Responsive Systems: Light and Human Responsive Systems in Architecture

This thesis studies the notion of responsiveness in architectural design. It tries to make a framework for understanding the act of response in architectural body. Focusing on Light as a contextual force, it studies the way light affects the built environment and architectural body, in order to introduce a light responsive system. This light responsive system will be used to design a mediatheque in the city of Geneva. Studying a multidisciplinary thematic between architecture and building physics this study is interested primarily to the architec- tural qualities of space. In parallel, it also considers the perfor- mance and comfort metrics. Two case studies in the third chapter are based on in-situation mappings and radiation analysis. The radiation calculations are done by Diva light simulator (based on Radiance software). The case studies are ordered considering the scale that they study; Their outcomes are used for the same-scale factors in a light responsive system proposed in the fifth chapter. In the chapter four the city and the program are reduced to quanti- tative design parameters to be used in the light responsive system. The term responsiveness is widely used in different disciplines. In the first chapter after a survey on these usages in different con- texts such as biology, social science and art, this study summarises a definition of responsiveness to found a framework for a light responsive system. Focusing on climate responsive systems and particularly light, in the second chapter, different approaches to use light as a form- giver for architecture are introduced. This chapter is devoted to the 6 questions such as :What are the spatial qualities of light and how lighting concerns affect architecture and design process? For introducing a light responsive system in the third chapter two case studies in two different scales are carried out. One studying the relation of light and the public space focusing on the urban promenades and the other one studying the relationship of interior light zones and the geometry; It searches for a lighting grammar in the interior space. Chapter four is devoted to analysis of the contextual and organisa- tional design problem parameters. As this study will be used later to solve a real design problem, in this chapter the objective is to propose simplified-well-behaving models of the urban context : the city of Geneva and the program: Mediatheque for the light respon- sive system. Chapter five proposes the characteristics of a light responsive sys- tem, considering all the design problem parameters.

(What) is Research Appropriate to Architecture?

Selena Savic

It is often unclear whether by architectural research we mean research about architecture, research through architecture or research for architecture. These three categories, borrowed from Christopher Frayling’s discussion on research in design and art, are not mutually exclusive, but they do look for legitimacy in different fields. We are familiar with forms of historical and theoretical research about architecture. Improvement of architectural and design practice as the focus of design research has been addressed in a significant body of work by design practitioners and theorists. It is research through architecture that I will concentrate on, hoping to clarify some doubts about its methods and legitimacy.

2014

Architectural strategies to integrate wellbeing and health effects of daylight into the design of primary schools: a comparative analysis of exemplary case studies

Jean-Denis Bernard Marie Ghislain Thiry

Starting from an architect’s point of view, the aim of this research is to combine the daylight performance of educational spaces with a broader spatial, cultural, and historical approach. Through a rigorous study of school typologies, the geometry of their spaces, and their associated daylighting strategies, this work aims to connect design practitioners with aspects of health and well-being for the pupils, as far as these aspects are related to the quality of daylight. The proposed methodology seeks to analyse a range of outstanding case studies from the masters of modern architecture, embodying architectural strategies specifically designed to ensure adequate illuminance levels in learning areas throughout the day. A selection of some singular primary schools will be established through a historical analysis which emphasizes the impact of hygienists’ principles – legacies of Modernism – on the evolution of plans and volumes of different school typologies in Switzerland and Europe, from 1945 to the present days. An analysis of the selected case studies will be carried out using an innovative representation method of average illuminance received at eye-level and combined with a HLR model – currently under development at LIPID [1, 2] – which assesses the health potential of daylight using a dynamic approach. Through a validation of the simulated results using different in situ measurements and analyses following a specific protocol, we aim to accurately identify architectural criteria and propose strategies for achieving “circadian design”, more specifically those having a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of occupants. We will also carry out a comparative critical assessment of the buildings selected as case studies in the initial phase of this proposed research. The goal is to positively influence decisions related to the design of naturally lit spaces, specifically in schools and according to their impact on health, wellbeing and student productivity. The methodology will be a complementary blend of observations, in situ measurements and qualitative and quantitative analyses, both in a simulated environment and in actual working conditions of the selected case studies.

2015

Architecture in the Data-driven City

Frederick Peter Ortner

In the last ten years, new sources of urban big data have made it possible for algorithms to increasingly control how the city is perceived, understood and managed by its inhabitants; this is the data-driven city. New efforts in the social sciences, like critical data studies, are beginning to describe the ways in which urban data is never completely objective and how its logics influence and shape our everyday physical world. In this thesis I transfer insights from critical data studies to architecture, asking how the emergence of data-driven urbanism is influencing architecture as practice and artifact and, conversely, what impact architecture can make in an urban context dominated by big data. To answer these questions I take on three place-based case studies which highlight controversial urban problems managed by automated practices of measuring, mapping and procedural response: aviation noise near Heathrow Airport, storm floods in Amsterdam and population density in Singapore. Though data-driven, these cases nonetheless demonstrate the persistent importance of the design of the built environment to the function of these urban systems. To make a comparative analysis of the three case studies and to provide a framework to interrogate the impact of architectural interventions, I introduce a new conceptual tool: the data-genealogy tree. I use the data-genealogy tree to (1) chart how metrics, institutions, architectural elements and software are brought into a data-mediated socio-technical system, (2) to assess over time the growing embeddedness of this socio-technical system in each case study, and (3) to identify reorientation points when motivations of the socio-technical system have changed and innovations emerged. Examining the association of architectural artifacts with the reorientation points charted in the data-genealogy tree makes possible an assessment of the impact of architectural interventions and provides a basis for describing more generally how the architect may seek to influence the development of the data-driven city. As an ensemble, the architectural interventions described in the case studies also provide evidence for a description of the formal evolution of architecture in the data-driven city. The case studies suggest that singular architectural artifacts are less relevant to this context than catalogues of architectural elements which are made open to quantification and tracking and can assemble into many possible configurations in response to the demands of urban systems. Finally, I consider how design process is changing in the data-driven city, describing how architects in the case studies have worked with urban data to cross disciplinary silos or recruit wider stakeholder participation in consensus design solutions.