Argument 15 (2023). https://argument.uauim.ro/en/issues/15/355/
Authors: Anca Mitrache
When we talk about architecture, we think, implicitly, about the dynamics of the relationship between concept and materiality embodied in the formal expression with functional attributes and innovative foundation. Architects today navigate in an area of conceptualization involving not only the design process itself, but rather the deep investigation of the elements of architectural language and the materials associated in a symbolic key. This complex oscillation between abstract ideas and tangible forms of diverse materiality shapes the very culture of the built environment, growing structures that transcend simple functionality to become expressions of the art and culture of the moment. Inspired by cultural components, sustainability or avant-garde, the concept represents the main guiding element of architectural design, outlining, emphasizing or contextualizing the identity of the building. The conceptual parts are meant to ensure the skillful collaboration and harmonious orchestration of the elements of syntax and architectural language, materiality and light. Thus, the choice of materials becomes natural an articulation of the initial vision, creating a symbiotic relationship of the newly proposed object in the context, meaning to generate a new quality of the built environment - vitality. Seen from the sustainability perspective, the link between the concept and its materialization acquires a new importance in the design mechanism. Eco-conscious solutions propose materials that, through composition methods and passive or active principles of use, contribute and promote harmony within the environment. Equally, the research due to exploring materiality is expanding, pushing the gravity limit, through formal ingenuity and new materials with increased structural properties, deepening the sensory experience of space. In addition, the tactility, color and texture of the materials become essential elements in the story behind the building, shaping the emotional response of perception. The built ambient space needs today, perhaps more than ever, the association of narrative-concept, creating captivating environments that transcend the everyday turmoil. The intrinsic relationship created between reality and symbol, be it an architectural object, a built space or any denotative element (Fig. 1), fluctuates over time, like the mechanism of consciousness that determines our actions. When the ratio between them changes, the emotional human response involved, fade. That is why it seems obvious that the future of design as we imagine it today, although reserved for visionary concepts and interdisciplinarity, cannot function independently of achieving a stable balance as a whole, or more, of reaching humanity.
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.01
Authors: Melania Dulămea, Ana-Maria Vesa-Dobre
“Evolving Typologies and Housing Density” is a project that brings up typological thought as a means of decoding the built environment and the way it is inhabited. Various historical periods in the evolution of Bucharest have witnessed different inhabiting models corresponding to particular architectural typologies and reflecting the conceptions and knowledge of the respective times: political, cultural, technical, social, esthetic, etc. The research aims to investigate the implications of the typological reading of the city in the pedagogical and training process within the studio, both as a research and teaching method and as a basis for design reasoning through analogy and criticism. The inventory of projects puts together the collective research gathered as part of the 3rd year architectural studio from “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning Bucharest, studio 36. The students were invited to investigate the evolution of dense and collective housing projects in Bucharest and to subsequently use typological studies as a key resource in the process of rethinking the contemporary city, but also as a meaningful link between past, present and future. The pedagogic process focused on two major layers: the student’s conceptual approach of the project and its shaping into an architectural complex design.
Keywords: type, typology, density, conceptual model, inventory, didactic process
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.02
Authors: Silvia-Georgiana Pușcașu
Contemporary architectural projects respond to contemporary requirements and address new types of users, but, above all, they fit into the context of the city undergoing transformation. In particular, metropolitan areas are progressively adopting an institutional role, of economic power and cultural attractiveness. The development processes to which the urban organism is subjected can create problems of continuity and coherence from an architectural-urbanistic point of view. A result of these transformations is the periphery of the center, an area of peripheral tissue initially located on the edge that was integrated, over time, in the central area and which, by increasing the value of the large land located in the new configuration, attracts pressures of urban intervention. For a coherent intervention, a good understanding of this process and the physical context under discussion is necessary. In this sense, urban morphology provides a language and a repertoire of elements that become working tools for specialists. Contemporary urban restructuring follows the principles of porosity on a polycentric model, a context in which these centers are interpreted as urban nodes that can acquire a polar character, respectively of attractiveness at the city level. More than a possible process, in the case of the central periphery, a phenomenon of integration, assimilation and intensification will be observed based on the principles of nodality and, subsequently, polarity, a phenomenon associated with an urban form of border belt and defined by the fringe-belt concept. In this paper, I will review and verify the applicability of these concepts through the analysis of the urban model of the city of Bucharest, complementary methods of addressing contemporary challenges will be correlated and this approach will be applied in a site located in the central area, a fringe-type hybrid area - belt with development opportunities. The presented project is the result of the study for the diploma project, Forum Haşdeu: academic platform in a hybrid fringe-belt area, in Bucharest.
Keywords: fringe-belt, center periphery, porosity, polycentrality, polarity, node
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.03
Authors: Mihai Puiu, Ilinca Maria Dan
This paper aims to look into the emergence of hotels in the Romanian space, emergence fuelled by the desire to catch up with the Western trends. This programme is particularly noticeable in the capital city of Romania, in the late 19th century; certain buildings would also follow it into the next century and help strengthen the capital’s status socially, but also in the context of the utility it provided the city with. For the subject of the present study - Grand Hotel du Boulevard (an edifice with an outstanding history and a significant impact on the city’s development)-, we aim to identify the context that led to emergence of this programme in Bucharest. The purpose of this article is to look into how it aligned with the trends and standards of the large cities of the 19th century, building on the function of its predecessor, the inn, and going through all stylistic and functional stages. We will further highlight how the hotel contributed, in close connection with other historically and culturally equally relevant hotels, to the articulation of a tourist background that could turn the city into an attractive destination, and defined its special status over the last two centuries. Our conclusions are typical for the entire hotel movement, since the proposed edifice was treated as a high-end architectural and functional object both both during design and construction, as well as during its many rehabilitation and refurbishment phases. In the urban landscape that started to come into shape in the late 19th century, a particular attention went to the hotel’s functionality. The many facilities that had not been found earlier in Bucharest clearly marked the leap from an inn to a hotel. This approach, coupled with the stylistic dimension addressed to the last detail, indicates that Grand Hotel du Boulevard became a very first example of a new function in Bucharest.
Keywords: hotel, historical development, hotel standards, historical monument, inn, Grand Hotel du Boulevard
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.04
Authors: Lucia-Maria Pălăgeșiu
The desacralisation of churches, as a widespread phenomenon in Europe, has left its mark on states with a prolific secular character, leaving room for intervention on the material religious heritage in an innovative way. The architect has thus the opportunity to shape the space of a church in a new way, with different mechanisms and techniques of intervention in order to adapt the inert tectonics to the new values of the contemporary world. The re-inclusion of non-functional churches in society through new architectural programmes inserted in their desacralised structural shell is the main aim of the initiative to preserve and refunctionalise it. The search for functional alternatives suitable for the new context for the old structure is the main challenge the architect faces in the design process. As each church is placed in a different context with its own social, cultural, economic and political characteristics, the process of refunctionalisation is one rooted in the specificity of the place. The process involves a number of experts from related fields, who work upon a diagnosis of the area and elaborate a suitable hypothesis to design a new function of the old church. Thus, from an empirical point of view, the materiality of the church continues, although the values it served have lost their relevance. It can accommodate new functions that meet the current needs of the neighbouring community. The challenge is to identify and manage the specific elements of each church as an architectural object at the confluence of several socio-economic factors and, secondly, to define an alternative solution for the originally sacred function.
Keywords: church, desacralisation, ruin, house of worship, values, renewal, reuse
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.05
Authors: Amina Al-Adhami
Traditional Arabic architecture is closely related to place. It is unmistakable with any other, and this element of uniqueness is given by the climate, the construction materials used and their processing method, the chromatic resulting from the processing of those materials. Currently, traditional Arab architecture, going through a long process of transformation, has all but disappeared, and the image of Arab cities has lost its particular character. After successive political regime changes at the beginning of the 20th century, Iraq finds itself in a situation where its traditional architecture is almost lost, where Western imports have captured the attention of the general public at the expense of the local specificity. In response to this gradual loss of identity, local and international architects have tried to bring back to contemporary architecture the elements that are an integral part of the image of the traditional Iraqi city and Arab architecture. The results of these attempts are varied, but each has its merit and proves that a preoccupation with place and a deep understanding of context can only be beneficial at both the scale of the object and the urban scale.
Keywords: Arab architecture, vernacular techniques, traditional, Iraq
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.06
Authors: Bar-Eli Amos
Light and its adjunct ocular phenomena – darkness, cannot be isolated from a discussion regarding materiality in architecture. The multiple appearances of the material depend entirely upon the quality of light or lack of light. Thise paper explores unique material attributes of darkness and the way they translate into emotional and psychological concepts. These include ideas related to dreams, identity, revolution, the experimental, and dystopia. Thise paper utilizes visionary architecture propositions as the bases for their analysis and exploration. Darkness encompasses unwanted misinterpretations, exasperating roadblocks, and hidden perils. Conversely, darkness provides a nurturing space for resolving unresolved matters, breaking societal taboos, and confronting internal struggles that both torment and ignite the human soul. The absence of visibility does not diminish comprehension, but instead reveals new perspectives and emotions that remain hidden to the visible world. Visionary architecture, often unrealized and occasionally impossible to construct, encompasses provocative architectural ideas that challenge or offer alternatives to the prevailing norms. It provides architects with the freedom to express themselves in experimental and inquisitive ways, distinct from the act of constructing or writing theoretical texts. Liberated from the constraints of practicality, it opens avenues for exploring human emotions and contemplating futuristic possibilities. However, by introducing ambiguous realities, it also unveils new prospects for innovative concepts in tangible architecture. Visionary architecture uses darkness to explore conceptual understandings which the concrete cannot explain. Drawing on multiple visionary architecture examples, supported by relevant theoretical interpretations, the paper articulates the typology of darkness within the realm of visionary architecture. The paper contends that the use of darkness is imperative today no less than at any time in the past. Although contemporary technology can decipher mysteries of the universe and the body, still the ambiguity of creativity, emotion, eroticism, the unfinished, and death can be reconciled mainly by the use of darkness.
Keywords: Visionary Architecture, Darkness, Materiality, Architectural Representation
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.07
Authors: Stefania Kenley
The topic of Concept and Materiality is discussed here from two points of view: in relation to recent art and architecture theories and as a resonance to current art practices. The first part starts from Marcel Duchamp’s concepts of Infra-thin (Inframince) and Ready-made as materialised in his Large glass, and continues with two architecture projects by Le Corbusier, one from his Purist period and another demonstrating his tactile use of concrete. The expression As found, formulated by the architecture writer Reyner Banham in 1955, further discussed by the architects Alison and Peter Smithson, is not only part of the visual language of New Brutalism, but also of a responsible Postwar ethos. Opening the perspective towards recent critical texts and iconography, we shall question what appears as opposition between Ready-made and As found, and focus on their respective relationship: between an object and its Ready-made quality and between material and its situation, As found. Then the title “Ready-made object and material As found” suggests a new reading of the relation between Ethic and Aesthetic, different from that formulated by Banham. The second part is dedicated to the current art scene, still holding some Postwar resonance of the notions of Ready-made and As found. The focus will move from The Independent Group’s statements to Arte Povera and to the contemporary artist Giuseppe Penone working with both aspects, Ready-made and As found. It is not possible to analyse here the rich historical background of an entire shift of concepts, but just discuss subjective aspects emerging in my practice and theoretical approach. Influenced perhaps by the discussions in the academic circles where I had worked in the 1990s, one is an installation consisting of two laminated glass panels with transparent images inserted in-between layers and another, a “cloud” of transparencies hovering freely above large format monochrome paintings with insertions of As found materials.
Keywords: Aesthetic, As found, Ethic, Iconoframe, Infra-thin, New Brutalism, Ready-made
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.08
Authors: Andreea Iuliana Vornicu
This article is a rather brief and theoretical synthesis of the composition criteria in the architectural space and of their affective significance through a dialogue between different matters in relation to light. This study presents three representative papers of whose authors are well-established personalities in the domain of architecture, who left, in their works, genuine cultural references of significant value across time. The authenticity of these papers transcends the vicissitude of time and offers them priority in the system of values that analyzes the use of the architectural space, that employs philosophical and sensitive language of communication with the malleable matter exclusively in relation with the transition of light through these. It is important to refer to these reference works in order to analyze the way to represent principles in the system of values in different cultures and then to validate these basics across time. Beyond these aspects, establishing certain references generates the premises for a study framework, as this article aims to do, as well as the context to deepen symbolical significances and the search of new references to complete their exploration. The specific difference of any creative approach is, obviously, its method of representation. The syntax selected to sustain the basic concept and the artist’s own vision differs through the surprising associations of matters in the light. Textures, colors and the level of light diffusion are the elements of this syntax. The conveyed message has its own way of being transmitted and it results in a particular emotion upon the viewer and a unique experience that ends up being shared within a community across many generations, crucial for the individual to develop his/her emotions.
Keywords: light, matter, transparency, emotion, experience, architectural spaces, perception
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.09
Authors: Adrian Petre-Spiru
In an overview of color, in its various forms of appropriation or expression, this is an integral element of the environment, represented by the living organisms of the natural environment and by different man-made creations. Color has always been a key of importance in the evolutionary processes of the human habitat, influencing people’s emotional states from the first forms of shelters to the huge urban concepts. The environment and its diverse colors, with which it naturally appears to us, are perceived by human intelligence through objective or subjective processing and judgment of visual information. This information, complemented by communication, can influence the psyche in the processes of analysis, presentation and objective materialization. The effects are substantially generated by the external appearance of the volume, expressed by colors, with a decisive role for the context of which it is part. This paper studies color as an attribute of the natural environment, but also as an intervention of human activity, truly important to achieve aesthetic or decorative values, but especially to satisfy the needs on whose existence human evolution may depend on. Part of the color study will be approached in a comparative manner, between the natural and urban environment, on various important directions of specific fields, where human decision can improve, alter or destroy the image of the architectural object or the urban one. The relationship between the two environments will also be touched upon, through which the building can achieve a visual and functional connection, integrating sustainably through form, adapted materials and associated colors. This research starts with the study of the psychological effects of colors in the field of architecture, with a focus on the role of the creator to influence the viewer’s perception through the organized and coherent use of a chromatic palette, the ultimate goal being the acquisition of studied ways of applying shades indifferent contexts, through various textures.
Keywords: Color in architecture, material, texture, perception, effect, natural environment, urban setting, local identity
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.10
Authors: Melinda Bognár
The advent of the Digital Turn in architecture calls for reconsidering many conventional design phenomena. Nowadays communication is on computer and computers already alter how we experience design spaces and virtual scenarios. However, implementation brings a rupture to the design process. Even though the expression of any formal intention is possible on the screen, their realisation by industrial construction techniques comes with difficulties. Material-based design research involving manufacturing can also open new approaches to architectural creation. Robotic technologies and 3D printing are translators between the virtual and physical realms, such as construction workers and industrial machines. While representation already follows the digital logic, materialisation is often still industrial, creating a rupture in the design process. This paper seeks to highlight the tension points where materiality can connect computation through new media to create a coherent workflow, where the information of the material is an incentive driver of the design process. The question we are ask is whether virtual and physical materiality are derivatives of each other or is it time to recognise them independently?
Keywords: architecture, digital logic, additive manufacturing, new materiality, polymers
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.11
Authors: Andreea Robu-Movilă, Sabin-Andrei Țenea
The field of architecture has undergone many transformations in recent years, given the integration of generative algorithms and artificial intelligence systems that mark the shift from tools designed to do to tools designed to think. Thus, computation is no longer just a design tool, but aims to become the design method in itself. This article aims to address one of the implications of the “second digital turn” (Carpo, 2017) in architecture, addressing the paradox of choice that derives from the exploration of the latent space of algorithmic imagination by the human factor, in the post-generative stages of the design process. This study brings to light the potential of affective computing as a tool that can be employed to address this matter, and within this method the opportunities of the ERP component are distinctly highlighted. One of the challenges of generative design is the paradox of choice given by the excess of generated solutions, which makes architects become overwhelmed, confused and over-stimulated in their decision making in the face of the abundance of solutions produced by the algorithmic and generative phases. The authors address this issue by examining how emotions currently support decision-making and how they can be interpreted in the digital environment through “affective computing” (Picard, 1997) which is a Human-Computer Interface (HCI) based on the capture of physiological electroencephalographic EEG signals. Within this paradigm, the Event-Related Potential (ERP) component has been identified to access unconscious decisions within the visual semantic discretization process. The paper articulates on the hypothesis of relocating the decision control in favour of the human factor through affective computation in generative design processes. This method is capable to reduce the “execution gulf” and the “evaluation gulf” (Hutchins, 1985), i.e. the articulatory distance between concept and evaluation. The study will analyze the premises underlying this hypothesis and test an accessible HCI model based on an EMOTIV EPOC X headset, validating the functionality of this proposed framework.
Keywords: Generative Design, Latent Space, Choice Paradox, Decision Making, Affective Computation
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.12
Authors: Maria Boștenaru Dan, Adrian Ibric
This paper presents translation methods of innovative mapping approaches, from paper-based techniques from historical periods to the digital realm for 3 case studies: Bucharest, Lisbon and Rome. Such paper-based techniques are the 18th century’s city map of Rome (by Giambattista Nolli), the 1950s-60s psycho-geographical maps developed by situationists (Guy Debord) and novel visual layouts from architects and urban planners (Kevin Lynch, Saverio Muratori). A previous mapping developed by Bostenaru and Panagoupoulos (2014) of the 18th century Lisbon earthquake, based on a chronicle azulejos engraving of the event, is also considered as a base point for a more modern perception visualization of this location. Digital techniques include story maps and layered mapping. Several story maps types were investigated for walking or cycling tours. These kinds of tours are a method of investigation, more suitable in architecture than in geography, as reviewed for Rome. Photography is another such instrument and the path taken in the story map is suitable for this. The charted buildings span from 20th century heritage, to sites relevant for the effects of earthquakes, the latter for Bucharest and Lisbon. The Rapid Visual Screening method (RVS) focuses on the structural material in Bucharest, while heritage habitat approaches emphasize the role of green materials, for Lisbon and Rome. Innovations in the paper maps as well as scenario thinking (Helmuth Kahn) permit differentiating between emblematic and common buildings, which can be achieved digitally through story maps. As the example of Lisbon shows, a further step may be creating VR and 3D models or video content. In conclusion, these story map tools are useful to investigate layers of the city, for writing urban places.
Keywords: psycho-geography, rapid visual screening, walking tour, story map
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.13
Authors: Stephany-Emma Trif
The Earth is a dynamic system, yet our understanding of this system relies on fixed, human-imposed lines, measurements and boundaries, which obscure those dynamics. The tension between the fixed nature of our modes of representation and the dynamic nature of the Earth’s system becomes increasingly apparent in the context of accelerating global environmental changes. Rising temperatures on the Earth’s surface are changing climatic zones around the planet and creating complex shifts in ecosystems. Landscapes are changing as sea levels rise, deserts increase and the tropics expand, urging people to improve their ways of representing, monitoring and caring for their surroundings. As such, memory, empathy and experience are central elements of this paper as it discusses environmental changes through the lens of the architectural material. The challenge of translating between abstract global images and the human experience inhibits individual, empathetic awareness of the planetary scale of climate change. As such, this paper aims to identify ways in which the architectural material can help bridge the gap between individual and planetary scales of change while mediating cultural and environmental loss. Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws from academic fields such as geography, earth sciences, architecture and environmental studies, this paper examines the historical development of fixed representations of the Earth’s systems to propose enhanced ways of viewing, understanding and representing the planet within change. Exploring the architectural material as a palimpsest, the following paper investigates the potential of materials to become sensors as they employ their ability to record aspects of environmental change, storing them as memories. As such, the scientific and emotional data accumulated through the architectural material could enable both emotional and physical resilience, and, through its representation, facilitate an empathetic awareness of the environmental crisis humanity currently faces.
Keywords: palimpsest, archive, architectural heritage, memory, virtual reality, empathy
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.14
Authors: Irina Mihaela Moise
The pandemic crisis, as a turning point in recent history, has caused existing resources to be mobilized in a short time and triggered the emergence of unique approaches to spatial reorganization. With their formal freedom, unlimited adaptability and short production cycle times, lightweight inflatable or pneumatic structures, which are still in the midst of a technological boom, are an undeniable source of inspiration for today's crisis adaptation. Beyond pragmatic features such as ergonomics, protection and cleanliness, a variety of stylistic approaches can be identified, ranging from small-scale, minimal interventions in interior architecture, to large-scale, urban interventions. The article reviews the sources of inspiration that cross time and space, moving from the utopias of the 1960s to the emergency projects of the 21st century, with the aim of highlighting, through the broad spectrum of solutions, a direction to follow in architecture adapted to crisis solutions. Inflatable structures still fascinate, having the potential to be symbolic in any context.
Keywords: plastic, inflatable architecture, crisis situations, adaptability, malleability
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.15
Authors: Adrian Ibric
The applied research for the development of the quality of urban life around Europe has been and continues to be a priority funding area of the European Commission. JPI Urban Europe is one of the instruments through which financial support has been granted in urban innovation, in order to ensure the green transition of city components from polluting elements to ecological ones, respectively from linear models of consumption, exploitation and operation to circular urban systems. A particularity of this programme is the transnational approach to the projects, which is reflected both in the diversity of the location of the study cases, the types of partners involved (private, institutional, non-governmental) but also in the way in which the funding is granted, through common budgets of the national development funding agencies, which are sometimes doubled by non-reimbursable monetary assistance from the European Union. The article chronologically summarizes the JPI Urban Europe calls, from the first competition (2012) upto 2023, namely the launch of a new and successor funding formula, integrated in Horizon Europe – the DUT Partnership (Driving Urban Transitions) and the relevant funded projects. The winning applications covered the topics imposed by the programme, from circularity and urban transition, to climate neutrality, energy-positive neighborhoods, sustainable urban accessibility and sustainable cities in general, examples of how cities face current challenges such as increasing the density of housing in the urban environment, increasing costs of execution and operation of infrastructure, including construction, mitigating the effects of climate change, migration, etc. Among the conclusions and innovations resulting from the implemented projects, the following are standing out: the increase in the understanding and capacity of citizens to support the transition to a more resilient and efficient urban environment in terms of consumption, in participatory, innovative ways and through transnational communities, but also the synergies between specialists, urban users, administration and investors. All these have led to new concepts such as the 15-minute cities or novel solutions for circular urban economies.
Keywords: urban circularity, green transition, climate neutrality, energy positive neighborhoods
]]>Argument 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.54508/Argument.15.16
Authors: Matei Alexandru Mitrache
Canvassing the Concept event took place in May 2023 in the form of a dialogue with presentations held by young London architecture graduates - in online format. The organization, script and moderation of the 4 sessions were managed by Matei Mitrache, architect and university assistant at Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and University Westminster, London. The idea of these meetings - presentations was provided by the Educational Forum of Architecture and Urbanism - FEdAU - held within the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, a project promoting the connection of UAUIM with the international and national educational environment. Such manifestations seem to fit naturally into a mode of operation and education, in a world of excellence in communication. Starting from 2021, the organization of these events has periodically brought to attention of Mincu students the innovative experiences of fellow architects from the European space and beyond, as well as the experiments, concerns, successful studies surprised in original projects - a world of ideas, searches and research finally materialized in the concept. This year "Canvassing the Concept" hosted eight young architects, designers and researchers from London sharing different approaches to the creative process and how they managed possible solutions to various challenges in recent experiments.
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