar). Less evident at this point is Foster + Partners’ Harmon boutique hotel. Opening in November, this smart blue beacon will be only half the original intended height, due to a construction error that curtailed its ambition.

Learning from Las Vegas relied too much on formal analysis. Looking at CityCenter, it would appear Vegas has had a pro-architecture shot in the arm in the form of a grown-up urban enclave replete with formal sophistication, especially of the crystalline variety. Moreover, for a growing city, the largest private development in US history has raised desires for more contestation of endless sprawl and standardised suburbia. It may be for real, but is it enough?

Johan Celsing’s ‘Stone in The Forest’ Treads Carefully in The Woodland Cemetery

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:11:00 +0000

When the ancient habit of burning corpses instead of burying them was struggling for a renaissance a century ago, Swedish enthusiasts (yes, there were such) turned to young and progressive architects to create the buildings for this newly revived ceremony. With Torsten Stubelius, Sigurd Lewerentz devised an exemplary proposal that became the starting point for Lewerentz’s and Erik Gunnar Asplund’s collaboration on the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm. This masterpiece of spiritual architecture and landscape is to be augmented with a new building, for which a limited invited competition has just been settled.

The problems of dignifying the technical processes of cremation have not diminished. In fact, they have grown. The new building is intended to be a small but efficient plant where hundreds of thousands of Stockholmers will melt into air, with a tiny corner for mourners to follow the process. The new rite makes the entire edifice sanctified and, apart from the historically charged setting, this is what makes the task so fascinating.

The notion of what sort of building might stage and dignify these rituals was very open, as the city turned to such different minds as Bjarke Ingels, Tadao Ando, Caruso St John, White Architects and Johan Celsing for an answer. It was Celsing, in collaboration with landscape architect Müller Illien, who won the day with a modest, almost camouflaged, brick block, described as a ‘stone in the forest’. The fallout from the competition for the ill-starred extension of Asplund’s City Library (AR January 2010) hung heavily over proceedings. This one must not fail.

The site is on a safe distance from Asplund’s and Lewerentz’s temples. And even if every other submission proposed more intricate spatial arrangements and most were more sculpturally expressive, Celsing’s monolith does have the possibility of being the solid ‘stone in the forest’ it wants to be. It has the same simple, unaffected spirit as the brick buildings of Erwin Heerich at the Insel Hombroich art campus in Germany.

However, the jury rejected the concept of serene daylight that characterised proposals from Ando, Caruso St John and even Bjarke Ingels. Like his father Peter, Johan Celsing favours strong contrasts in light and shadow. But there are wonderful examples of simple, even brutal, Swedish crematoriums where the daylight soars in thin air. Compared to these, Celsing’s proposal has still a bit to go. But if the stone gets its sacred space,the winner will also be a victor.

CAA Conference Explores Notions of Sustainability That Go Beyond Box-Ticking

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:10:00 +0000

These days, no convocation on sustainability is complete without Ken Yeang, who popped up to deliver the keynote address at the recent Commonwealth Association of Architects triennial conference in Sri Lanka. Despite having a carbon footprint the size of Kazakhstan, Ken always makes a rousing curtain raiser to such proceedings, breezing through his theories on biointegration and comparing the built environment to a prosthesis grafted on to an organic host (nature). All fascinating stuff, but he couldn’t stay for lunch because he was off to Japan.

The conference theme was ‘Architecture: Rethinking Sustainability’ (predictable enough), but the venue, in Colombo, gave more pause for thought. In Sri Lanka and surrounding Asia, notions of sustainability are not just box- ticking exercises, but crucial to human survival.

Rafiq Azam of Dhaka-based architecture firm Shatotto (featured in the 2007 AR Emerging Architecture Awards) brought things down to earth with a thoughtful discourse on the challenges of building in Bangladesh, ‘a land of six seasons’ steeped in ‘the poetry of the tropics’. Azam’s work sensitively mines climate, culture and context, but he is also aware of architecture’s responsibilities – ‘the power to transform communities and society,’ as he described it.

The ghost of Geoffrey Bawa still hovers benignly over the canon of Sri Lankan modernism, and it was momentarily channelled by a Milroy Perera, who used to work with the great man. His account of the building of the Kandalama Hotel (AR December 1995), sensitive site near the famous Dambulla cave temple, showed that making great buildings takes immense reserves of patience and persistence. Bawa had to rebuff opposition from politicians and religious leaders (‘the only man who succeeded in uniting Hindus, Buddhists and Christians,’ said Perera), but his vision won out in the end. Today the Kandalama is covered in lush greenery, as its architect intended, merging to become part of the landscape.

From Australia, Kerry Clare spoke of architecture that ‘locates people in a place rather than sealing them from it’. Her work showed a clear responsiveness to climate, especially the tropical zone of Queensland, through the reinterpretation of vernacular principles. ‘The affirmation of local identity and character by understanding textures, rhythms and tectonics relevant to a culture is increasingly important,’ she said.

South African architect Llewellyn van Wyk had a different perspective – basically we’re all doomed. Periodic mass extinctions and extreme climate events are an inevitable part of the planet’s long existence and if these don’t get us, the dying sun eventually will. ‘We have to recontextualise our thinking,’ said van Wyk. ‘We’ve lost the capacity to foresee and forestall.’ He proposed seven ‘canons of sustainability’ to enable green buildings to satisfy broader concepts of sustainability, and align them ‘more directly with the transformative notion underpinning sustainable development’.

Though the CAA only assembles every three years, it draws together many architects from the developing world, from Africa and Asia, whose voices are not often heard. But on the evidence of this conference, they should be.

Tree Trunk Garden House

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:38:00 +0000

We All Long For One – a private space all to ourselves to work, think, or even just escape to. When popular Dutch musical and comedic performer Hans Liberg (pictured) built himself a small Studio in which he could hone his act without inteeruptions from family, he did so right in his own backyard.

For a getaway to match the showman’s personality, Liberg turned to designer Piet Hein Eek. The cabaret star had previously commissioned Eek, an alumnus of Holland’s famed Design Academy Eindhoven Who now has a international following, to create several of his signature handcrafted, scrapwood furniture pieces for his home.

The result of their latest collaboration, completed last summer, is an iconic log cabin with a twist. Eek switches the orientation of the tree trunks so that the structure more closely resembles a pile of firewood.

The trompe I’oeil is revealed only when the windows – camouflaged with slices of wood – are flipped open. (A second layer of glass beneath slides open). “It’s difficult to feel close to nature in the city.” Eek says. “We created a fairy tale.”

Oak logs line the sides and top of the cabin, while 2 inch thick circular trunk sections are arrayed along the 15 foot long front and back. The surface wood is both glued and mechanically fastened to the plywood substructure.

The cabin was built in Eek’s 40 person production facility. Then transported the 60 miles to Liberg’s residence. The assembly itself is built on wheels to comply with local zoning regulations restricting the number of habitable structures on a single property, making it possible (though highly unlikely) fir Liberg to take it on the road with him.

The fresh, cozy interior of the 100-square-foot box – housing a desk, shelve, and a separate U – shaped seating area – is painted a powder blue to contrast with the exterior’s rustic appearance. Supplied with heat and electricity, Liberg can play his instruments well into the night on even the coldest of days. “I think Hans really loves it. “Eek says. “He’s in there way too much.”

ELEANOR AND WILSON GREATBATCH PAVILION BUFFALO, NEW YORK, USA

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:19:00 +0000

It’s fitting that Darwin D. Martin House should be symbolic of the renewal of modern architecture in Buffalo and in particular, the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright in the city. Martin, secretary for the Larkin Soap Company, was one of Wright’s great patrons. The demolition of Larkin’s headquarters, which Wright designed in 1904, stands as a notorious example of a US city’s indifference to its architectural heritage and the same fate nearly befell the Martin House. After Martin’s death, it suffered neglect and portions were destroyed and replaced by unsightly 1960s condominium blocks.

The University at Buffalo acquired the building in 1967 and the Martin House Restoration Corporation (MHRC) was set up in 1992. After renovation, in 2002 the MHRC invited five emerging firms to compete for the design of a pavilion that would open up Wright’s complex to the public and provide a much needed centre to reintroduce visitors to the city’s modern architecture. The winner was Toshiko Mori, a Japanese-American architect and former chair of architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, known for her concern with material innovation and conceptual clarity.

As private house became public institution, Mori based her design on inversion. Wright’s overhanging roofs became an upturned canopy, signalling openness, while overlapping enclosures in plan became a visually extensive yet firmly defined rectangle of space. ‘It’s like a chess game,’ says Mori. ‘If Wright moves in brick, I use transparent glass; if he makes a hipped roof, I use an inverted roof.’

The result seems simple: four central piers, a roof and glass walls. Simplicity, however, requires technical innovation. What appears to be a cantilevered roof is in fact supported by a ring of solid, CNC-milled steel columns at the building’s perimeter, whose slender dimensions (only 70mm square) merge visually with the glass curtain wall to frame a panoramic view of the Martin House.

The pavilion minimises its visual presence and strengthens the experience of the house. ‘It’s an idea of anti-building,’ says Mori, ‘as opposed to the very powerful building of Wright.’ This minimal design achieves a surprising degree of spatial complexity. The asymmetrical position of central piers creates a subtle weighting of distinct zones within the plan and a natural sequence between them. A compact entry space with ticket counter connects to a long, narrow area framed by a glass wall, which looks onto the Martin House. This in turn leads into a broader space containing display cases and interactive screens, both designed by the New York graphic design firm 2x4.

The role of information design in the experience of the pavilion is significant. Mori’s competition entry had a lower level containing auditorium and display areas underneath the lawn between the pavilion and house. The central pier was to house a staircase down to this level, framed by a double-height glass wall and a skylight above. As built, the pavilion is a single floor only. The central glass wall is used to project a film on to the Martin House, into the same space from which visitors look out over the complex.

This double-functioning allowed the square footage of the pavilion to be cut in half. It also strengthens its relationship to Martin House. Rather than simply containing information spaces, the pavilion frames a view enriched by information. The experience marks the culmination of a process more than 40 years in the making that gives new meaning to Wright’s masterwork and extends Buffalo’s tradition of architectural innovation into the present.

Mori’s language of steel and glass is

a consciously lightweight foil to Wright’s more
rooted architecture of brick walls and hipped roofs

The Martin House framed by the pavilion

The inverted roof oversails the
delicate walls of full-height glazing

The concept is Fascinating But The Shows Were A Bit Dull

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:12:00 +0000

Canary Islanders are dead sick of tourists. Local government, the PR team, even the biennial director and curator, architect Juan Manuel Palerm Salazar, have said that the Second Biennial of the Canary Islands is about hosting a cultural event for local people. Exhibitions and events are entirely in Spanish, with mostly Spanish, Italian or Portuguese exhibitors, and this year’s theme, ‘Silencio’ (silence), is a call to study the local landscape.

Silencio refers to the exploitation of the Canary Islands’ natural landscape, first as a means of production (mainly bananas), then as a product sold to tourists. The 1970s tourism boom resulted in a raft of badly constructed and ugly hotels littering the coastline, with subsequent developments climbing cliffs and expanding the beaches.

These eyesore developments are such a hot issue that the government currently has a bill in Parliament to freeze all new tourism developments on new land. Old hotels can be refurbished or replaced, but the natural landscape must be preserved – the president of the Canary Islands has said – because the island’s unique The concept is fascinating but the shows were a bit dull tourist economy depends on it.

If the concept is fascinating – the biennial as a multi-disciplinary, intensive study of the islands’ 30-year-old tango with tourism – most of the exhibitions were, frankly, a bit dull. The most interesting work, exhibited in Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria, was completed by the biennial’s internal research team, which used detailed maps, documentary photographs and statistics to study the pace and spread of development.

The photography exhibition at CAAM modern art gallery in Las Palmas was another bright spot – a collection of work that documented cities in transition, including Francesco Jodice’s photo series What We Want, which charters how changing cities reveal our desires.

The architectural projects exhibited at CAAM, however, (and this goes for several of the other venues as well) consisted of projects that were several years old, previously published and only tenuously linked to the biennial theme. Most exhibits had their plans crowded, with small type, on to large illuminated boards. Models, drawings or concept sketches were practically non-existent.

In the end, a visit to this fledgling biennial is an excuse, not a reason, to visit the Canary Islands. The ‘keep it local’ biennial concept has potential. If repeated, it could result in some fascinating site-specific work. But, while I did learn a lot about the pressing issues facing the islands – from the boat people that arrive daily from Africa, to internal tensions stemming from tourism and increased multiculturalism – much of this was gleaned from articles in the biennial programme guide. Hopefully the biennial catalogue, to be published later this year, will save punters a disappointing trip by reporting and expanding on the best of the work on show.

Work on show in the CAAM modern art gallery in Las Palmas

The Relationship of Structure to Building

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:20:00 +0000

The simplest way of describing the function of an architectural structure is to say that it is the part of a building which resists the loads that are imposed on it. A building may be regarded as simply an envelope which encloses and subdivides space in order to create a protected environment. The surfaces which form the envelope, that is the walls, the floors and the roof of the building, are subjected to various types of loading: external surfaces are exposed to the climatic loads of snow, wind and rain;floors are subjected to the gravitational loads of the occupants and their effects; and most of the surfaces also have to carry their own weight (Fig. 1). All of these loads tend to distort the building envelope and to cause it to collapse; it is to prevent this from happening that a structure is provided. The function of a structure may be summed up, therefore, as being to supply the strength and rigidity which are required to prevent a building from collapsing. More precisely, it is the part of a building which conducts the loads which are imposed on it from the points where they arise to the ground underneath the building, where they can ultimately be resisted.

Fig. 1. Loads on the building envelope. Gravitational loads due to snow and to the occupation of the building cause roof and floor structures to bend and induce compressive internal forces in walls. Wind causes pressure and suction loads to act on all external surfaces.

The location of the structure within a building is not always obvious because the structure can be integrated with the non-structural parts in various ways. Sometimes, a sin the simple example of an igloo (Fig. 2), in which ice blocks form a self-supporting protective dome, the structure and the space enclosing elements are one and the same thing. Sometimes the structural and space-enclosing elements are entirely separate. Avery simple example is the tepee (Fig. 3), in which the protecting envelope is a skin of fabric or hide which has insufficient rigidity to form an enclosure by itself and which is supported on a framework of timber poles.Complete separation of structure and envelope occurs here: the envelope is entirely non-structural and the poles have a purely structural function.

Fig. 2. The igloo is a self-supporting compressive envelope

Fig. 3. In the tepee a non-structural skin is supported

on a structural framework of timber poles.

The CNIT exhibition Hall in Paris (Fig. 4) is a sophisticated version of the igloo; the reinforced concrete shell which forms the main element of this enclosure is self-supporting and, therefore, structural. Separation of skin and structure occurs in the transparent walls,however, where the glass envelope is supported on a structure of mullions. The chapel by Le Corbusier at Ronchamp is a similar example. The highly sculptured walls and roof of this building are made from a combination of masonry and reinforced concrete and are self-supporting.They are at the same time the elements which define the enclosure and the structural elements which give it the ability to maintain its form and resist load. The very large ice hockey arena at Yale by Saarinen is yet another similar example. Here the building envelope consists of a network of steel cables which are suspended between three reinforced concrete arches, one in the vertical plane forming the spine of the building and two side arches almost in the horizontal plane. The composition of this building is more complex than in the previous cases because the suspended envelope can be broken down into the cable network, which has a purely structural function, and a non-structural cladding system. It might also be argued that the arches have a purely structural function and do not contribute directly to the enclosure of space.

Fig. 4. Exhibition Hall of the CNIT, Paris, France; Nicolas Esquillan, architect. The principal element is a self supporting reinforced concrete shell

Fig. 5. Modern art glass warehouse, Thamesmead, UK, 1973; Foster Associates, architects; Anthony Hunt Associates,
structural engineers. A non-structural skin of profiled metal sheeting is supported on a steel framework, which has a purely structural function.

The steel-frame warehouse by Foster Associates at Thames mead, UK (Fig. 5), is almost a direct equivalent of the tepee. The elements which form it are either purely structural or entirely non-structural because the corrugated sheet metal skin is entirely supported by the steel frame, which has a purely structural function. A similar breakdown may be seen in later buildings by the same architects, such as the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts at Norwich and the warehouse and showroom for the Renault car company at Swindon.

In most buildings the relationship between the envelope and the structure is more complicated than in the above examples, and frequently this is because the interior of the building is subdivided to a greater extent by internal walls and floors. For instance, in Foster Associates’ building for Willis, Faber and Dumas, Ipswich, UK (Fig 6), the reinforced concrete structure of floor slabs and columns may be thought of as having a dual function. The columns are purely structural, although they do punctuate the interior spaces and are space-dividing elements, to some extent. The floors are both structural and space-dividing elements. Here,however, the situation is complicated by the fact that the structural floor slabs are topped by non-structural floor finishing materials and have ceilings suspended underneath them. The floor finishes and ceilings could be regarded as the true space-defining elements and the slab itself as having a purely structural function.The glass walls of the building are entirely non-structural and have a space-enclosing function only. The more recent Carré d’Art building in Nîmes (Fig. 7), also by Foster Associates, has a similar disposition of parts.As at Willis, Faber and Dumas a multi-storey reinforced concrete structure supports an external non-load bearing skin.

Fig. 6. Willis, Faber and Dumas Office, Ipswich, UK,1974; Foster Associates, architects; Anthony Hunt Associates, structural engineers. The basic structure of this building is a series of reinforced concrete coffered slab floors supported on a grid of columns. The external walls are of glass and are non-structural. In the finished building the floor slabs are visible only at the perimeter.Elsewhere they are concealed by floor finishes and a false ceiling.

Fig. 7. Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France, 1993; Foster Associates, architects. A superb example of late twentieth-century Modernism. It has a reinforced concrete frame structure which supports a non-load bearing external skin of glass.

The Antigone building at Montpellier by Ricardo Bofill (Fig. 8) is also supported by a multi-storey reinforced concrete framework.The facade here consists of a mixture of in situ and pre-cast concrete elements, and this, like the glass walls of the Willis, Faber and Dumas building, relies on a structural framework of columns and floor slabs for support. Although this building appears to be much more solid than those with fully glazed external walls it was constructed in a similar way. The Ulm Exhibition and Assembly Building by Richard Meier (Fig. 9) is also supported by a reinforced concrete structure. Here the structural continuity and mouldability which concrete offers were exploited to create a complex juxtaposition of solid and void. The building is of the same basic type as those by Foster and Bofill however; a structural framework of reinforced concrete supports cladding elements which are non-structural.

Fig. 8. Antigone, Montpellier, France, 1983; Ricardo
Bofill, architect. This building is supported by a reinforced
concrete framework. The exterior walls are a combination
of in situ and pre-cast concrete. They carry their own weight
but rely on the interior framework for lateral support.

Fig. 9. Ulm Exhibition and Assembly Building,
Germany, 1986–93: Richard Meier & Partners, architects.
The mouldability of concrete and the structural continuity
which is a feature of this material are exploited here to
produce a complex juxtaposition of solid and void.
(Photo: E. & F. McLachlan)

In the Centre Pompidou in Paris by Piano and Rogers, a multi-storey steel framework is used to support reinforced concrete floors and non-load bearing glass walls. The breakdown of arts is straightforward (Fig. 10): identical plane-frames, consisting of long steel columns which rise through the entire height of the building supporting triangulated girders a teach floor level, are placed parallel to each other to form a rectangular plan. The concrete floors span between the triangulated girders.Additional small cast-steel girders project beyond the line of columns and are used to support stairs, escalators and servicing components positioned along the sides of the building outside the glass wall, which is attached to the frame near the columns. A system of cross-bracing on the sides of the framework prevents it from collapsing through instability.

Fig. 10 Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 1977; Piano &
Rogers, architects; Ove Arup & Partners, structural
engineers. The separation of structural and enclosing
functions into distinct elements is obvious here

The controlled disorder of the rooftop office extension in Vienna by Coop Himmelblau (Fig. 11) is in some respects a complete contrast to the controlled order of the Centre Pompidou. Architecturally it is quite different,expressing chaos rather than order, but structurally it is similar as the light external envelope is supported on a skeletal metal framework.

Fig. 11 Rooftop office in Vienna, Austria, 1988; Coop
Himmelblau, architects. The forms chosen here have no
structural logic and were determined with almost no
consideration for technical requirements. This approach
design is quite feasible in the present day so long as the
building is not too large

The house with masonry walls and timber floor and roof structures is a traditional form of building in most parts of the world. It is found in many forms, from the historic grand houses of the European landed aristocracy (Fig. 12) to modern homes in the UK (Figs 13 and 14).Even the simplest versions of this form of masonry and timber building (Fig. 13) are fairly complex assemblies of elements. Initial consideration could result in a straight forward breakdown of parts with the masonry walls and timber floors being regarded as having both structural and space-dividing functions and the roof as consisting of a combination of the purely supportive trusses, which are the structural elements, and the purely protective, non-structural skin. Closer examination would reveal that most of the major elements can in fact be subdivided into parts which are either purely structural or entirely non-structural. The floors,for example, normally consist of an inner core of timber joists and floor boarding, which are the structural elements, enclosed by ceiling and floor finishes. The latter are the non-structural elements which are seen to divide the space. A similar breakdown is possible for the walls and in fact very little of what is visible in the traditional house is structural, as most of the structural elements are covered by non-structural finishes.

Fig. 12. Château de Chambord, France, 1519–47. One of the grandest domestic buildings in Europe, the Château de Chambord has a load bearing masonry structure. Most of the walls are structural; the floors are either of timber or vaulted
masonry and the roof structure is of timber

Fig. 13. Traditional construction in the
UK, in its twentieth-century form, with
load bearing masonry walls and timber
floor and roof structures. All structural
elements are enclosed in non-structural
finishing materials

To sum up, these few examples of very different building types demonstrate that all buildings contain a structure, the function of which is to support the building envelope by conducting the forces which are applied to it from the points where they arise in the building to the ground below it where they are ultimately resisted. Sometimes the structure is indistinguishable from the enclosing and space-dividing building envelope, sometimes it is entirely separate from it; most often there is a mixture of elements with structural, non-structural and combined functions. In all cases the form of the structure is very closely related to that of the building taken as a whole and the elegance with which the structure fulfils its function is something which affects the quality of the architecture.

Fig. 14. Local authority housing, Haddington, Scotland,
1974; J. A. W. Grant, architects. These buildings have
load bearing masonry walls and timber floor and roof
structures

Working with Aluminum Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:57:00 +0000

Before these limitations are reached, however, cost and availability may be overriding considerations. A number of techniques can be employed to minimize extrusion cost:

1) Minimize the size of the smallest circle that encloses the section. Sometimes this can be done by extruding a folded version of the section desired and then unfolding it after extruding by rolling or bending.
2) Avoid hollows where possible. They require more complex dies and are more difficult to extrude.
3) Avoid large differences in wall thickness in different parts of the cross section. For 6063, the largest ratio of maximum to minimum wall thickness should be 3:1; for 6061-T6, use 2:1.
4) Keep the perimeter-to-cross-sectional area ratio as low as possible. Some extruders estimate costs based on this ratio.
5) Avoid sharp corners, using generous fillets or rounding where possible.
6) Ask extruders which changes to a proposed section would reduce cost.

Extruded structural shapes can perform additional functions by incorporating some of these features :

1) Interlocking Sections: Extrusions can be designed to interlock with other extrusions to facilitate connections. Several kinds of extrusion interlocks exist. Some are designed to act like hinges (Figure 5a), with one piece being slid into the other from one end. Other extrusions are designed with nested interlocks that align parts, which are then fastened together (Figure 5b). Still others are designed as friction fit or snap-lock interlocks, which require the parts to deform elastically to fit together (Figure 5c). Unlike the first two joints, the friction fit joint cannot be disassembled without destroying the parts. None of these interlocks are considered to transmit enough longitudinal shear to enable the parts to act as a unit structurally without other means of fastening (133). To prevent longitudinal slippage at significant loads requires a fit too tight to make with parts extruded to standard tolerances.

Figure 5. Examples of extruded interlocks

2) Skid-Resistant Surfaces: Although the extrusion process is only capable of producing longitudinal features in a cross section, skid-resistant surfaces are routinely made with extrusions. This is achieved by extruding small triangular ribs on the surface (Figure 6), and then notching the ribs in the transverse direction after extruding. Extruders may perform the notching economically by running a ribbed roller over the ridges.

3) Indexing Marks: Shallow grooves extruded in parts can indicate where a line of holes is to be punched or drilled. These marks (raised or grooved) can also be used to identify the extruder, distinguish an inside from an outside surface, or distinguish parts otherwise similar in appearance. Dimensions for a typical indexing mark are shown in Figure 7.

4) Screw Chases: A ribbed slot (also called a screw chase or boss) can be extruded to receive a screw. This may be used, for example, to attach a batten bar to a frame member (Figure 8). A method for calculating the amount of lateral frictional resistance to sliding of a screw in a chase is given in AAMA TIR-A9-1991 (34). This calculation must be performed if the design considers both of the connected parts to act as a continuous section. The dimensions of the screw chase are a function of screw dimensions and strength. If the screw chase is too narrow, the head of the screw may break off before the
screw is fully driven. If the chase is too wide, the ribs of the chase may strip during fastener installation. The maximum screw torque before stripping is fairly sensitive to the chase width. The narrow dimension of the chase should be less than the root diameter of the screw. The dimensions used successfully for a screw chase for a -20 UNC screw are shown in Figure 9.

Figure 6. Skid-resistant surface achieved by transverse notching of extruded ribs

Figure 7. Typical dimensions for an extruded indexing or identification mark

Figure 8. Use of a screw chase to connect extruded parts. (Courtesy of Conservatek
Industries, Inc.)

5) Gasket Retaining Grooves or Guides: In curtain wall, fenestration, and other applications, elastomeric gaskets are often required between parts. By extruding a groove in the metal that matches a protrusion on a gasket, you can eliminate the need for field assembly or adhesives. Usually the gasket is press-fit into the extrusion in the shop. Dimensions for such a detail are shown in Figure 10. Care must be taken to avoid stretching the gasket during installation to prevent contraction of the gasket in the field to a length shorter than required.

6) Extrusions as a Substitute for Plate: Plate costs about 1 times the cost 1–2 of extrusions, so it’s desirable to utilize extrusions rather than plate wherever possible. Extruding to final width dimensions also eliminates the need to cut plate to the desired width, thereby saving fabrication costs. Extruded bars are available from a number of extruders through about 18 in. [457 mm] widths or more, depending on thickness.

7) Non-prismatic Extrusions: Extrusions may have different cross sections along their length when stepped extrusion methods are used. The smallest section is extruded first, the die is changed, and a larger section that contains the full area of the smaller section is extruded next. This method is used on aircraft wings to minimize the amount of machining needed to produce tapered members. Other tapered members, such as light poles, may be produced by spinning. Set-up costs for these methods are high, so they tend to be used only on parts that will be produced in quantity.

Figure 9. Dimensions for a screw chase for a 1/4 in. diameter screw

Figure 10. Dimensions to allow a gasket to be press fit into an extruded slot

8) Grooves for Fasteners: Grooves can be extruded to permit screw heads to be flush with the surface of an extrusion to avoid the need for countersinking the fastener hole. Groove widths sized to a bolt head flat width can also be used to prevent rotation of the bolt during tightening of the nut. Another use for grooves is to reduce the loss of cross-sectional area that occurs at holes (Figure 11).

9) Integral Backing for Welds: As shown in Figure 12, built-in backing for longitudinal welds along an extrusion edge can be provided, eliminating the need for separate backing and the need to hold it in place during welding.

Hollow Extruded Shapes If you’re like most people, you may need a moment of head scratching to imagine how hollow extruded shapes are possible. Extruders use three methods :

Figure 11. Use of an extruded groove in a line of bolts to secure the bolt heads
from spinning, and to reduce the loss of effective net area in the cross section

Figure 12 Extruded integral backing for a weld. (Courtesy of the Aluminum
Association)

1) Solid Billet and a Porthole Die: In this method, the metal is divided into two or more streams by the supports for the mandrel that forms the hollow portion of the shape. The metal must reunite (sometimes referred to as ‘‘welding’’) behind the supports before it flows through the die, outlining the perimeter of the shape.

2) Solid Billet and a Piercer Operating Through a Hollow Ram: This method avoids the seams inherent in the porthole die approach and, thus, produces a seamless extrusion.

3) Hollow Billet with a Die and Mandrel: This method also produces a seamless extrusion, but it is rarely used.

The material specification identifies if hollow extrusions must be seamless (for example, ASTM B241 Aluminum and Aluminum-Alloy Seamless Pipe and Seamless Extruded Tube) (53). Do seamless hollow shapes have better structural properties than shapes with seams? The answer is no, not with respect to material properties; the minimum strengths for porthole die produced hollow extrusions are the same (all other things being equal) as those for seamless extrusions. For properly extruded shapes, seams do not appear to have any adverse effect on structural performance, such as burst pressure or fatigue.

Working with Aluminum (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:54:00 +0000

Now that you’ve heard about aluminum, you may want to know what it looks like. We’ll describe it, beginning with the forms in which it is produced, how these forms are shaped and altered to become structural components, and how these components can be dressed up with coatings. We will include some comments on how this process differs from the preparation of steel for duty and will conclude with a few suggestions on how to put the structural components in to place. This chapter, then, presents the product forms in which aluminum is most commonly used for structural components, and how these product forms are fabricated and erected.

1. PRODUCT FORMS

The forms of aluminum used in structural components include extrusions, flat-rolled products, castings, and forgings. The most widely used of these forms are extrusions and the flat-rolled products, sheet and plate. Castings typically have less reliable properties than the wrought product forms, and forgings are often more expensive to produce than other wrought forms. Castings and forgings do, however, lend themselves to more complex shapes than extrusions and flat-rolled products.

1.1 Extrusions

Introduction What do aluminum and Play-Doh have in common? They can both be extruded, of course (Figure 1). Extrusions are produced by pushing solid material through an opening called a die to form parts with complex cross sections. Aluminum is not the only metal fabricated this way, but it is the most readily and commonly extruded. (Stainless steel can also be extruded, but it requires such great pressures that only small and simple stainless shapes can be made). The extrusion process makes aluminum an extremely versatile material for structural design. Rather than being limited to the standard rolled shapes, designers can concoct their own cross sections, putting material where it is needed. Solid and hollow cross sections, even sections with multiple hollows, can be readily extruded (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Engineer of the future extruding a Play-Doh I-beam. (Play-Doh is a
registered trademark of Kenner.)

Figure 2. Examples of complex extruded shapes. (Courtesy of Cardinal Aluminum
Co.)

While extrusions dominate applications for parts with a constant cross section, bar and rod are also produced by rolling, and tubes and wire by drawing, a process by which material is pulled (as opposed to pushed) through a die to change the cross section or harden the material. Cold-finishing may be used to improve surface finish and dimensional tolerances. Sometimes a combination of methods is used; for example, tube may be extruded and then drawn; bar may be rolled and then cold-finished. Products that have been cold-finished or drawn are held to tighter tolerances on cross-sectional dimensions than extruded products.

Standard Extruded Shapes Before World War II, most aluminum shapes were produced by rolling, like steel, and so had cross sections similar to those of steel. Many of these shapes had sloped flanges that facilitated rolling but complicated connection details. Wartime and postwar demand for aluminum products prompted better production techniques, especially extrusions, which eventually displaced much of the rolled production. Since extrusions are not subject to the limitations of the rolling process, the need for sloped flanges was gone. Extrusions continued to be produced in shapes that looked like rolled products, however, because these shapes were standard. Around 1970
the Aluminum Association introduced standard channel and I-beam shapes designed to be extruded, with constant thickness flanges and optimum dimensions for strength (Figure 3). Today, almost no aluminum shapes are produced by rolling. Many of the old cross sections suited to production by rolling are still shown in catalogs, however, even though today they are extruded, not rolled.

Figure 3. Rolled shape with sloped flanges, and extruded shape with constant thickness
flanges.

A number of common extruded shapes are shown in extruders’ catalogs. Some of these shapes, as well as the Aluminum Association standard shapes, are included among those listed in the Aluminum Design Manual, Part VI, Section Properties. Extruders usually maintain an inventory of dies. Some are proprietary and, thus, are for the exclusive use of a particular customer; others are called open dies, and these are the shapes shown in catalogs and available to any paying customer.

The Aluminum Association has established standard extruded I-beam and channel shapes, as mentioned above, in depths from 2 to 12 in. (They are not available in hard metric sizes.) These sections are efficient for structural applications and are produced by a number of extruders. Appendix B contains dimensions and section properties for these shapes, called Aluminum Association standard channels and I beams. Design data for these shapes is given in Appendices D and E.

Aluminum pipe, with the same dimensions as steel pipe of the same nominal size and schedule, is also extruded, in diameters up to 12 in. Dimensions and section properties are listed in Table 1. Aluminum pipe is usually 6061-T6 alloy, but it is also produced in 3003-H18 (but only under 1 in. nominal pipe size), 3003-H112, and 6063-T6.

Custom Extruded Shapes Sometimes the Aluminum Association or other standard shapes are impractical or inefficient for a specific application. In these cases, users may design their own shapes. Keep in mind that some limitations exist :

1) Minimum Thickness: The minimum thickness is a function of a number of factors, including the circle size (larger shapes require larger wall thickness) and whether a shape is hollow or solid. Table 2. provides approximate guidelines, but actual limits depend on the shape and the extruder. Elongation testing is not performed for shapes less than 0.062 in. [1.6 mm] thick.

2) Maximum Length: Extrusions can be produced up to 100 ft [30 m] long, but 40 ft [12 m] is generally the practical limit for extrusions shipped by truck. Structural shapes available from metal supply warehouses usually are stocked in 20 ft or 25 ft [6 m or 7.5 m] maximum lengths.

3) Maximum Circle Size: Extrusions are produced from billets, which are usually cylindrically shaped. Because of this, extrusion cross-section size is usually limited to that which fits within a circle. Larger extrusion presses use larger circle size dies. There are numerous 10 in. [250 mm] and smaller presses, about a dozen mills with presses larger than 12 in. [300 mm], while the largest in North America is 31 in. [790 mm]. Because of production limitations, an extrusion typically cannot fill the full area of the circle, but rather only part of the circle area (Figure 4).

4) Maximum Area: The largest cross-sectional area that can be extruded is about 125 in2 [80,600 mm2].

5) Maximum Weight: The maximum total weight of an extrusion is limited by the weight of a billet to about 4,300 lb [2,000 kg].

TABLE 1. Diameters, Wall Thicknesses, Weights—Pipe

TABLE 1. Diameters,Wall Thicknesses,Weights—Pipe(continued)

TABLE 1. Diameters, Wall Thicknesses, Weights—Pipe (continued)

➀ In accordance with ANSI/ASME Standards B36.10M and B36.19M.
➁ Based on standard tolerances for pipe .
➂ Based on nominal dimensions, plain ends, and a density of 0.098 lb per cu in., the density of 6061 alloy. For alloy 6063, multiply by 0.99, and for alloy 3003 multiply by 1.011.
④ For schedules 5 and 10, these values apply to mean outside diameters.$

TABLE 2a. Approximate Minimum Thicknesses for 6061 and 6063
Solid Extrusions

TABLE 2b. Approximate Minimum Thicknesses for 6061 and 6063
Hollow Extrusions

Figure 4. Useable portion of an extrusion circle size. Extrusion profiles must generally
fit within the area indicated by the dotted line

Value Management

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:41:00 +0000

1. INTRODUCTION

Value management (VM), value engineering (VE) and value analysis (VA), are terms that are being used more and more frequently; but what do they mean? Most design organizations have a concern for value and have processes and design reviews to address owner requirements and the cost of any proposed scheme. Capital cost is certainly one element of value but general experience indicates that the cheapest is not always the best and a broader understanding of value is needed.

It is increasingly recognized that not only do design organizations need to provide assets that meet the owner's specification and are built to time and within budget but that the potential project maximizes the benefit to the owner's business. At the earliest stages of project thinking the owner specification is an expression of a number of perceived and/or actual 'needs'. As design proceeds and the cost of meeting those needs emerges it is often necessary to recycle the design to provide a scheme that is more acceptable to the owner. In the same way, as design proceeds, additional opportunities can be generated that could bring additional benefits to the owner's business.

It is a key role of the design organization to enter this debate of value and need at the earliest stages of design. Experience shows that 'loose discussion' and 'asking the owner what is wanted' is unlikely to be enough, and design organizations need to be able to get close to the owner, under- stand the needs and provide solutions which not only give good capital value but also enhance the business. It is this presentation of need and cost in a different form that VM techniques address. VM and associated techniques should not be seen as displacing normal design reviews but as providing a different perspective to the owner which is not apparent from the normal engineering specification and cost estimate.

2. DEFINITION OF VALUE

Value can be described as the relationship between satisfaction of need and the cost of resources required to achieve that satisfaction. This can be expressed as:

value = satisfaction of need

cost of resources

From this relationship it is clear that value can be enhanced by improving the level of satisfaction as well as reducing the resources needed. In some cases the level of satisfaction might be improved to such a degree that an increase in resources is justified. In most cases capital cost is an important resource but operating and lifecycle costs and availability of skills could figure in the equation.

It is worth recognizing that different interests in a project have different needs; for instance a factory manager could be looking for ease of maintenance while the sales manager might value a quicker order lead time. VM techniques seek to provide mechanisms by which these differing interests and needs can be brought together.

3. VM DEFINITIONS

Although the terms value management, value analysis and value engineering are widely used, there is not total agreement on definitions. The European Union is working on an overall approach to the understanding, practice and training for value management within the EU and clarification of terms is expected.

However, it is generally accepted that VM covers a range of value improving practices, particularly those used for early conceptual thinking and the 'softer' front end issues of a project, while VA and VE are more usually used to cover studies of the traditional 'harder' issues at the later stages of design. Commonly, the term VE is used for studies at the project cost level with VA used to describe more detailed component analysis. However, some organizations transpose these terms.

It is possible to consider four broad levels of review as shown in Figure 1. The cost of change at the later stages of design is also greater as design proceeds. Although obvious, this point is often forgotten and expectations can be created that VENA studies at the later stages of design will deliver substantial cost-benefit opportunities. This is unlikely as major changes cannot usually be tolerated because the delay and cost of making changes is unacceptable. This often results in only minor changes of a cost cutting nature being made, which should have been identified by normal design/cost reviews. Thus the distinctive contribution that VM can make is not realized, and at worst the VM process is devalued.

Figure 1. Levels of review

The reviews can be described as below:

A technology/business review confirms the business strategy and establishes a broad understanding of the technology and overall operating and other requirements.

A conceptual review establishes or confirms the overall project scope and, if orders of cost are available, confirms that the broad design and requirements are considered 'good value'.

A project cost review is a more detailed examination of a proposed scheme carried out when the specific engineering elements have been specified and can be looked at to confirm that the design is optimal in meeting the requirements defined at the concept stage.

A plant item or component review considers the design of specific items.

4. TIMING OF STUDIES

The opportunity to make savings or other changes diminishes as the project approaches detail design and financial authorization is given for purchase of equipment and other engineering works - see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Opportunity/cost of change relationship within project timetable

5. VALUE MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY AND JOB PLAN

In general VM embraces three elements which together provide the uniqueness of the approach. These are :

1. team based working;

2. a structured 'job plan';

3. use of the principle of 'functionality' or 'need'.

The first two are not unique and are characteristics of many problem solving techniques. The latter is the distinguishing feature of most forms of VMIVENA techniques. 'Functionality' is used to describe what the component, system, plant or project is trying to achieve. For example, the 'function' of a door might be to provide privacy, provide security, create the right image or a combination of all three. This distinction provided by using 'functional' descriptions is not apparent from the engineering description 'door'. Describing components in this way enables costs of items fulfilling the same function to be added together, thus allowing the owner to understand the overall cost of that function. Taking the previous example, it might be that if an element of the door is primarily for image then other elements that are there for the same reasons can also be included within the functional description. A better understanding of the overall costs and options for providing the image function can be assessed - including that for the managing director's office! 'Functional' descriptions also differ from conventional engineering descriptions in that many items of equipment fulfil more than one function without this distinction being apparent from the cost estimate.

The principle of functionality can also be used to help develop the scope of a proposed project. A successful chemical plant project will not just have the main process function of 'react feed stocks' but will probably have other process functions such as 'recover materials', 'remove impurities', 'achieve product form', etc. There will also be functions such as 'ensure operability', 'make safe', 'protect the environment', 'provide for the future', 'improve customer service', etc. These are all typical functions for a process plant, the costs of which are not apparent from a normal engineering specification and cost estimate. It is these other functions that determine whether an asset will be 'world class' or ahead of the competition and not just a copy of that being used by others. It is critical, therefore, that these functions are properly defined and explored.

It is normal to present functional descriptions in the form of a FAST - functional analysis system technique - diagram. A feature of this type of diagram is that the hierarchy of needs/functions enables costs and opportunities to be understood at different levels. An example of a FAST diagram for a chemical plant is shown in Figure 3. From this it can be seen that 'assure product quality' could be considered at different levels, i.e. change the product specification, change the process technology to give a more effective process, change the equipment type or change the detail design of the selected equipment. All of these present opportunities with different levels of ease of implementation and trade off. This form of presentation gives an enhanced view of the project that is not apparent from a normal engineering estimate.

Figure 3. Typical FAST diagram

A feature of the FAST diagram is that it is developed from the left-hand side by asking 'how?' and from the right-hand side by asking 'why?' It is this questioning that enables the fundamental purpose to be established. For instance, asking 'why a distillation column?' could give a variety of answers including: 'remove impurities', 'recover material' or 'concentrate the product'. These different descriptions give a quite different perspective of the need for a distillation column and the possible options, e.g. different process, equipment, operating (get someone else to do it) or commercial. A further feature of the FAST diagram which leads to greater clarity is the use of 'verb-noun' descriptions of functions. For instance 'increase product quality', might probably require a quite different solution from 'maintain product quality'.

5.1. The Job Plan

The job plan helps to work in an ordered and systematic way. The main phases of the job plan that are commonly used during design development are as follows.

Information phase

The information phase involves defining the project, gathering the available information, establishing constraints and carrying out a function analysis to describe 'What is it we want the project to do?' rather than 'What are the physical components of the project?' It is at the start of this phase that the level of study and potential team members should be defined.

Creative phase

During the creative phase the team uses the functional descriptions, normally presented in the form of a 'function' or 'FAST diagram' to explore alternative ways for accomplishing the desired functions. 'Brainstorming' is usually used to generate ideas.

Evaluation and analytical phase

The ideas generated during the previous phase are screened and evaluated by the team during the evaluation and analytical phase. Normally, some form of decision evaluation technique would be used to help during this phase.

Development and recommendation phase

During the development and recommendation phase the team reviews the selected ideas and agrees on the proposals to be adopted or requiring further investigation.

Presentation phase

The presentation phase involves the presentation of the agreed design proposal including any outstanding developments.

Implementation phase

It is important to see that the recommendations are developed and progressed during the implementation phase. Often, a lot of energy is put into the first five phases over a fairly short period but as implementation is over a longer period and involves people not involved in the initial review, momentum can be lost.

The job plan is not meant to be prescriptive but is there to help a team to work systematically through the design phase. Judgement is needed to structure the job plan to suit the level of study and complexity of the project.

5.2 The study team and resource

There is a view that studies interrupt the design process. The opposite is the case. Properly set up studies enable the interested parties to come together and conduct a comprehensive and orderly review of the project, particularly at the early stages of design. In many cases the study can take the place of normal design reviews and team meetings. Reviews present the opportunity for people not normally engaged in the design process to be involved. It is only the owner and interested parties that represent the owner's various interests that can change the scope of the project, the engineering team can make recommendations, and then only if they understand the wider aspects of the project.

As for most team based activities, the size of the study is important. Too many or too few participants results in the study being unmanageable or there not being sufficient interaction of ideas. A team of five to eight people is ideal and selecting the team often gives a good insight into who is really important in the project decision process.

The formal team based stages of a study, i.e. construction of the function diagram, speculation and evaluation, can normally be carried out over a half to two days for each phase with breaks to summarize and generate more data. Thus, over a period of one to two weeks, most small to medium- sized projects can be reviewed. In some cases a very detailed analysis of a large scheme down to the component level will take longer, but note needs to be made of previous comments on the opportunity to make significant changes.

6. CONCLUSION

Although the value management techniques that have been described are based on well-established and proven techniques there is the need to recognize that the experience and track record of the 'study leader' is critical to success. For any individual to become proficient and suitably experienced it is recommended that study leaders should be carrying out approximately one study a month. There is the temptation to believe that engineers and designers who have attended a VM training course are able to lead VM reviews. The experience needed to underwrite a sound theoretical under- standing of the techniques can only - as in any activity - be gained through practice and the personal learning that takes place. The techniques need to be used flexibly and with imagination: a too mechanistic application can sometimes miss the issue and the study leader needs to be aware when to adapt the technique to draw out the real issues. This requires the study leader to be able to draw on other techniques and methodologies to support development of solutions to the issues raised by the formal 'function' analysis.

The Relationship Between Structural Form and Structural Efficiency

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:58:00 +0000

1. Introduction

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between structural form and structural performance. In particular, the effect of structural geometry on the efficiency1withwhich particular levels of strength and rigidity can be achieved is explored.The shapes of structural elements,especially the shapes of their longitudinal axes in relation to the pattern of applied load, determine the types of internal force which occur within them and influence the magnitudes of these forces. These two factors – the type and the magnitude of the internal force created by a given application of load – have a marked effect on the level of structural efficiency which can be achieved because they determine the amount of material which must be provided to give the elements adequate strength and rigidity. A classification system for structural elements is proposed here based on the relationship between form and efficiency. Its purpose is to aid the understanding of the role of structural elements in determining the performance of complete structures. It therefore provides a basis for the reading of a building as a structural object.

2. The effect of form on internal force

Type Elements in architectural structures are subjected principally either to axial internal force or to bending-type internal force. They may also be subjected to a combination of these. The distinction between axial and bending is an important one, so far as efficiency is concerned, because axial internal force can be resisted more efficiently than bending-type internal force. The principal reason for this is that the distribution of stress which occurs within the cross-sections of axially loaded elements is more or less constant, and this uniform level of stress allows all of the material in the element to be stressed to its limit. A size of cross-section is selected which ensures that the level of stress is as high as the material concerned can safely withstand and an efficient use of material therefore results because all of the material present provides full value for its weight. With bending stress, which varies in intensity in all cross-sections (Fig. 1) from a minimum at the neutral axis to a maximum at the extreme fibres, only the material at the extreme fibres can be stressed to its limit. Most of the material present is under stressed and therefore inefficiently used.The type of internal force which occurs in an element depends on the relationship between the direction of its principal axis (its longitudinal axis) and the direction of the load which is applied to it (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1 (a) Elements which carry purely axial load are subjected

to axial stress whose intensity is constanta cross all cross-sectional planes.

(b) Pure bending-typeload (i.e. load which is normal to the axis of the element)causes bending stress to occur on all cross-sectional planes. The magnitude of this varies within each cross-section from a maximum compressive stress at one extremity to a maximum tensile stress at the other.

Fig. 2 Basic relationships between loads and structural elements.

(a) Load coincident with principal axis; axial internal force.

(b) Loadperpendicular to the principal axis; bending-type internal force.

(c) Load inclined to the principal axis; combined axial and bending-typeinternal force

If an element is straight, axial internal force occurs if the load is applied parallel to the longitudinal axis of the element. Bending-type internal force occurs if it is applied at right angles to the longitudinal axis. If the load is applied obliquely, a combination of axial and bending stress occurs.The axial-only and bending-only cases are in fact special cases of the more general combined case, but they are nevertheless the most commonly found types of loading arrangement in architectural structures.If an element is not straight, it will almost inevitably be subjected to a combination of axial and bending internal forces when a load is applied, but there are important exceptions to this as is illustrated in Fig. 4.3. Here, the structural element consists of a flexible cable,supported at its ends, and from which various loads are suspended. Because the cable has no rigidity it is incapable of carrying any other type of internal force but axial tension; it is therefore forced by the loads into a shape which allows it to resist the loads with an internal force which is pure axial tension. The shape traced by the longitudinal axis is unique to the load pattern and is called the ‘form-active’2shape for that load.

Fig. 4.3 Tensile form-active shapes. Because it has no

rigidity a cable must take up a shape – the form-active

shape – which allows it to resist the load with a purely

tensile internal force. Different load arrangements produce

different form-active shapes

As is seen in Fig. 4.3 the shape which the cable adopts is dependent on the pattern of load which is applied; the form-active shape is straight-sided when the loads are concentrated at individual points and curved if the load is distributed along it. If a cable is allowed simply to sag under its own weight, which is a distributed load acting along its entire length, it adopts a curve known as a ‘catenary’ (Fig. 4.3).

An interesting feature of the form-active shape for any load pattern is that if a rigid element is constructed whose longitudinal axis is the mirror image of the form-active shape taken up by the cable, then it too will be subjected exclusively to axial internal forces when the same load is applied, despite the fact that, being rigid, it could also carry a bending-type internal force. In the mirror-image form all the axial internal forces are compressive (Fig.4.4).

Fig. 4.4 Compressive form-active shapes

The cable structure and its rigid ‘mirror image’ counterpart are simple examples of a whole class of structural elements which carry axial internal forces because their longitudinal axes conform to the form-active shapes for the loads which are applied to them. These are called ‘form-active’ elements.

If, in a real structure, a flexible material such as steel wire or cable is used to make an element, it will automatically take up the form-active shape when load is applied. Flexible material is in fact incapable of becoming anything other than a form-active element. If the material is rigid, however, and a form-active element is required, then it must be made to conform to the form-active shape for $the load which is to be applied to it or, in the case of a compressive element, to the mirror image of the form-active shape. If not, the internal force will not be pure axial force and some bending will occur.

Figure 4.5 shows a mixture of form-activeand non-form-active shapes. Two load patterns are illustrated: a uniformly distributed loadacross the whole of the element and twoconcentrated loads applied at equal distancesacross them. For each load, elements (a) carrypure bending-type internal forces; no axialforce can occur in these because there is nocomponent of either load which is parallel tothe axis of the element. The elements in (b)have shapes which conform exactly to theform-active shapes of the loads. They aretherefore form-active elements which carryaxial internal forces only; in both cases theforces are compressive. The elements (c) donot conform to the form-active shapes for theloads and will not therefore carry pure axialinternal force. Neither will they be subjected topure bending; they will carry a combination ofbending and axial internal force.

Fig. 4.5 Examples of the relationship between elementshape, load pattern and element type. The latter isdetermined by the relationship between the shape of theelement and the form-active shape for the load patternwhich it carries. (a) Non-form-active (bending stress only).(b) Form-active (axial stress only). (c) Semi-form-active(combined bending and axial stress).

So far as the shape of their longitudinalaxes are concerned, structural elements canthus be classified into three categories: form-active elements, non-form-active elementsand semi-form-active elements. Form-activeelements are those which conform to theform-active shape of the load pattern which isapplied to them and they contain axialinternal forces only. Non-form-activeelements are those whose longitudinal axisdoes not conform to the form-active shape ofthe loads and is such that no axialcomponent of internal force occurs. Thesecontain bending-type internal force only.Semi-form-active elements are elementswhose shapes are such that they contain acombination of bending and axial internalforces.

It is important to note that structuralelements can only be form-active in thecontext of a particular load pattern. There areno shapes which are form-active per se. Thecranked beam shape in Fig. 4.5, for example, isa fully form-active element when subjected tothe two concentrated loads, but a semi-form-active element when subjected to theuniformly distributed load.

Form-active shapes are potentially the mostefficient types of structural element and non-form-active shapes the least efficient. Theefficiency of semi-form-active elements depends on the extent to which they aredifferent from the form-active shape.

4.3 The concept of ‘improved’shapes in cross-section andlongitudinal profile

It will be remembered from the beginning ofSection 4.2 that the main reason for the lowefficiency of elements in which bending-typeinternal forces occur is the uneven distributionof stress which exists within every cross-section. This causes the material in the centreof the cross-section, adjacent to the neutralaxis (see Appendix 2), to be under-stressedand therefore inefficiently used. The efficiencyof an element can be improved if some of theunder-stressed material is removed and thiscan be achieved by a judicious choice ofgeometry in both cross-section andlongitudinal profile.

Fig. 4.7 The effect of cross-sectional shape on the efficiency with which bending-type load is resisted. (a)Thin card which has an inefficient rectangular cross-section. (b) Thin card folded to give an efficient ‘improved’ cross-section. (c) Thick card with inefficient rectangular cross-section and having equivalent strength and stiffness to the folded thin card

A similar situation exists with slab-type elements. Solid slabs are much less efficient in their use of material than those in which material is removed from the interior, as can be demonstrated by carrying out a simple experiment with card (Fig. 4.7). A flat piece of thin card has a very low bending strength. If the card is arranged into a folded or corrugated geometry the bending strength is greatly increased. The card with the folded or corrugated cross-section has a strength which is equivalent to that of a solid card with the same total depth; it is, however, much lighter and therefore more efficient.

In general, cross-sections in which material is located away from the centre are more efficient in carrying bending-type loads than solid cross-sections. Solid cross-sections are,of course, much simpler to make and for this reason have an important place in the field of architectural structures, but they are poor performers compared to the I- or box-shaped cross-section so far as structural efficiency is concerned. In the classification which will be proposed here, these two categories of cross-section are referred to as ‘simple solid’ and‘improved’ cross-sections.

The shape of an element in longitudinal profile can be manipulated in a similar way to its cross-section to improve its performance in resisting bending-type loads. The adjustment can take the form of alteration to the overall shape of the profile or to its internal geometry.

Fig. 4.8 The efficiency of a non-form-active element can be improved if its longitudinal profile is adjusted to conform tothe bending moment diagram so that high strength isprovided only where the internal force is high

To improve efficiency the overall shape is adjusted by varying the depth of the element:this is the dimension on which bending strength principally depends (see Appendix 2).If the depth is varied according to the intensity of bending (specifically to the magnitude of the bending moment) then a more efficient use of material is achieved than if a constant depth of cross-section is used. Figure 4.8 shows two beam profiles which have been improved in this way. They are deep at the locations where the bending moment is high and shallow where it is low.

The internal geometry of the longitudinal profile can also be improved by altering it to remove under-stressed material from the interior of the element. Examples of elements in which this has been done are shown in Fig.4.9. As in the case of cross-sectional shape the internal geometry of the longitudinal profile of an element will be referred to here as ‘simple solid’ or ‘improved’.

Fig. 4.9 The efficiency of non-form-active elements can be improved by selecting a shape in longitudinal profile inwhich material is removed from the under stressed centre

of the element

One type of ‘improved’ profile which is of great importance in architectural as well as all other types of structure is the triangulated profile (i.e. the profile which consists entirely of triangles) (Fig. 4.10). If an element of this type has loads applied to it at the vertices of the triangles only, then the individual sub-elements which form the triangles are subjected to axial internal forces only3(Figs4.11 and 4.12). This applies no matter what the relationship is between the pattern of loads and the longitudinal axis of the element, taken as a whole.

Fig. 4.10 A solid beam is less strong and rigid than a triangulated structure of equivalent weight

Fig. 4.11 An alteration of the geometry of a triangle can only occur if the length of one of the sides changes.Application of load to a triangle, which tends to distort its geometry, is therefore resisted by axial internal forces in the elements

Fig. 4.12 The axial-internal-force-only condition does not occur if load is applied to a triangulated structure other than at its joints

By eliminating bending stress from non-form-active elements the triangulated internal geometry allows a high degree of structural efficiency to be achieved. The advantage of the triangulated element over the other class of element for which this is true – the form-active element – is that no special overall form is required to produce the axial-stress-only condition. All that is required is that the internal geometry be fully triangulated and the external load applied only at the joints.Triangulated elements do not, however,achieve quite such a high degree of structural efficiency as form-active structures due to the relatively high level of internal force which occurs.

Certain bending-type elements with‘improved’ cross-sections are referred to as‘stressed skin’, ‘monocoque’ or ‘semi-monocoque’ elements to distinguish them from skeletal elements which consist of a framework of structural sub-elements covered by non-structural skin. The distinction is perhaps best seen in the field of aeronautical engineering by comparison of the structure of a fabric-covered ‘stick-and-string’ biplane with that of an all-metal aircraft (Fig. 4.13). In each case the fuselage is a structure which carries bending as well as other types of internal force, notably torsion. Aircraft structures must,of course, have a very high ratio of strength to weight. Form-active or semi-form-active arrangements are impractical, however, because the overall shapes of aircraft are determined from aerodynamic rather than structural considerations. The structures are therefore non-form-active and must have‘improved’ internal structures so as to meet the required levels of efficiency.

Fig. 4.13 The overall shapes of aircraft are determined
mainly from non-structural considerations, principally
aerodynamic performance requirements. The supporting
structures are therefore non-form-active, but the very high
priority which must be given to saving of weight results in
the adoption of configurations in which many
‘improvements’ are incorporated. (a) The fuselage and
wings of the ‘stick-and-string’ biplane have triangulated
structures of timber and wire. The fabric covering has a
minimal structural function. (b) The wings and fuselage of
the all-metal aircraft are hollow box-beams in which the
skin plays an essential structural role

In the case of the early biplane fuselage the fabric skin had virtually no structural function and the loads were carried entirely by the framework of timber and wire which, being fully triangulated, was an efficient type of structure with a high ratio of strength to weight. Its disadvantage was that its potential strength was limited firstly by the relative weakness of timber, and secondly by the difficulty of making efficient joints between the timber compressive elements and the wire tensile elements. As the size and speed of aircraft increased and stronger aircraft structures were required, the change to an all-metal structure became inevitable. The fabric skin was replaced by sheeting of aluminium alloy and the internal structure of timber and wire by ribs and longitudinal stringers also of aluminium alloy. In this more sophisticated type of aircraft structure, which is called a semi-monocoque structure, the metal skin acted with the ribs and stringers to form a composite structure called a ‘stressed-skin semi-monocoque’. Monocoque construction is the term used where the element consists only of the stressed skin.

Fig. 4.14 The fuselage of the all-metal aircraft is a non form-
active structure which is ‘improved’ at various levels.
The fuselage, taken as a whole, is a hollow box-beam.
‘Improvements’ of several types are incorporated into the
sub-elements which support the structural skin

In the semi-monocoque fuselage of an all-metal aircraft (Fig. 4.14), which is anon-form-active structural element with an‘improved’ cross-section, a very thin stressed skin is used which must be strengthened a tregular intervals by ribs and stringers to prevent local buckling from occurring. The technique of improvement may be seen to be operating at several levels. The fuselage, taken as a whole, is a non-form-active element with an ‘improved’ hollow-tube cross-section.Further ‘improvement’ occurs in the tube walls,which have a complex cross-section consisting of the stressed skin acting in conjunction with the strengthening ribs and stringers. These strengthening sub-elements are in turn‘improved’ by having cross-sections of complex shape and circular holes cut in their webs.

ape and circular holes cut in their webs.The all-metal aircraft structure is therefore a complicated assembly of sub-elements to which the technique of ‘improvement’ has been applied at several levels. The complexity results in a structure which is efficient but which is very costly to produce. This is justified in the interests of saving weight. Every kilo newton saved contributes to the performance of the aircraft so weight saving is allocated a very high priority in the design.

A similar application of the features which save weight can be seen in the field of vehicle design, especially railway carriages and motorcars. The structure of the modern railway carriage consists of a metal tube which forms its skin, spanning as a beam between the bogies on which it is mounted. It is a non-form-active ‘improved’ box beam. The structure of a motor car is similar: the steel car body acts as a beam to carry the weight of the engine, occupants, etc. between the road wheels (Fig. 4.15). As in the case of the aeroplane the overall forms of rail and road vehicles are determined largely from non-structural considerations, but the need to save weight is given a high priority in the design.Again the use of ‘improved’ non-form-active monocoque and semi-monocoque structures constitutes a sensible response to the technical problems posed.

Fig. 4.15 The metal body of a motor car is an ‘improved’
non-form-active beam which spans between the road wheels

The use of such elaborate forms of‘improvement’ as the monocoque or semi-monocoque stressed skin can rarely be justified on technical grounds in architectural structures because the saving of weight is nota sufficiently high priority to justify the expense of this complex type of structure. In the case of buildings, inefficient high-mass structures can actually be advantageous. They add thermal mass and their weight counteracts wind uplift.

The uses of the devices and configurations which produce efficient and therefore lightweight structures – the complex cross-section, the circular ‘lightening’ hole,triangulation of elements and profiling to conform to bending moment diagrams – are not always appropriate from the technical viewpoint in the context of architecture where they are justified technically only in situations in which an efficient, lightweight structure is required (see Chapter 6). They can, however,have another architectural function which is to form a visual vocabulary of structure.

The use of the devices associated with structural efficiency for stylistic purposes is discussed in Chapter 7. It might be observed here that where this occurs they are often used in situations which are in appropriate structurally. The devices of ‘improvement’ which were devised in the context of aeronautical and vehicle engineering have become, in the hands of modern architects,especially those of ‘high-tech’ architects, a visual version of the dead metaphor.

4.4 Classification of structural elements

The principles outlined in the preceding sections, concerned with the various devices hich can be used to improve the efficiency of structures, can form the basis of a classification system for structural elements.The primary categorisation is between form-active, semi-form-active and non-form-active elements because this is the most important factor in determining the level of efficiency which can be achieved. Elements are further classified according to the degree of ‘improvement’ which is present in their cross-sections and longitudinal profiles. The number of combinations and permutations is very large and a selection only of possibilities is illustrated in Table 4.1 to show the general principles involved. The least efficient shapes (non-form-active elements with simple shapes in both cross-section and longitudinal profile) are placed at the top of the table and the degree of efficiency present increases towards the bottom of the table,where the most efficient shapes – tensile form-active elements – are placed. Adistinction is made between line elements,such as beams, in which one dimension is significantly larger than the other two, and surface elements, such as slabs, in which one dimension is significantly smaller than the other two.

This system links the form, and therefore the appearance, of a structure with its technical performance and provides a basis for reading a building, or indeed any artefact, as a structural object. This is an important consideration for anyone involved with either the design of buildings or with their critical appraisal.

The system is based on the idea of efficiency: structural elements are classified according to the level of efficiency which they make possible in the resistance of load which is, of course, their principal function. The main objective of structural design, however, is the achievement of an appropriate level of efficiency rather than the maximum possible level of efficiency. The factors which determine the level of efficiency which is appropriate are discussed in Chapter 6. The discussion of whether or not an appropriate level of efficiency has been achieved cannot take place,however, in the absence of a means of judging efficiency. The system proposed here provides that means.

An aspect of the relationship between structure and architecture which has been touched on in this chapter is the possibility that the features associated with structural efficiency can be used as the basis of a visual vocabulary which conveys architectural meaning – the message being technical progress and excellence.

Table 4.1

Aeg Turbine Factory

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:47:00 +0000

Berlin, Germany

Largely misunderstood by the historians of the Modern movement who celebrated it as the first major work of frank industrial architecture endowed with exceptional “functional directness,” the AEG Turbine Factory—designed by Peter Behrens and Karl Bernhard and completed 1910—remains the most admired and most influential of Behrens’s works.

Designed between 1908 and 1909 for the Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesesells (AEG)—a German electrical concern founded by Emil Rathenau in 1883—the factory was placed strategically at the southern edge of the factory complex along Huttenstrasse and Berlichingenstrasse, facing Berlin and the world as a show front of the prosperous industrial magnate. Complying with such expectations and following his own ideological stance, Behrens built a magnificent iron and glass hybrid of two eminently classical temple traditions—the Greek and the Egyptian—meant to glorify industrial might.

In accepting the challenge of designing his first industrial building, Behrens’s concern was not to recast all of architecture in terms of industry and the machine, as was most often the case with the next generation of modern architects. Rather, “his concern was…levating so dominant a societal force as the factory to the level of established cultural standard” (see Anderson, 1977).

As an adept of the Austrian art historian and critic Alois Riegel’s theory of Kunstwollen (literally, “artistic will” or the evolutionary force of style) and of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s aesthetic historicism, exemplified in the concept of the Zeitgeist, Behrens applied in the design of the Turbine Factory the principles that he had evolved as the leader of the Darmstadt artists’ colony after 1901. In direct opposition to Gottfried Semper’s “materialism,” central to Behrens’s approach was belief in the force of the artist, and art, to transform brute everyday life into a dignified existence. Akin to the carbon transformed under extreme conditions into a praised diamond, everyday life—and in this case raw industry, the factory, and the machine—could be transformed under the artist’s into an entity of high culture. Such an ideological position, applied to industry, spread into a number of aesthetic and symbolic themes clearly reflected in the Turbine Factory. Far from depending on primary concerns for material, technical, and functional purposes, the factory was, in Behrens’s mind, the result of a specific concretization of selected industrial features, filtered through the artist’s transcendental will to form. The result was a vast crystal symbolizing the victory of art over the banality of life in an emerging machine society. If the industrial fact at hand could not be ignored, it was not the role of the artist to succumb to it helplessly, either. It is largely because of this position that Behrens’s first industrial building was unprecedented in industrial architecture and design.

In aesthetic terms, the central conflict that Behrens faced in the design of the Turbine Factory was the tectonic character of the ferro-vitreous wide span offered by his engineer, Karl Bernhard, as the necessary solution for mastering the vastness of the structure and Behrens’s adherence to the concept of Stereotomie since his 1905 pavilions at the Oldenburg Northwest German Art Exhibition. The challenge was, therefore, to find a solution that would be flexible enough to accommodate the dictates of a particular technology—including the use of given industrial materials—while preserving architecture as the eminent symbol of established cultural values of a modern capitalist state. The culmination of this synthetic process was expressed in the factory’s triumphal templelike facade with its crystalline central window of staggering dimensions that only advanced technology could have brought about.

With his limited knowledge of any kind of building technology, Behrens had to rely on the support of an engineer for such a vast and technically complex building. The shifting priorities between ideology and technology in the conception of the building necessarily resulted in a series of ambiguities and concealments that Behrens provoked rather than avoided in a strained collaboration with Bernhard.

The structural makeup of the factory consists of an asymmetrical three-hinged arch reinforced by a transversal tie-rod. The longer half of the arch springs vertically up to the second hinge and then breaks in three facets before reaching the third hinge at the apex of the arch. In properly structural terms, there was no reason for breaking the second arm into segments. The decision was a willful intervention in the engineer’s work by Behrens the artist. Historically, a variety of reasons have been advanced as an explanation for such a move. Whereas Kenneth Frampton, for example, refers to a rather improbable desire to create the shape of a farmer’s barn with its typical polygonal gable, Reyner Banham offers a technological explanation: the need for clearance for the huge internal traveling crane—even though the section shows that the tying rods forced the crane to run much lower.

The chiseled gable was, in fact, the result of two specific exigencies of Behrens’s Kunstwollen: the urge for enforced Stereotomie and the evocation of Zeichen (sign), the crystalline symbol of life as art. Indeed, the comparison between Behrens’s earlier representation of the priestess of Darmstadt carrying the redemptive crystal high above her head, as well as the majestic front of the temple-factory, reinforces the idea of a crystalshaped gable springing high above the ground in delicate balance over the equally crystalline abstracted robe of a priestess.

Furthermore, using the given technology for more ambitious aims, Behrens concealed the fact that the actual structural system of the factory was made up of a series of hinged arches by capping the building with a voluminous cornice cutting the arch at the top of its vertical member. In so doing, Behrens created the visual impression of a trabeated system in which the vertical members of the arches represented so many columns of a classical temple. By the same token, the somewhat inwardly inclined glazed surfaces between the structural members of the side elevation, along with the blown-up roofline and the massive concrete nonbearing “corner stones” wrapping around a streamlined trapezoidal silhouette, created a convincing case of a perfectly “stereotomic” volume inflated with space. Thus undermining the iron framing, Behrens prevented the construction from dematerializing into a dispersed tectonic grid—as would have been the case with the Dutert-Contamin Gallerie des Machines—and clearly subverted any engineering directness. The formulation of a symbolic structure, however, did not preclude Behrens from addressing forcefully the nature and purpose of the building.

Still remaining in the realm of powerful symbolism, Behrens allowed the function of the building to express itself allegorically not only through the exclusive use of industrial materials on a large scale but also by evoking forcefully the dominant societal role of the machine in the most memorable details of the building, such as the giant base hinges of the arches set on high concrete pedestals. As has been noted, what makes the significance and the importance of the AEG Turbine Factory, aside from actual achievement, “is that Behrens understood that the established cultural standards must be transformed in the process of assimilating modern industry.”

Africa: Northern Africa

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:45:00 +0000

Compared with the rest of the continent, the countries of North Africa form an immediately recognizable region and appear as a more cohesive bloc than do their neighbors south of the Sahara Desert. They derive their apparent cohesion from a common language (Arabic), a common religion (Islam), and a shared cultural identity as heirs of the Ottoman Empire. Like their sub-Saharan neighbors, all shared the historical experience of European colonialism and of the struggle for independence. Unlike their sub-Saharan neighbors, however, pan-Arabism has been a more powerful force than African unity.

On closer examination, all the countries of North Africa have developed their own distinctive cultural identity and historic perception of themselves and their role in the world. Egypt, with its overpowering legacy of its Pharaonic past and its small but influential Coptic Christian minority, has always perceived itself as distinctively different from the Maghreb (the countries to the west) and more naturally internationalist in outlook. Morocco, which was the only country in North Africa that did not suffer the experience of Ottoman rule, prided itself on the purity of its national culture and the dignity of its sultanate.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was collapsing all around the Mediterranean: Its final death throes came after it allied itself with the German and AustroHungarian Empires at the beginning of World War I. Egypt had effectively become a protectorate of Britain in 1882, to the intense annoyance of France, which had enjoyed most-favorednation status in Egypt since Napoleon’s short-lived expedition to Egypt in 1799–1801. Algeria (or at least the coastal strip) became a French colony in 1830, to which the mountainous hinterland and the desert interior were added in 1848, and by 1900 it was effectively part of metropolitan France. Tunisia, as a consequence of the dey of Tunis’s indebtedness to French bankers, was annexed by France in 1881. The Sudan, over which vast territory British troops had campaigned sporadically for 20 years, was absorbed into the British Empire in 1899 as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium. Libya was invaded by Italy and incorporated into the infant Italian Empire in 1912; in the same year, Morocco became a protectorate of France by treaty, proudly safeguarding its cultural independence as the brightest jewel in the French imperial crown.

The European colonial experience was, with the exception of Algeria, short-lived and, again with the exception of Algeria, relatively bloodless. Egypt gained its independence in 1922 under the Albanian dynasty, whose founder, Mohammed Ali, had seized power from the Ottomans and imposed himself as khedive on the long-suffering Egyptian people in 1805, shortly after Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt. Effective independence was not really secured until the revolution under General Neguib and until Colonel Nasser overthrew King Farouk and seized power in 1952. With the exception of Algeria, all other North African states gained their independence in the 1950s: Algeria, after a long, bloody civil war between the European settlers (10 percent of the population) and the indigenous Africans, finally followed suit in 1962. (A couple of insignificant Spanish enclaves on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco still owe allegiance to Europe.)

For the first half of the 20th century, the architectural and urban development of North Africa was European directed and European driven. At the beginning of the century, European imperialism was at its apogee, and between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, with a few significant exceptions, colonial governments, architects, and developers aimed to recreate Europe in Africa. By 1900 regionalism and vernacular revivalism had become respectable, even fashionable, architectural styles in Europe in a period when eclecticism reigned.

Physical manifestations of imperialistic rule, such as the Union Jack-inspired town plan of the new capital of the Sudan (Khartoum) and the Hausmannesque boulevards imposed on the organic city plan of Algiers were characteristic of this period but by no means were universal. Equally popular were the garden suburb, garden city developments that were fashionable in Europe: the Garden Suburb along the Nile in Cairo, the more ambitious New Town of Heliopolis on the desert fringe of the same city, and the Parc d’Hydra and the hilly suburbs of El Biar in Algiers were laid out in European lines for a mainly European settler population.

(Arabism) and the Hispano-Mauresque Revival were eagerly adopted by French architects in Algeria, as the Saracenic, Coptic, and even Pharaonic styles were adopted by the polyglot architects practicing in Egypt.

Representative buildings of the pre-World War I period, when European imperialism reigned supreme, were the Post Office (1890–1900, Algiers) by Tondoir and Voinot, the Galerie Algerienne (1902, Algiers) by Voinot, and the Prefecture (1904, Algiers) and the Hotel St. Georges (1910; now the Hotel El Djezair, Algiers), all in a highly decorative and stylized part Ottoman, part Hispano-Mauresque style inspired by the wealth of handsome 18th-century Ottoman buildings in the city. Also representative, in Cairo, are the eclectically classicist Egyptian Museum (1900), the vernacular revivalist Coptic Museum (1910), and the Beaux-Artian, symmetrically planned buildings of the Cairo University (founded as Fuad University in 1908); in Khartoum, the neo-Byzantine Anglican All Saints’ Cathedral (1909–12) by Robert Weir Schulz and the late Ottoman-style Gordon Memorial College (c. 1905; now the University of Khartoum) by Fabricius Bey and Gorringe are representative.

Lieutenant Gorringe was a British army officer serving with the Royal Engineers; Fabricius Bey was architect to the khedive in Cairo and of southern European (probably Maltese) origin. Under the autocratic rule of Lord Cromer, British consul-general in Egypt from 1883 to 1907, whose job title concealed the virtually absolute power he wielded, Cairo and Alexandria were boom cities, and architects and engineers flocked to Egypt from all over Europe. The indigenous Egyptian elite—the educated middle classes who had enjoyed a privileged position in society under the Francophile rule of Khedive Ismail before the British invasion of Egypt in 1882—were increasingly sidelined under Cromer’s administration and agitated for a national university and for a school of fine arts under Egyptian control. The foundation of the École des Beaux-Arts in 1906 and of Fuad University in 1908 were the results of their efforts. By 1920 both institutions (now the University of Helwan at Zamalek and Cairo University, respectively) had schools of architecture. Not until the 1920s, therefore, were indigenous Egyptians able to study architecture in their own country. The few Egyptian architects who were in practice in the early decades of the century had studied abroad at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris or at Constantinople. A similar situation prevailed throughout North Africa: not until the École Polytechnique d’Architecture et Urbanisme (EPAU) was founded in Algiers after World War II were there any schools of architecture in North Africa outside Egypt. Inevitably, it was well into the second half of the century before indigenous African architects were able to make a major contribution to the physical development of their homelands.

If the period before World War I was the high point of European imperialism, the period between the world wars was the decline of empire; however, the architectural and urban development of North Africa was still almost entirely European driven. Morocco, under its first French resident-general, Hubert Lyautey (1912–25), pursued a clear-sighted policy of state intervention in urban development (as did Libya) after Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy in 1922 and sought to revive the splendors of Rome’s imperial past in Africa.

Marshal Lyautey sought conscientiously to conserve what remained of the Moroccan architectural heritage—Hispano-Mauresque, Arab, and Berber. He stated, “While in other parts of North Africa we only found social debris, here…we have found a constituted empire, and with it a beautiful and great civilization…. A remarkable Morocco can be created, that will remain Moroccan and Islamic” (quoted in Betts, 1978). However, he was not averse to contemporary architectural developments: Auguste and Gustave Perret designed and built the Dock Installations and Warehouses (1915) in Casablanca, but the cities of Casablanca and Rabat were replanned on grandiloquent lines and had public buildings that were both neoclassical and embellished with Hispano-Mauresque decoration, as in the Law Courts (1915) in Casablanca by J.Marrast and the Post Office (c.1920) in Rabat by J.Laforgue.

The Italian administration showed no such sensitivity in Libya, except toward the imperial Roman sites. Tripoli was replanned as the colonial capital, and the new town was created on provincial Italian lines, designed by the architects A.Novello and O.Cabiatti; in building during the 1920s and 1930s, it was a prototype of Giovanni Pellegrini’s Manifesto dell’ architettura coloniale (1936).

No such high-mindedness drove the architectural development of the other North African countries. Where appropriate, arabisance prevailed, as in the Waqf Ministry Building (1925) by Mahmould Fahmy Pasha and the Bank Misr (1927) by A. Laseiac in Cairo; in general, however, North Africa followed European precedents: a pared-down Neoclassicism in the 1920s with some commercial Art Deco in the downtown streets of major cities, a tentative adoption of modernism, and the International Style in the 1930s. Algeria generally set the pace: the Palais du Gouvernement General (1930; now the Palace of Government) designed by M.J.Guiauchain with A. and G.Perret, the Maison des Etudiants (1933) by C.Montaland, and the Town Hall (1935) by L.Claro, all in Algiers, are no less advanced than are their contemporaries in Europe. In addition, Algiers was the subject of Le Corbusier’s most sustained urban-planning initiatives. Between 1933 and 1942, he published no fewer than three major plans for the city; formal concepts first proposed for Algiers were eventually realized elsewhere (such as the Ministry of Education building in Rio de Janeiro and the UNESCO headquarters in Paris).

The struggle for independence and the consolidation of power after achieving it preoccupied the governments of all North African countries during the first decade and a half after the end of World War II (part of which was fought over North African terrain), and the series of Arab-Israeli wars, culminating in the disastrous war of 1973 and the devastation of the Suez Canal Zone, deprived the region of the economic security and political stability that is a prerequisite for sound and sustained physical development. In contrast, the final quarter of the century saw massive investment in building and a transformation of the built environment throughout the region (with the exception of Sudan, where a civil war has been waging for 20 years).

The provision of adequate housing for the mass of the people has been a major priority of all governments in the region since independence. The rehousing of immigrant squatters on the outskirts of all major cities, the protection of the limited areas of fertile agricultural land from population invasion, the reconstruction of the devastated Suez Canal cities, and the creation of new towns to accommodate the overflow of population from the major cities have become major areas of architectural activity. Hassan Fathy was one of the first North African architects to engage seriously with the problems of popular housing: his modest book Architecture for the Poor, which describes his attempt to create a humane environment in the resettlement village of New Gourna on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes in Upper Egypt, has been acclaimed worldwide and has transformed architects’ perceptions of their social responsibility as housing providers. Hassan Fathy was also one of the pioneers, along with his contemporary Ramses Wissa Wassef, in the revival of traditional materials, constructional systems, and craft skills. The bulk of his practice, however, was the design of individual houses and villas for private clients. Abdel Wahid El Wakil is an accomplished younger Egyptian architect designing in a similar manner.

Inevitably, however, given the enormous shortfall in housing provision, the emphasis in most state-funded social housing schemes has been on quantity rather than quality, and four-, five-, or six-story walk-up blocks of apartments have become the norm. Some architects have handled such assignments well (for example, Elie Azagury’s apartment blocks in Rabat and Casablanca [1960s] or Candilis, Josic, Woods and Pons’s residential estate Sidi-bel-Abbes in Oran, Algeria [1950s]), but the scale of most state housing schemes necessitates the formation of large international multidisciplinary teams of architects and engineers, as in the huge new cities in the desert hinterland of Cairo established by the Egyptian Ministry of Reconstruction, New Communities, and Land Reclamation in the 1980s: Sadat City, 10th Ramadan City, and 6th October City.

Also in the state sector, major building programs for education and health care have sought to remedy the neglect of these areas by the colonial authorities and to demonstrate governments’ commitment to the provision of education and health care for all. Provincial universities and regional hospitals are perceived as flagships of government policy, and architects of international reputation are commissioned for major projects (such as James Cubitt and Partners for the University of Garyounis, Benghazi, Libya; Oscar Niemeyer for the University of Constantine, Algeria; and Charles Boccara for the 1982 Regional Hospital, Marrakesh, Morocco).

Tourism has generated large downtown hotels and holiday resorts. Good examples of the latter include work by architects A.Faraoui and P.de Mazieres in Morocco, Fernand Pouillon in Algeria, and Serge Santelli in Tunisia. In addition, the demands of tourism undoubtedly generated several major historic and archaeological conservation projects, the most spectacular being the UNESCO-sponsored re-erection of the temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel on an elevated site overlooking Lake Nasser in Upper Egypt.

A major factor that was instrumental in the evident raising of standards of architectural service and of the quality of architectural design in the last 20 years of the century was the institution of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA). Conservation of the environment, community involvement in the design decision-making process, and the appropriateness as well as the quality of the executed design are among the criteria for selecting buildings for an award. The patronage of the Aga Khan through this award scheme has both publicized and promoted, as models for other architects to emulate, several excellent buildings and conservation schemes in North Africa, among them the Arts Center at Harrania near Giza in Egypt by Wissa Wassef, the revitalization of the Hafsia quarter of the Medina in Tunis, and the Dar Lamane Housing Community in Casablanca, Morocco.

Finally, two outstanding buildings that have become icons of their countries’ commitment to excellence in architecture and the arts are the new Cairo Opera House and Cultural Center (1987–92) on Gezira Island by the Japanese consortium Nikkei Sekkai Planners Architects and Engineers and the Great Mosque (1986–93) in Casablanca, commissioned by King Hassan II from the French architect Marcel Pinseau. By way of postscript, with about 20 schools of architecture in the region at the turn of the millennium, the 21st century can expect a much higher proportion of buildings in North Africa to be designed by indigenous architects than was true in the 20th century. ANTHONY D.C.HYLAND.

Adaptive Re-Use

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:34:00 +0000

Buildings often outlive their function; however, their inherent durability often gives the building another life. There is a long tradition of buildings being adapted to suit new functions. Roman basilicas were converted to serve as worship spaces for the nascent Christian church. In medieval times, Roman fortifications were resurrected to form part of the fabric of the mercantile cities. It was not until the advent of ready demolition and the mechanization of the building process during the Industrial Revolution that the practice of adapting old buildings to new uses became less the norm.

Philadelphia, a large commuter train station built for the Reading Railroad in 1893 became redundant in 1984 when a subterranean tunnel was constructed below it, linking the area’s railways to a regional network. The beautiful steel and glassvaulted shed and Renaissance revival terra-cotta facade were empty for several years as several different alternatives were studied for a possible re-use. Critical to the success of the project was the maintenance of the historic food market below the train shed. The Pennsylvania Convention Center, built in 1992 (Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback and Association), incorporates the Reading Terminal into the new construction, maintaining both this vital piece of urban architecture and the market’s social importance in the city fabric. The head house serves as the ceremonial entrance for the convention center as well as a hotel. The train shed links the entrance from the principal street to the new large convention center that spans over two adjacent blocks.

Town & Country

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:54:00 +0000

Although moving from a spacious country lot to a smaller city home can be challenging, seasoned interior designer Jan Speziale proves that the testament to good design is in the details.

“I’m a Type A trying really hard to be a type B". says Jan Speziale, one half of the design duo behind award-winning Barnard & Speziale Design Associates Inc. in Waterdown, Ontario. "It's the Virgo in me," explains the interior design veteran of 35 years, "I'm very particular". Whether or not you follow the celestial skies, when she decided to downsize from a one-acre country property to a 1,850 square-foot Burlington home, the house that Jan built is proof that good design is in the details - from the polished nickel knobs, right down to the travertine and walnut floors.

Just don't describe the cathedral ceiling in her great room as white. °I never, ever do pure white. I find it too cool. I prefer a softer off-white that has a creamy undertone to it". Likewise, to "ground" the mainly sandstone palette in her walls, drapery and upholster}', she selected charcoal - not black - for the upper triangles that support the arch. A zebra skin rug and vintage painting ties the look together.

Besides the aesthetic minutiae, Speziale also had her hand in the larger structural aspects of the construction and design. One of the main changes affected the original L-shaped kitchen and breakfast nook. While a second eating area ranked low on Speziale's wish list, she really wanted space so she could elongate her dining table and accommodate ten people. "My family is big and my siblings and I are all foodies".

So, in order to make wav for her coveted saber-leg walnut centre piece table, which stretches to 109 inches, Speziale deleted the dinette space, added stools to the food prep island, and reconfigured the adjoined space to showcase a double-lane galley kitchen. "'There's usually up to four people in there whenever we all get together". She also added a backdrop of alternating-height, custom cherry wood cabinets to create "interest".

With no line of vision overlooked, a liquor cabinet was designed to hide the sink: "I didn't want to see the faucet when I was sitting in the great room". Thus, connected to the generous granite countertop, a "little bar" cuts into the horizontal plane, infusing a dose of visual tension. "Whenever I entertain, that's usually where people gather," she laughs.

A second structural change allowed for more natural light. With only four feet between each house, windows were conspicuously absent on the east and west walls. Consequently, the three lookouts on the blueprint's north face were traded for more expansive sliding doors, which lead to the back patio.

More walls were shifted in the den. In lieu of the existing guest bedroom with closet and full I7ath, a two-piece powder room entered the main floor scene, leaving more square footage for a study in the sunny wing, now papered in striking red grass cloth. The resident leather couch, one of the few pieces that made the transition from country to urban, is a matching poppy hue. Mention the colour red and people kind of get freaked out, says Speziale, hut the interesting thing is, the more you use a colour, the less dominant it becomes. "I had a red room in my old house and I loved it. It's energizing and I find it very warm and inviting".

"The master bedroom and en suite bath, however, sit at the other end of thee colour spectrum in "Gray Wisp," a soft grey/blue tone by Benjamin Moore. "I wanted it to be verb= calm and serene". Fit for a Virgo Queen, the room boasts a reproduction antique head- and footboard and crystal chandelier with contemporary drum shade. For that added bit of personality, Speziale accessorized her Louis-inspired French chest - stacked by Venetian style mirror - with two cut crystal lamps. "[ love the way it sparkles".

The third major structural change was realized in the loft; a mini-guest studio complete with bath. "Visitors love i t because it's like a private getaway up there," explains Speziale. "On plan, it was just one big open space.l wanted to create as much storage as possible and that was a great place to do it". Speziale created an alcove around the bed by pulling the feature wall forward and creating two 24-inch deep wardrobes on either side. "One can never have too much closet space," she says.

The garden/extended living room posed similar storage challenges. Short of dragging all the outdoor furniture to the front of the house and into the garage for the winter, a place was needed to store it. And so, rather than having an open pergola, Speziale built a structure with cedar shake roof and skylight. A back wall, she notes, also camouflages her neighbour's eyesore shed.

Although the shops and restaurants along the waterfront are within walking distance, Speziale admits it took her some time to get used to living so close to others. "I think people are always surprised when they come here because they don't expect to see something so private that's downtown". But it was vital for her to create this little outdoor oasis. "I love the sound of the wind and the trees". The Virgoan surmises, "1'm an earth sign; so I guess that's why".

Going Geothermal

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:08:00 +0000

Consumers often find them selves torn between the push to green along with other social and economical factors, such as convenience, appeal, cost and comfort, but what if one solution marries them all?

An ancient concept, now a modern revolution in sustainable energy seems to be achieving just that.

Next Energy, a Canadian manufacturer of geothermal heating systems recently partnered with Yanch Heating & Air Conditioning, to complete an installation on the northern shores of picturesque lake Joseph in Ontario's beautiful Muskoka region. The project aimed to achieve the basic demands of what most new home owners and those looking to green retrofit are otherwise finding challenging; a balance between savings, convenience, comfort and class.

This Port Caning home built by Tamarack North Ltd. first prescribed an energy source that was both cost effective and accessible in an area where natural gas is unavailable and fuel transport posed a significant challenge. With rising energy costs and a looming oil crisis, stable resources also weighed heavily. In addition, the home's stature also called for an aesthetically pleasing design and sensible levels of inside comfort. The clear solution was geothermal.

The different units provide individual heating zones, which allow occupants to control temperatures independently in different areas; an advantage not offered by most alternative heating methods. The process also eliminates the use of combustion, making for a safer, cleaner living environment, with no danger of carbon monoxide and no fossil fuel emissions.

Requiring just one-third of the space of traditional systems, geothermal is typically designed to fit with the provisions of varied projects and can accommodate any combination of radiant in floor heating, forced-air heating, domestic hot water and air conditioning all from the same unit. It can function well in many situations, even as a practical solution for large commercial buildings or swimming pools.

Geothermal integration produces many additional benefits as it has with the Lake Joseph project; it is quiet, discreet and more aesthetically pleasing. The equipment is compact and self-contained, with no noisy outdoor units or exterior wall venting, which also improves building envelope weather tightness.

President of Tamarack North Ltd., Chris Madden says although geothermal installation is initially an expensive investment, it is a growing consideration.

"In our market... we are finding that the customers are quite willing to consider geothermal heating. It is the most expensive type of heating to install, but at the level of construction we are doing it's becoming quite accessible".

“Though seemingly costly at face value, geothermal configuration can mean significant savings over time, protection front volatile commodity prices and a decrease in the drain on resources for the future. Canadian consumers who retrofit currently receive up to ten thousand dollars in rebates through both federal and provincial programs, and though projects vary, they will typically see a turnaround on their investment in just four to seven years.

"Compared to propane and oil, geothermal is about one-quarter the op crating cost, so economically it makes sense and is also extremely green with no emissions," said Regional Sales Manager with Next Energy, 'Jim Weber.

Weber says homes converted to a Next Energy system from oil or electric Will cut about 75 percent off their yearly heating and cooling costs, or up to 80 percent in the case of propane. A typical retrofit only takes about two to three days for installation and is designed to last beyond the life of the home.

The impact on the environment is clear. Geothermal has immense potential to reduce carbon emissions and considerably reduce global warming. Data from Natural Resources Canada and tile Environmental Protection Agency show that geothermal systems have the least environmental imprint in comparison to any space conditioning technology available; something to consider and part of a bulk of knowledge Next Energy is working to communicate to the general population.

"Next Energy goes to market trying to educate consumers ...we aren't just selling a box or a furnace, we're selling a concept," explained Weber.

"Through our partnerships with companies like Yanch 1-Heating our goal is to achieve guaranteed success for the homeowner, where they aren't just purchasing from a contractor, but instead a network of support systems."

One of the few companies that specialize only in geothermal Weber says, Next Energy- has no distractions and are 100 percent focused with ten years of hands-on experience, bringing more than just an exceptional product to market. In a growing Canadian trade the company is poised to become an industry leader and despite the recession is holding strong.

Worldwide, geothermal energy is also emerging as a marked renewable force. According to the Geothermal Energy Association, geothermal sources currently supply energy to meet the needs of 60 million people worldwide and are a growing commodity in 24 countries. Developing countries are the top benefactors, as these sources preserve the natural environment, provide energy and economic independence and can meet the need for electricity in remote regions.

With its adaptable and efficient structure, geothermal could revolutionize energy consumption in Canada and combat the coming energy crisis, but Without any solid plans for mass production Canadians must support their own sustainability for now -one home at time.

Eastbourne Estates on The Lake

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:36:00 +0000

On the southern shore of Lake Simcoe between prestigious Roches Point and Sutton in Ontario, Fifths hire Homes combines luxurious living with an unprecedented level of environmental responsibility at Eastbourne Estates on the Lake. Setting the benchmark for upscale development in the area, this exclusive community of 30 custom estate homes is nestled on a premier wooded property, steps from the lake near the mouth of Cook's Bay. Fifthshire's architecturally controlled neighbourhood features gated access and almost 600 feet of shoreline with a private dock. In addition to vistas of lake horizons 365 days a year, residents will enjoy the benefits of living in R-2000-certified homes with steel framing.

F'ifthshire partners Joseph Vella and John DiCarlo championed environmentally responsible building practices long before "green" became an industry buzzword. Pifthshire was among the first builders to adopt R-2000 standards for all its new homes and was the first builder in Canada to offer all steel-framed R-2000 homes. "R-2000-certified homes provide owners with higher energy efficiency and better indoor air quality," Vella says. "All our homes are certified by the Government of Canada to meet the -stringent R-2000 technical standard, which includes a heat recovery ventilator to offer better control over humidity and ventilation."

The company has also won awards for pioneering all-steel framing in place of wood. Steel results in blemish-free walls and quiet floors, and has fire resistant and healthy home qualities. "Steel framing does not twist, warp, rust or support the growth of mould," Vella explains. "It also contains 81.5 per cent recycled materials, plus we recycle the scrap created during construction, so there is no impact on landfill. This community is situated on a special piece of property, and we feel that resource conservation and sustainability are as important as building exceptional estate homes."

This locale appeals to city dwellers and baby boomers looking for a luxurious lakeside lifestyle within driving distance to Tor_onto. The community is adjacent to the Eastbourne Golf Club, and only five minutes from The Briars Golf Club. Fifthshire's meticulously detailed homes feature stone and maintenance-free wood siding in keeping with the rural flavour of the area. Two furnished model homes showcase the high level of finishes in these rural retreats, which range from 2,648 to 3,423 square feet and are priced from over $1 million.

A Unified Approach ; Combined Expertise = Impeccable Service

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:26:00 +0000

Spawned from a family with three generations of development experience, Toronto based Kilbarry Hill Developments ties at the forefront of innovation in building production and design. Co-founders and brothers Shawn and Jordan Mecklinger, and their uncle Jerry Vlamid form the company's underpinnings, while Shawn's wife Kailee coordinates interior design aspects. Their partners, the Ross family, also offer over 30 years of expertise in the construction industry and are an integral part of Kilbarry's early success. The team currently faces the competitive world of project design and execution with a prime advantage; each team member yields varied areas of specialization, that when combined, are highly compatible and effective.

"Kilbarry offers a one-stop shop. We handle all of your building needs, whether it he providing architectural drawings, taking your plans through the permit process, providing interior design consultation as well as construction management," says Shawn, Kilbarry Hill's President and Director of Business Development.

Each project irradiates the company's diverse expertise, ranging from prestigious custom residential and vacation homes, to the eclectic College Lanes Down Loft Development situated in Toronto's South Annex area. The loft interiors are space conscientious and meld a practical, modern ambience with plush, luxurious city living. Each unit, although constrained to a location within a small laneway, boasts 13-foot high ceilings, ultra modern Italian kitchens, front and rear courtyards and walk out patios. Aspects of their layout are clear indications of design concepts, created to combat and diminsite limitations, and are the outcome of the company's adeptness.

The lofts are not alone in their peerless presentation of Kilbarry's unified building and design methods; each of the company's projects exhibit novel and synthesized characteristics. Shawn's favorite edifice to date-a tailor-made residential cottage on Lake Simcoe featuring custom ^millwork, exquisite trim, state of the art technology and grand ceilings.

"The care put forth by all of our trades really shows in the attention to detail," said Shawn.

In the near future the team is focused on additional custom residential projects on Lake Simcoe and in Toronto. In the long run, focus for improvement is expected in expanded services, likely including the integration of consulting into the company's legion of already existing multi-faucets.

David Adler 1882–1949

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:23:00 +0000

David Adler, a proponent of Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts and its classical teachings of symmetry, balance, and superb proportions and an all-inclusive plan whereby a building relates to its surroundings, was one of America’s most important great-house architects. Born to Isaac David, a prosperous second-generation wholesale clothier, and his wife, Theresa Hyman, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Adler was educated at the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton in 1904, Adler moved to Europe, where he traveled extensively and studied architecture at the Polytechnikum (1904–06) in Munich and at the École des Beaux-Arts (1908–11), whose curriculum included lessons in structural and technical applications. However, because Adler was interested exclusively in design, he returned to the United States without mastering these key assignments, bringing with him a collection of 500 picture postcards that documented the important architecture and gardens he had seen and to which he referred throughout his 38-year career.

Before venturing out on his own, Adler apprenticed in Chicago in the office of Howard Van Doren Shaw, a devotee of the Arts and Crafts movement. Shaw (1869–1926) was among the most prolific country house architects on Chicago’s North Shore, particularly in Lake Forest, where Adler also forged his eminent reputation.

Henry C.Dangler, Adler’s closest friend from the École and the person who introduced Adler to Katherine Keith, whom he married in 1916, also worked in Shaw’s office. Adler and Dangler did not stay long with Shaw; they decided to form their own partnership. Dangler left first, and Adler remained with Shaw only until he completed the design of his first house (1911), which was for uncle and benefactor Charles A.Stonehill, in the North Shore community of Glencoe. Stonehill had paid for his nephew’s living expenses while he was studying in Europe.

The Stonehill house, a Louis XIII-style building inspired by the Château de Balleroy in Normandy, set the tone for what became a recognizable trait of Adler’s exemplary oeuvre. Symmetry guided the house’s entrance facade of pink brick, limestone trim, and offsetting tall windows and steeply pitched roof. Perched on a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, Adler’s first charge was one of the most outstanding country houses in Chicago. Unfortunately, the house, with its classically detailed interiors furnished in Mediterranean pieces, was razed during the early 1960s.

Among the most important houses executed by the AdlerDangler partnership was its first country house (1912), for Ralph H.Poole, in Lake Bluff, Illinois. With this commission, Adler brought the Loire valley to the Illinois prairie, designing a Louis XV-style château that perpetuated, with its symmetrical facade of low horizontal lines rising to a slate mansard roof, classical French architecture. Inside the house, a checker-floored entrance hall led to the principal rooms: living porch, library, living room, music room, and dining room, all arranged enfilade across the entire length of the house, another indication that Adler understood French design.

Henry Dangler’s death in 1917 left both a personal and a professional void in Adler’s life, for he had lost not only his partner but also his best friend. Adler was not certified to practice architecture in Illinois; he obtained a New York license in 1917. Although Adler was the designer, the signature on his plans had always been Dangler’s. Therefore, Adler was compelled to sit for the Illinois exam, and as presaged by his incomplete studies at the École, he failed. Adler had already built 17 houses, in French, Georgian, and Mediterranean styles, but he was forced to find another architect who could replace Dangler professionally. The solution came in another former associate from Shaw’s office, Robert Work. Their association, marking the second phase of Adler’s career, was strictly one of convenience.

While associated with Work, Adler applied the styles of his early houses but also added to his eclectic oeuvre early American, South African Dutch colonial, and a modernist design inspired by Viennese architect Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956). Of these three styles, it was the house in early American (1926) for William McCormick Blair in Lake Bluff that deviated from Adler’s usual approach to design. The irregular massing of colonial architecture, whereby a house grows larger over time, dictated the asymmetrical design for the Blairs. Although the house was built all at once, Adler’s adaptation flawlessly suggested an organic progression of growth from the principal block, shingled and gambrel roofed, to the appended wings.

Adler’s largest undertaking was also completed during the mid-1920s. Castle Hill, the imposing English manor house (1925) for Richard T.Crane Jr., in Ipswich, Massachusetts, with its pedimented entrance pavilion, balustraded hip roof, and crowning cupola, followed closely the architecture of 17th-century England, particularly the work of Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723) and the Wren-like Belton House (1689). Adler’s ability lay not only in his proficient design but also in his choice of small Holland brick with a soft pink patina that softened the imposing scale of the house, rising at the foot of a 160-foot-wide aisle of grass that undulated toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Adler built 16 houses during the second phase of his career, including a Louis XVI-style townhouse (1921) for Joseph and Annie Ryerson in Chicago. The Ryerson townhouse, a classically elegant building—with its symmetrical limestone facade, crowning mansard roof, and period detailing—was Adler’s only townhouse design in the French style (Adler built eight townhouses during his career).

By 1929, because Adler had practiced as a principal architect for ten years, he became eligible for Illinois’s oral examination, which he passed, therefore ending his 12-year association with Robert Work. Unfortunately, Adler’s professional achievement was marred by personal tragedy. In May 1930 Katherine (1893–1930), his wife of 14 years, was killed in an automobile accident while she and Adler were motoring on a rain-slick road in Normandy. Adler sustained only minor physical injuries, but he was extremely distraught.

Regardless of this setback, the late 1920s through the mid19308 resulted in the culmination of Adler’s career, starting with his masterpiece: the Cotswold-influenced house of Celia Tobin Clark in Hillsborough, California, called House-on-Hill (1930). Here, Adler created a house that, despite its underlying grandeur and nearly 400 acres of property, was inconspicuous and unpretentious. For example, because Adler nestled House-on-Hill into the hillside of its vast property, from the entrance forecourt it appeared to be only one-and-a-half stories. The house’s full magnitude became apparent only at the back, from the south terrace, where Adler’s most outstanding elevation—an Elizabethan half-timbered facade of oak and intricately patterned brick nogging—rose majestically, as if it grew from the landscape.

Inside the Clark house, a beamed and oak-paneled reception gallery, floored in a harlequin-patterned black-and-white marble tile, opened into the house’s principal stair hall. Here, a monumental and skillfully carved staircase gave the first indication of the opulence of House-on-Hill. Because the reception gallery was on the second floor, the staircase, with its substantial balustrade, led downstairs to an impressive procession of rooms: library, music room, and dining room. Warmth and comfort pervaded the library, whose antique pine paneling, Grinling Gibbon’s overmantel, and pegged parquetry were imported from Europe. In the commodious and imposing music room, classically detailed spruce walls served as foundation for a high plaster ceiling with its patterns of rosettes, garlands, and musical instruments, while in the dining room, panels of hand-painted 18th-century Chinese wallpaper were framed by exquisite woodwork in sugar pine.

Another outstanding design from this period was the Pennsylvania Dutch-style Georgian for Helen Shedd Reed (1931), unquestionably Adler’s finest house on the North Shore. The Reed house, consisting of a center block balanced by a pair of wings, was sited beyond a grass forecourt with a small pool and surrounding U-shaped gravel drive and exemplified the symmetry, balance, and elegance of Adler’s work. The house’s shimmering dark gray mica stone also added to its magnificence.

The interior of the Reed house was the most important collaboration between Adler and his sister, interior decorator Frances Elkins (1888–1953). Adler and Elkins were extremely close, and during his tenure in Paris, she traveled with him, meeting several avant-garde artisans, including Jean-Michel Frank (1895–1941), the French interior decorator, and furniture designer, and Alberto Giacometti (1902–85), the sculptor who designed furniture for Frank. Nowhere is Elkins’s relationship with these designers more apparent than in the Reed house, where Adler’s skilled architecture guided the most notable interiors of her career. Elkins lived in California, and although she worked independently of her brother, they collaborated on at least 16 commissions, undoubtedly her best work, from 1919 until 1949, when Adler died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

Freestanding staircase, Mrs. Kersey
Coates Reed House, by David Adler
(1931)

The Reed house’s interiors blended the traditional and the avant-garde, starting in the entrance hall, where a slick blackand-white marble floor led to the ladies’ powder room, the gentlemen’s cloakroom, and the gallery. In the gallery, stately black Belgian marble columns framed the crowning element of the interior: a dramatic, freestanding staircase of ebony and wrought-glass spindles. The gallery led to each of the principal rooms: living room, library, and dining room, all aligned overlooking Lake Michigan.

Adler gave each of these rooms his usual dose of exquisite and brilliantly executed detailing. In the living room and dining room, a dentiled cornice, as well as mantels and door casings, all intricately carved, complemented Elkins’s selection of English antiques and accoutrements, including the dining room’s hand painted Chinese wallpaper. In the library, although the most avant-garde room in the house, walls of tan Hermès goatskin and leather-upholstered furnishings by Frank were adroitly tempered by Adler’s traditional foundation: antique French parquetry, a finely carved fireplace mantel, and doors and casings, resulting in the perfectly balanced eclecticism for which he was renowned.

Any discussion of the Reed commission would be remiss without mentioning the tennis house that Adler designed several years before the main house. Located at the foot of the formal gardens, across the street from the main house, the Georgian building, with its central lounge, his-and-hers changing rooms, and second-floor bedrooms, was ingeniously sited at the edge of a ravine, allowing Adler to reduce the apparent scale of the mammoth building by positioning the court ten feet below ground level. The end result: a sunken indoor court where natural light flooded the space through a pitched glass roof, creating, along with interior ivy-covered walls, the illusion of an outdoor setting.

of, creating, along with interior ivy-covered walls, the illusion of an outdoor setting. The mid-1930s signaled the end to Adler’s career as an architect of the great house. Adler’s declining health from a riding accident in 1935, as well as altered economic conditions in the United States, prompted him to adapt to designing smaller, less grand houses and to spend more time executing apartment interiors and the alterations and additions that had always been a part of his demanding schedule.

Adler’s last house (he built 45 houses, 18 of which were located outside of the Chicago area), in Pebble Beach, California, was designed for Paul and Ruth Winslow (1948). Built low to the ground, one storied, and sided in flush boards painted white, the Winslow house consisted of a central living room balanced by two symmetrical wings: the dining room and service wing and the master bedroom wing. Despite the house’s modest size, Adler’s last house was one that exemplified his ability to create grandeur and elegance, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Selected Works

Charles A. Stonehill House, Chicago, Illinois, 1911

Ralph H.Poole House, Lake Bluff, Illinois (with Henry Dangler), 1912

Castle Hill, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1925

William McCormick Blair House, Lake Bluff, Illinois (with Robert Work), 1926

House-on-Hill (Celia Tobin Clark House), Hillsborough, California, 1930

Helen Shedd Reed House, Lake Forest, Illinois (with Frances Elkins), 1931

ABUJA, FEDERAL CAPITAL COMPLEX OF NIGERIA

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:21:00 +0000

Designed by Kenzo Tange; completed 1981

In 1976 the Nigerian state authorities believed that a new federal capital city would facilitate the creation of a “federal character” and thus resolve the problem of nepotism and relieve ethnic tensions among the 250 cultural groups that constitute the Nigerian nation. Abuja and its architecture, it was believed, would also remove the colonial identity that the erstwhile capital city of Lagos was thought to bestow on the Nigerian people.

As a result, the role of Lagos as the federal capital of Nigeria has been in question from 1960, when Nigeria became independent, to 9 August 1975, when General Murutala Mohammed set up an eight-member Committee on the Location of the Federal Capital of Nigeria. The task of the committee was to review the multiple roles of Lagos as the federal capital of Nigeria, the capital of the state of Lagos, and the economic capital of the country.

The committee concluded that a new federal capital would improve Nigeria’s national security, enhance Nigerian interior development, encourage the decentralization of economic infrastructures from Lagos, and enhance the development of an indigenous Nigerian building culture and industry. Finally, the new capital would emphasize Nigeria’s emergence from the civil war of 1967–70 as a more united, stable, and confident country. Nigerian lawmakers who shared the opinions of the committee justified the idea of developing a new federal capital by suggesting that there existed a fundamental need for a place where all Nigerians could come together on an equal basis to help foster national unity. Moreover, advocates of a new federal capital city raised the problems of overcrowding and lack of land for future expansion at Lagos as well as the existence of severe social inequality in the colonial cities of Nigeria. As a result, Abuja was conceived as a place that symbolized Nigeria’s autonomy from British colonization, urban segregation, and a federal character that all Nigerians could share in regardless of ethnic heritage. According to the committee and the International Planning Association (IPA), the new capitol would provide “a balanced development focus for the nation”. They chose Japanese modernist Kenzo Tange, a protégé of Le Corbusier, as the principal architect for the city plan.

The federal government of Nigeria produced a schedule for implementing the committee’s recommendations on 4 February 1976. Decree No. 6 established for Nigeria a Federal Capital Territory—an African version of the District of Columbia—a neutral ground where a Nigerian federal character would be developed for the good of all Nigerians. The government took an 8,000-square-kilometer parcel (more than twice the size of the state of Lagos) out of three minority states. Abuja is located on the Gwagwa Plains in the middle of Nigeria; its high elevation and numerous hills contribute to a year-round pleasant climate, one of the major attractions that influenced the committee to select the site.

Abuja was conceived as a city for three million people to be developed in 20 years, and its master plan symbolized the themes of democracy and Nigerian unity. Construction began at Abuja in 1981 under the leadership of President Shehu Shagari (who was later deposed), who was anxious to move from Lagos to the new Federal Capital Territory.

The Nigerian authorities of state insisted that Aso Hill must be the most prominent element within the Federal Capital Territory. Aso Hill is a huge granite outcrop (1,300 feet high) that dominates the landscape of Abuja and its vicinity visually and physically, giving the city a natural east-west axis. Moreover, creating the image of a democratic landscape that emblemizes the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (patterned after the United States’ checks-and-balances system of government) was also an integral part of the Abuja urban design scheme. As a result, a democratic shrine called the Three Arms Zone was created at the foot of Aso Hill, making it the focal point of the city and the locus of power of the federal government of Nigeria. Abuja’s Three Arms Zone is one kilometer in diameter, and the buildings of the National Assembly, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court are located within it. From Aso Hill in the east end of the city, one moves through the ceremonial Abuja National Mall, which is also patterned after that of Washington, D.C. However, the axial view of the mall is flanked by high-rise federal office buildings on both sides, terminating first at the quintuple towers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and finally at the National Stadium in the west of the city.

Although the Abuja master plan also aspires to position the city as a major pan-African commercial, financial, and political center, it is dominated by a rhetoric of Nigerian unity, national identity, and democracy. As a result, it is characterized by unresolved tensions between its nationalist themes, the intentions of the emergent Nigerian intelligentsia who inherited political power from Britain, and the intentions of the architect. First, Tange’s fundamental concept for Abuja’s master plan resembles the plan for Tokyo. One could argue that Tange’s plan to incorporate the Japanese modernism of Tokyo represented an attempt to meet the needs of Nigerian national identity; but concerns remained as to whether the architect’s uniform design for the monumental federal buildings reflected the interests of the emergent Nigerian elite who inherited political power from Britain, or whether the new structure contributed to the erasure of certain ethnically based social boundaries. The insistence of the federal government of Nigeria that Aso Hill be the most prominent object in the Federal Capital Territory suggests that it was adopting an ancient “pagan” ritual site (Aso Hill) as a means of reinventing a Nigerian “federal character,” something quite different from the version of modernity that Tange envisioned. Advocates of the Aso Hill complex envisioned it as a sign of stability, nationality, and cultural myth making in the vibrant, new capital city.

Military dictators interpreted Abuja’s master plan as a document that required the isolation of the Three Arms Zone (as a shrine to power) from the rest of the city to make it inaccessible for public gathering. The river that runs down the foot of Aso Hill forms a moat between the central part of the city and the Zone. This moat can be crossed only by bridge, and the bridge is designed to be easily barricaded in time of civil disturbances. Hence, marching to the shrine of power, as is the case in most democratic societies, has been neutralized by the manner in which the master plan was interpreted and implemented. Any march in the city will stop at the national mall in the central district. This outcome was not by accident but by the careful intentions of the military dictators who built Abuja and who deliberately chose to ignore existing traditional urban examples in Nigeria. The ideology that privileges a landscape that can forge national unity in Nigeria will face several practical challenges with the national assembly and the civilian president, who took over power on 29 May 1999 after 15 years of continuous military dictatorship.

ABTEIBERG MUNICIPAL MUSEUM, MÖNCHENGLADBACH, GERMANY

noreply@blogger.com (HB) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:20:00 +0000

Designed by Hans Hollein; completed 1982

Since the 1990s, it has not been uncommon for architects and their clients to break with the two previously prevailing alternatives—temple or warehouse—for art museums, but such a typological rupture had been dramatically anticipated two decades earlier, by Hans Hollein in the Museum Abteiberg, a unique building tailored to an unusual site and a distinctive collection. The Pritzker Prize laureate of 1985, who was born in Vienna in 1934 and is an artist, teacher, and creator of furniture, interiors, and exhibitions, has at Mönchengladbach assembled a virtual primer of museum design, one that has brought a heretofore unknown visceral excitement to the vocation of museum going. In contrast to later attempts in this genre, however, Hollein’s achievement has contributed to an intensified appreciation of the museum’s contents rather than making a personal statement at their expense.

Although Hollein has learned from the institutional buildings of Louis I.Kahn and Alvar Aalto, he listens to his own music, which—to pursue the metaphor—includes concerti from the 18th, symphonies from the 19th, and popular songs from the 20th centuries. His eclecticism served him well in this complex commission, made more difficult by the need for the museum to serve urban as well as aesthetic ends. Hollein has linked Mönchengladbach’s town center on the heights with the medieval Ettal Abbey (today the city hall) on the slopes below, assembling a multi-tiered museum from a series of discrete elements of different sizes and shapes that provide a series of delightfully varied indoor and outdoor rooms. Distributing the individual volumes in space rather than containing them within a monolithic whole allowed him to maintain the picturesque scale of the town; at the subterranean level, the disparate sections are united.

Although designing a museum is always challenging, it is perhaps less onerous when, in contrast to those encyclopedic institutions that are in continual flux, its holdings consist of a focused group of works. Kahn found such a golden opportunity in the Kimbell Museum, and Hollein has exploited the similar possibilities here, where he worked closely with the director, Jonathan Cladders, in formulating the program. They believe that today the museum itself represents a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), “a huge scenario into which the individual work is fitted…not the autonomy of the work at any price but the deliberately staged correspondence between space and work of art” (Klotz, 1985, p. 19). This especially applies to contemporary art, which frequently is deliberately produced for a museum setting. The plan that Hollein and Cladders evolved is without precedent for this building type. None of the customary tropes, whether conventional or modern—vaulted galleries arranged symmetrically, the universal space, the proverbial white cube—are present. Instead, the combination of small, contained cabinets and larger rooms perfectly accommodates a collection that, although including some historical pieces, is mainly focused on the post-World War II period and, although international, is richly endowed with work by American artists of such competing movements as Minimalism, Post-Painterly Abstraction, and Pop. Many works are in the form of installations without customary boundaries or frames and do not necessarily require natural light.

From the town, one enters the museum precinct via an elevated walkway that leads to a stone-faced platform whereon is set a tower containing administrative offices; a library; workshops and storage; a cubic, top-lighted undivided volume for temporary displays; the shedroofed, zinc-clad “clover-leaf” pavilion for the permanent collection; and the entrance temple. The platform also covers museum spaces excavated into the hill, and from it, one can descend gradually to curving terraces, furnished with sculpture, that border the gardens of the former abbey; beneath a portion of the terraces are additional exhibition areas.

Hollein has rejected the prescribed routes encountered in traditional museums for mysterious, polymorphous paths that compel the viewer to wander on her own and discover unexpected places, then to turn back on them or chance on new chambers. Because chronology is not the issue it would be for a historically based collection, the ad hoc character is stimulating rather than frustrating. Upstairs and downstairs, under- and above-ground, the variously configured galleries illuminated by diverse means—daylight through windows and skylights and artificial light via incandescent, neon, and fluorescent fixtures—permit individual works to be perceived in the setting most sympathetic to their makers’ intentions. The most organized part of the display areas comprises what Hollein calls the “cloverleaf”—a group of seven “kissing squares,” to use Kahn’s formulation, that are traversed at the corners. Set under saw-toothed skylights, these rooms are ideal for big pieces by such artists as Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Carl Andre, and Roy Lichtenstein. There are also curved rooms, some with undulating walls that are positively Baroque in character; double-height spaces and circular steps add further drama. Hollein’s rejection of the convention of amorphous flexible areas, dominant since the 1940s, in favor of a rich variety of specific and distinctive spaces, would in the 1990s become a popular solution for art museums—yet another example of the way the Museum Abteiberg adumbrates many later schemes for this type of institution.

Also prescient is Hollein’s interjection of playfulness and irony into the reverence that typically pervades museum design. Although marble clads some of the surfaces, it is combined with less elevated masonry materials like brick and sandstone. Reflective as well as transparent glass appears; zinc is placed beside chromium and steel. One side of the temple-like pavilion that forms the main entrance sports graffiti in red paint, matching the color of some of the railings. Exterior light fixtures have an industrial character in contrast to the lush surrounding landscape and the textured brick walls and paths. The visitor, constantly encountering the unpredictable, is sensitized to the daring originality of the art displayed.

It is instructive to compare Museum Abteiberg with another German museum from the same period that similarly had a profound effect on subsequent museum design—James Stirling’s Neue Staatsgalerie (1977–84) at Stuttgart. Both are set on irregular terrain and require urbanistic interventions, but Stirling’s solution revives and updates the 19th-century museum paradigm, whereas Hollein has jettisoned all previous solutions. Both make reference to industrial as well as classical buildings and use the technique of compositional collage, yet their differences illuminate the manifold possibilities inherent in the museum program.