Architectural design values | EPFL Graph Search

Architectural design values make up an important part of what influences architects and designers when they make their design decisions. However, architects and designers are not always influenced by the same values and intentions. Value and intentions differ between different architectural movements. It also differs between different schools of architecture and schools of design as well as among individual architects and designers. The differences in values and intentions are directly linked to the pluralism in design outcomes that exist within architecture and design. It is also a big contributing factor as to how an architect or designer operates in his/her relation to clients. Different design values tend to have a considerable history and can be found in numerous design movements. The influence that each design value has had on design movements and individual designers has varied throughout history. Aesthetic design values The expansion of architectural and industrial

Seismic Behaviour and Design of Mixed RC-URM Wall Structures

Alessandro Paparo

In several countries of central Europe, many modern residential buildings are braced by reinforced concrete (RC) and unreinforced masonry (URM) walls coupled with RC slabs. Such mixed constructions, in fact, behave better under seismic loading than buildings with URM walls alone. Similarly, the insertion of RC walls is a technique used to retrofit existing modern URM constructions that feature RC slabs, since both strength and displacement capacities of the repaired structure increase with respect to the un-retrofitted configuration. Although modern mixed RC-URM wall buildings are rather common, very little is known about their seismic behaviour and codes do not provide adequate design and assessment guidelines. Hence, the thesis focuses on four objectives: (1) to provide experimental data on the seismic behaviour of mixed RC-URM wall structures; (2) to formulate recommendations for setting up numerical models for structures with both RC and URM walls; (3) to develop a mechanical model that represents the interaction between RC and URM walls; (4) to propose a displacement-based seismic approach for the design of new mixed RC-URM wall structures and the retrofitting of URM wall buildings by adding RC walls or replacing URM walls with RC ones. An experimental investigation of two mixed RC-URM wall substructures leads to new findings with respect to the actual distribution of the reaction forces between RC and URM walls and gives insight into the displacement profile of mixed RC-URM wall structures. The results are used to validate two numerical strategies and recommendations for setting up models for structures with both RC and URM walls are formulated. A simple mechanical model, which takes into account the most important parameters influencing the seismic behaviour of mixed RC-URM wall structures, is proposed and validated. The model is based on the shear-flexure interaction as URM and RC walls display dominant shear and flexural deformations, respectively. In the last part of the thesis a displacement-based design approach for mixed RC-URM wall structures is developed. The design method is verified through inelastic time-history analyses (ITHA) of three-to-five-storey case study buildings. Comparison between the design values and the results from ITHA suggests that the design methodology controls the horizontal deflection of the structures, being almost linear over their height, and avoids concentrations of deformations in the bottom storey, a typical feature of URM wall structures. On the other hand, for the three-storey configurations, it was observed that the approach overestimates the maximum horizontal displacement.

EPFL2015

Introducing the architectural values of the Common

Valentin Daniel Maurice Bourdon

The recent development of the “Common” as an interdisciplinary field of reflection seems to show some restraint with respect to the architectural culture that precedes it. This proposal invites to explore the intensities and the reasons for such a resistance. Over the last decades, the Common is not only brandished by a growing number of intellectuals engaged in the exploration, the observation and the possible recognition of sustainable alternatives to current economic models. It is also more and more recurrent in scientific circles, particularly in the social sciences, but also in political language. Becoming unavoidable in the contemporary public debate, the Common asserts today as a reality to study, embodying breaks and continuities. In parallel with this dynamic, several disciplines have already produced remarkable contributions defining a certain number of theoretical positions on the subject. Although architecture field, like most humanities, has expressed a growing interest for the notion of “Common(s)”, even more in recent years, it still struggles to identify its own entries. Stakes are often limited to the "areas of influence" of the discipline, related to the architectural culture in a very distant way. No without legitimacy, the debate focuses on governance, resources and popular appropriation, and generally relates to limited design issues. As contagious it is, the “spread” of the common seems to had contoured the central question of the form. Where economics, politics, philosophy or sociology tend to give it a favorable place to enrich their own fields of discipline, architecture seems less inclined to seize the stake of the Common with its own constructions theoretical and its own analytical tools. It is particularly striking to observe how the architectural culture and its semantic heritage are kept at a certain distance from a reflection on the Common(s). Such a disconnection is even more crucial when considering history as accumulated experiences and gradually amended principles. The optimization of resources, organization of communities of life or spatialization of political decisions have always been an integral part of the discipline. Despite this, the long tradition of architectural theory, as well as the figure of the architect are very often absent in the recent literature, or directly pointed as contrary forces to the principles lead by the Common. The proposal thus intends to evaluate the controversial gap between architectural values and the renewed paradigm of the Commons, considered as a bundle of alternatives, but also as a source of fundamental continuities. By crossing the values of the common to those of the architecture, the proposal aims a double will. First, such a correspondence could bring to a hypothetical semantic renewal in architectural language, by confronting concepts and words. It also could constitute a useful stage to develop critical looks about the Common and lucid readings of its propagation in humanities, by clarifying several appropriations. Faced with the vitality of the theme, identifying attitudes of research within the current architectural debate appears as a prerequisite for the development of an architectural thought about the Common, by taking into account its multidirectional nature, sometimes ambiguous or even contradictory.

University of Huddersfield2019

Introducing the architectural values of the Common

Valentin Daniel Maurice Bourdon

2019

Seismic Behaviour and Design of Mixed RC-URM Wall Structures

Alessandro Paparo

EPFL2015

Introducing the architectural values of the Common

Valentin Daniel Maurice Bourdon

University of Huddersfield2019

Introducing the architectural values of the Common

Valentin Daniel Maurice Bourdon

2019