Nomadic Resituation

Circulation Analysis

Unit Analysis

Nomadic Device

Nomadic Device Budget

Nomadic Device

Reading detail and poetry

As the technique of detailing changed from the hands of the craftsman to the tools of the architect, how has the resulting construction of details changed? Explain in terms of scale, material and cost.

Many architects today have lost touch with the physical, hands on, element of architecture. With most of the designs created digitally, many times, details are overlooked or discounted. The craftsman comes into the design to aid the architect with the implementation of the details. While the architect creates and designs specific points and details of a project, it is the skill and knowledge of the craftman who is able to implement those details precisely and accurately.

How does "geometrical relationship" of individual details provide an understanding of the whole building if "indirect vision" localizes the viewer and "habit determines to a large extent even optical reception"?

The use of multiple details throughout the entire project helps to solidify the design. Then the details reference each other that create a dialog that helps to understands the larger extent of the project.

Carlo Scarp's details are a "result of an intellectual game" where the Open City buildings are constructed from an act of poetry. Describe what role the detail plays to "tell-the-tale" in each of these environments.

The details in Scarp’s work “tell the tale”  are the main element that influence the rest of building, including the spaces derived within the building. The Open City buildings illustrates its relationship to the site. Little focus is placed on the symbolism of the building, but rather it is on the poetic beauty.

Pendleton-Jullian writes about the Open City as emerging from and being in the landscape. Does allowing landscape to initiate "the configuration of territory and space" challenge Western building notions, and how so?

Allowing the landscape to naturally create boundaries and spaces is a concept not utilized by Westerners. Emphasis is placed on designing a site to accommodate the building situated on it, rather than the other way around.

Describe some detail conditions of the Open City that convey "lightness" as Pendleton-Jullian refers to.

The lightness of the Open City can be seen as literal in the sense of use of timber to convey lofty fluid spaces without large obstructions. Also with this, lightness can take on a visibility aspect, with the openness of the timber can provide increased visibility and the transition of light throughout the City.

Reading Tectonics

1. The readings refer to tectonics in a variety of settings; tectonic/stereotomic, tectonic/atectonic, topos/typos/tectonic, representation/ontological, rhythm, corporeal metaphor, ethnography, and technology. Briefly define each term and provide an architectural example that embodies the condition.

Tectonic/sterrotomic - light frame construction/earth-nature based construction – structure is straightforward and easily distinguishable i.e. architectural framework

Tectonic/atectonic - structure that falsifies the true structural meanings. Usually just astetically pleasing. i.e. The English building on campus

Topos/typos/tectonic - 3 components  of the built envrionment i.e. site/type/structure

Ontological/representation – technical and structural aspects of the building/ symbolic aspects of the construction  i.e. earthwork, frame, roof/hearth and infill walls

Rhythm- a patterned movement i.e. a colonnade

Corporeal metaphor - the bodily experience of a building i.e. Saynatsalo Town Hall

Ethnography – how culture is incorporated into architecture i.e. tepee

Technology – alters how one sees the world around them 

2. Kenneth Frampton writes that this study of tectonics "seeks to mediate and enrich the priority given to space", what is a dominant trend in Western architecture of today and how does tectonics relate to this trend?  

The trend that is prevalent throughout the west is the exemplification of atectonics as a method of communicating themes and representations. Where many classical buildings were designed with columns and arches that were structurally load bearing, the use of columns and arches today take on a more visually appealing aspect, rather than structural.

3. "Greek in origin, the term tectonic derives from the work tekton, signifying carpenter or builder". How has the the impact of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and other space-time models altered tectonic etymology?  

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity makes the human question and realize their existence in space. This questioning of relativity directly correlates to tectonic etymology in how the carpenter can construct a space that can demand a human to respect and understand their relationship to the space.

4. Vittorio Gregotti states in 1983, "(t)he worst enemy of modern architecture is the idea of space considered solely in terms of its economic and technical exigencies indifferent to the ideas of the site". If the intention of site is to situate human in the cosmos, how then does site infer from a contemporary landscape that has been graded, conditioned, tamed, treated, sculpted, mapped, engineered, essentially re-created by humans?

The site is just a minuscule aspect of the larger scale of the cosmos. Though it is altered to accommodate the human’s needs and desires, it is still situated within the cosmos. 

5. Is architectural tectonics applicable or relevant in a world of global mobilization? State and explain your position.

Architectural tectonics takes advantage of technology today and illustrates how the world is evolving with all kinds of information. In architecture architectural tectonics is relevent in today's word by the use of technology and space.

analysis of structural precedent