Information and architectural design - a study of certain theoretical aspects

The shortcomings of the ways in which design-related information is conventionally collected and organised into a brief suggest that information and design should not be looked at in isolation of each other but together with all their dynamic dimensions. The first step in the direction of such a total view is to identify every kind of determinant of design and describe their inter-relations. The determinants of architectural design may be listed as follows s a) factors in the spirit of of architectural vocation which individualise designers; b) factors belonging to the collective consciousness of architects as professionals; c) functional/practical aspects of design; d) information on qualitative aspects of design. Conventional studies of design-related information deal exclusively with the functional/ practical aspects, but the development of a valid theory of architect¬ ural design requires that the other three aspects are studied and their inter-relations described. Factors of architectural vocation which individualise architects may be explained in terms of what in psychology is known as 'schematization'. The terra 'schema1 enables us to explore observable patterns or regularities in the predilections and perceptions of architects. When applied to architectural situations the notion of schema shows that the past experience of an architect consistently reveals itself in model solutions of different kinds which can be analysed and classi¬ fied, and the implications of their employment can be established. Under certain circumstances some of these personal models gain the respect of the profession at large and become highly influential in shaping the collective consciousness of the profession. At any stage of architectural development the components of the implicit knowledge embedded in emergent models may be specified. Further, the emergent models when identified and described yield design concepts rich in implicative power. By including the desirable attributes of emergent models as part of a design programme it is possible to increase the effectiveness of the thought process followed by architects. Thus concepts which describe unique qualities of an emergent model provide us with a way of enlarging the traditional notion of information for design. Moving on to consider information on qualitative aspects, past theories of architecture show that 'increasing the effectiveness of functional/practical aspects' and 'creating special effects, enhancing users' interest in the building and producing impact' are the two purposes of the qualitative features of an environment. Any environment can be described in terms of -universal features like elements, relations, abstract qualities such as privacy or monumentality, and actions and events that take place in the particular environment. By combining these disparate entities we obtain a feature/function model of architectural quality and show how it can be used in the process of design and as an evaluative tool. Finally as a last step towards the consideration of information and design in all their complexity, we attempt to analyse how verbally formulated requirements are transformed into architectural solutions. Through an exploration of the role of emergent models and a study of the part played by interpersonal communication between architects, clients and users in the design activity, we offer a theoretical explanation of factors affecting the transformation of written briefs into ideas for buildings. Thus the central concern of this thesis is with the interrelation between factors of architectural vocation which individualise designers, factors belonging to the collective consciousness of the profession, and the underlying rules or laws governing the creation of architectural quality. All the conclusions are theoretical in nature? they attempt to bring together accepted knowledge, facts and research findings on the nature of design, and as such pose problems of evaluation. To overcome these we impose the requirements of agreement with facts, generality, parsimony, consistency and explanatory value on each theoretical conclusion. These criteria, besides being tools of self-criticism, point out difficulties, omissions and achievements of each conclusion and suggest areas of needed research

Sonic interactions in virtual environments

This book tackles the design of 3D spatial interactions in an audio-centered and audio-first perspective, providing the fundamental notions related to the creation and evaluation of immersive sonic experiences. The key elements that enhance the sensation of place in a virtual environment (VE) are: Immersive audio: the computational aspects of the acoustical-space properties of Virutal Reality (VR) technologies Sonic interaction: the human-computer interplay through auditory feedback in VE VR systems: naturally support multimodal integration, impacting different application domains Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments will feature state-of-the-art research on real-time auralization, sonic interaction design in VR, quality of the experience in multimodal scenarios, and applications. Contributors and editors include interdisciplinary experts from the fields of computer science, engineering, acoustics, psychology, design, humanities, and beyond. Their mission is to shape an emerging new field of study at the intersection of sonic interaction design and immersive media, embracing an archipelago of existing research spread in different audio communities and to increase among the VR communities, researchers, and practitioners, the awareness of the importance of sonic elements when designing immersive environments

HERITAGE 2022. International Conference on Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability

Vernacular architecture, tangible and intangible heritage of great importance to European and global culture, represents the response of a society culturally linked to its territory, in terms of climate and landscape. Its construction features are born from the practical experience of the inhabitants, making use of local materials, taking into consideration geographical conditions and cultural, social and constructive traditions, based on the conditions of the surrounding nature and habitat. Above all, it plays an essential role in contemporary society as it is able to teach us important principles and lessons for a respectful sustainable architecture. Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability will be a valuable source of information for academics and professionals in the fields of Environmental Science, Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Engineering and ArchitectureMileto, C.; Vegas López-Manzanares, F.; Cristini, V.; García Soriano, L. (2022). HERITAGE 2022. International Conference on Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HERITAGE2022.2022.15942EDITORIA

Domesticating the modern : an interrogation of the visual rhetoric of South African graphic designer Ernst de Jong (1934 - 2016)

In 1957, South African born Ernst de Jong returned to Pretoria, South Africa, after studying painting and information design at the University of Oklahoma in the USA. De Jong and his American wife, Gwen Drennan, immediately set about opening a graphic design studio that profited from de Jong’s transformative experiences in Oklahoma and established itself as a pioneer of identity design in South Africa. The modernising rhetoric of Ernst de Jong Studios (EDJS), and indeed de Jong himself, came to signify the utopian aspirations of a putatively bright, new and modern Republic. As the political and cultural contexts of the country changed, so did the nature and fortunes of EDJS; de Jong closed his design practice in 1994 and then gradually faded from view. This study is a discursive space, an interrogation of and often personal reflection on the circumstances of de Jong’s life and creative practice, as well as the inventive task of ‘prying open’ the artefacts, events and relationships that informed this practice. I aim to make visible an influential life, but also to question how it was constructed, and then re-presented — both by the participants and myself — for the purposes of this study. Concomitantly, I flesh open the drive, in a post-colonial community, to appropriate modernism in its project of individualisation. Oral history, and in particular ‘life history’, provides the starting point and underlying framework for my narrative that explores design briefs executed for the journal Lantern, the Rand Afrikaans University and the Afrikaanse Taalmonument. Although the three case studies cannot provide a comprehensive account of the vast output of EDJS, they serve to throw light on mainstream graphic design experiences in publication design, university branding and heritage design in the years 1957 to 1975 in South Africa.Visual ArtsPhDUnrestricte

New Hampshire general court, journal of the House of Representatives, containing the 2006 session January 4, 2006 through June 28, 2006 and the special session of September 26, 2006.

Titles and imprints vary; Some volumes include miscellaneous state documents and reports; Rules of the House of Representative

Creating for the Stage and Other Spaces: Questioning Practices and Theories

Abstract (ENGLISH)-This volume brings together most of the interventions by artists and scholars of the Third EASTAP Conference (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance), which should have been held in Bologna from 27 February to 1 March 2020, scheduled among the events of the VIE Festival 2020 and the activities of the Department of the Arts / DAMSLab. When everything was ready, the Conference, the last part of the Festival and the DAMSLab programme were suddenly canceled due to the first restrictions related to the pandemic. Following those sudden and unexpected events, the need to leave memory of the project arose from many quarters. It was thus decided to propose a publication which, while significantly differentiating from the original structure designed for the Conference, explicitly and directly refers to it, remaining an exceptional and significant testimony of the state of studies on theatre and performance in the pre-Covid era. The Conference plan envisaged two macro-sectors which concerned, one, the practices and theories relating to the composition of the texts; the other, the practices and theories relating to the composition of performative events referable to the methods of scenic writing. The volume takes up this polarity by framing it in a different division of relations, which explains – thanks to the groupings and their titles both the relations between text and text and those between sector and sector. The most consistent chapters are dedicated to performance and post-dramatic textuality: Questioning performance: theories and practices (17 reports) and Creating text for the stage: theories and practices (21 reports). The other chapters then come to place themselves in the force field described by these main groupings. Perfomer's body: the dancer, the actor (6 reports) and Creating for other spaces: landscape, sound, multimedia (7 reports) are ideally framed in the polarity of the performace, where to highlight the centrality of the body and the relational dynamics activated by spaces, sounds, and new technologies. Collective creations and community plays (7 reports), on the other hand, focuses on performance and new textuality. __________ Abstract (ITALIANO)-Il presente volume riunisce la maggior parte degli interventi di artisti e studiosi del III Convegno EASTAP (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance), che avrebbe dovuto tenersi a Bologna dal 27 febbraio al 1 marzo 2020, calendarizzato tra gli eventi di VIE Festival 2020 e le attività del Dipartimento delle Arti/DAMSLab. Quando tutto era ormai pronto, il Convegno, l’ultima parte del Festival e il programma DAMSLab sono stati improvvisamente annullati a causa delle prime restrizioni legate alla pandemia. In seguito a quei repentini e inattesi eventi, è nata l’esigenza da più parti avvertita di lasciare memoria del progetto. Si è deciso così di proporre una pubblicazione che, pur differenziandosi sensibilmente dalla struttura originaria pensata per il Convegno, a esso si richiamasse esplicitamente e direttamente, restando eccezionale e significativa testimonianza dello stato degli studi sul teatro e la performance nell’era pre-Covid. Il piano del Convegno prevedeva due macrosettori che riguardavano, l’uno, le pratiche e le teorie relative alla composizione dei testi; l’altro, le pratiche e le teorie relative alla composizione di eventi performativi riferibili alle modalità della scrittura scenica. Il volume riprende questa polarità inquadrandola in una diversa ripartizione delle relazioni, che esplicita – grazie ai raggruppamenti e ai loro titoli – sia le relazioni fra testo e testo che quelle fra settore e settore. Alla performance e alla testualità postdrammatica sono dedicati i capitoli più consistenti: Questioning performance: theories and practices (17 relazioni) e Creating text for the stage: theories and practices (21 relazioni). Gli altri capitoli si vengono quindi a posizionare nel campo di forze descritto da questi raggruppamenti principali. Perfomer’s body: the dancer, the actor (6 relazioni) e Creating for other spaces: landscape, sound, multimedia (7 relazioni) si inquadrano idealmente nella polarità della performace, dove evidenziare la centralità del corpo e le dinamiche relazionali attivate dagli spazi, dai suoni e dalle nuove tecnologie. Collective creations and community plays (7 relazioni) si orienta invece fra performance e nuova testualità