Compositions in Architecture

Compositions in Architecture
Author: Don Hanlon
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2009-03-23
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 047005364X

Architecture Use the patterns of architectural composition to inspire creative design In Compositions in Architecture, Don Hanlon offers students an excitingly original path to dis-covering architectural composition, one that avoids the traditional either/or choice between theory and practice. By exploring the underlying patterns of organization in architecture, this book enables the reader to connect architectural theory with the design process. And by relating what happens in the design studio with how the architect thinks about architectural composition, the approach spurs creative thinking. With examples that range across diverse cultures and historical periods—from the famous to the obscure—the author reveals the universal compositional strategies that can be used to solve particular architectural problems. Readers will explore: The five formal properties of composition—number, geometry, proportion, hierarchy, and orientation How the plan conveys the central organizing strategy of a building Typological similarities of architectural forms that cut across cultural, social, historical, and geographic boundaries Enriched by a graphic approach that will appeal to visual learners, Compositions in Architecture reveals the formal structures in architecture throughout the world as well as through the ages and inspires architects to turn abstract ideas into real-world design.

Urban Composition

Urban Composition
Author: Mark C. Childs
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2013-07-02
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 161689203X

Cities and towns are among humanity's greatest achievements, yet no single individual or organization creates them. The buildings, streets, and gardens of even a small town embody substantial investments of money, natural resources, and political capital. Much more than the sum of its parts, a settlement's vitality comes from its collective composition. Sometimes the cities and towns that emerge are glorious places, but too frequently they have only fragments of greatness or are soulless and environmentally unhealthy. Our new Architecture Brief Urban Composition shows architects, planners, artists, and engineers of individual projects how they can best fulfill their public trust to help make meaningful urban places. Each chapter contains a set of design queries followed by a discussion, illustrations, and references for further research. This accessible primer on urban design provides guidelines for designing buildings or plans for large cities or small towns. Urban Composition showcases projects across the United States and internationally, in metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Seattle, and London, and small communities such as Marfa, Texas.

Diagramming the Big Idea

Diagramming the Big Idea
Author: Michael T. Swisher
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1136245448

As a beginning design student, you need to learn to think like a designer, to visualize ideas and concepts, as well as objects. In the second edition of Diagramming the Big Idea, Jeffrey Balmer and Michael T. Swisher illustrate how you can create and use diagrams to clarify your understanding of both particular projects and organizing principles and ideas. With accessible, step-by-step exercises that interweave full color diagrams, drawings and virtual models, the authors clearly show you how to compose meaningful and useful diagrams. As you follow the development of the four project groups drawn from the authors’ teaching, you will become familiar with architectural composition concepts such as proportion, site, form, hierarchy and spatial construction. In addition, description and demonstration essays extend concepts to show you more examples of the methods used in the projects. Whether preparing for a desk critique, or any time when a fundamental insight can help to resolve a design problem, this new and expanded edition is your essential studio resource.

The Secrets of Architectural Composition

The Secrets of Architectural Composition
Author: Nathaniel Cortland Curtis
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013-09-02
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 048632074X

Well arranged, logical, and aptly illustrated, this classic survey covers every aspect of the design process. It addresses architectural principles as well as their practical application, examining general questions of scale, balance, proportion, and symmetry and presenting detailed treatments of doors, windows, walls, stairways, columns, and other features. Long acknowledged as a valuable resource for students and teachers alike, this volume is unsurpassed in terms of the richness of its material and the consistency of its insights. It was written by Nathaniel Cortlandt Curtis, an influential designer and artist who served as the head of the Tulane School of Architecture. Curtis illustrated his work with nearly 250 line drawings that depict architectural elements from a splendid variety of periods and settings, from ancient Rome's temples and palaces to modern-day hotels and museums of Paris and New York.

The Drama of Space

The Drama of Space
Author: Holger Kleine
Publisher: Birkhäuser
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2017-10-23
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 3035604355

The experience of architectural spaces is formed by the way they are staged. The Drama of Space examines the composition and articulation of architectural spaces in terms of spatial dramaturgy, as a repertoire of means and strategies for shaping spatial experience. This fundamental approach to architectural design is presented in four parts: Archetypal principles of spatial composition are traced from the study of three assembly buildings of the early modern period in Venice. Theatre, film, music, and theory provide background knowledge on dramaturgy. Detailed analyses of 18 international case studies offer new perspectives on contemporary architecture. The book ends with a systematic presentation of the dramaturgy of space, its parameters and tools, in architectural design.

Architectural Composition

Architectural Composition
Author: Rob Krier
Publisher: Axel Menges
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Architectural design
ISBN: 9783936681390

Rob Krier is a unique voice in today's architectural discourse through his commitment to developing a relevant and pragmatic theory of architecture based on his own experience and observations of architectural practice and opposed to the easy, abstract theorising so common in contemporary architectural writing. Together with his brother Leon, he has perfected a form of presentation in which the potency of his thinking finds its perfect counterpoint in detailed drawings and sketches which argue his case visually through the power of example. Following the success of his widely acclaimed "Urban Space", a work which looked at the problems of our cities from a historical, theoretical and practical standpoint, Krier now applies his particular, highly influential mode of didactic criticism to contemporary architecture in continuing search for fundamental architectural truths. Architectural Composition is both a theoretical and visual analysis which clearly illustrates the creative process which informs Krier's vision and praxis. The culmination of a lifetime's thought and experience by one of Europe's most important architectural theorists, it is without doubt a major achievement and is a standard work of reference for both students and practising architects. The book, published for the first time in 1988 by Academy Editions in London, has been supported by funds from the Fond zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung der Republik Österreich, and it was carried out at Krier's former Institut für Gestaltungslehre at the Technische Universität in Vienna.

Horror in Architecture

Horror in Architecture
Author: Joshua Comaroff
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2024-01-23
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1452970254

A new edition of this extensive visual analysis of horror tropes and their architectural analogues Horror in Architecture presents an unflinching look at how horror genre tropes manifest in the built environment. Spanning the realms of art, design, literature, and film, this newly revised and expanded edition compiles examples from all areas of popular culture to form a visual anthology of the architectural uncanny. Rooted in the Romantic and Gothic treatment of horror as a serious aesthetic category, Horror in Architecture establishes incisive links between contemporary horror media and its parallel traits found in various architectural designs. Through chapters dedicated to distorted and monstrous buildings, abandoned spaces, extremes of scale, and other structural peculiarities, and featuring new essays on insurgent natures, blobs, and architectural puppets, this volume brings together diverse architectural anomalies and shows how their unsettling effects deepen our fascination with the unreal. Intended for both horror fans and students of visual culture, Horror in Architecture turns a unique lens on the relationship between the human body and the artificial landscapes it inhabits. Extensively illustrated with photographs, film stills, and diagrams, this book retrieves horror from the cultural fringes and demonstrates how its attributes permeate the modern condition and the material world.

Geometry of Design

Geometry of Design
Author: Kimberly Elam
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2001
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781568982496

This work takes a close look at a broad range of 20th-century examples of design, architecture and illustration, revealing underlying geometric structures in their compositions.

Experiencing Architecture, second edition

Experiencing Architecture, second edition
Author: Steen Eiler Rasmussen
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1964-03-15
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780262680028

A classic examination of superb design through the centuries. Widely regarded as a classic in the field, Experiencing Architecture explores the history and promise of good design. Generously illustrated with historical examples of designing excellence—ranging from teacups, riding boots, and golf balls to the villas of Palladio and the fish-feeding pavilion of Beijing's Winter Palace—Rasmussen's accessible guide invites us to appreciate architecture not only as a profession, but as an art that shapes everyday experience. In the past, Rasmussen argues, architecture was not just an individual pursuit, but a community undertaking. Dwellings were built with a natural feeling for place, materials and use, resulting in “a remarkably suitable comeliness.” While we cannot return to a former age, Rasmussen notes, we can still design spaces that are beautiful and useful by seeking to understand architecture as an art form that must be experienced. An understanding of good design comes not only from one's professional experience of architecture as an abstract, individual pursuit, but also from one's shared, everyday experience of architecture in real time—its particular use of light, color, shape, scale, texture, rhythm and sound. Experiencing Architecture reminds us of what good architectural design has accomplished over time, what it can accomplish still, and why it is worth pursuing. Wide-ranging and approachable, it is for anyone who has ever wondered “what instrument the architect plays on.”