Consequences of Proportional Systems in Architecture

The system of architecture inscribed by Vitruvius in De Architectura and famously drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in 1490, as well as Cesar Cesariano after him in 1521, has provided modern architecture and art historians with argumentation for placing the architectural object at the centre of a system of relations between symmetry, geometry and proportion. When one looks at the last 100 years, this system of relations can be seen to have regulated, in varying ways, architectural design methodology since its ‘rediscovery’ and re-inscription into architectural discourse in the middle of the 20th century by the architecture and art historians, such as Rudolf Wittkower in his book Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949) and the essays by Colin Rowe titled “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa” (Architectural Review, 1947) and “Mannerism and Modernism” (Architectural Review, 1950). This paper, which is a work-in-progress excerpt from PhD research by the author, argues that these works established a dominant fiction(1) in the discipline of architecture, or a way for architects to perceive and interpret the built environment. However, with advances in the technology of production in the last twenty years, and, in parallel, the development of contemporary discourses of computation and digital design in relationship to the natural sciences, this system can be questioned and the dialogue between forms of production, systems of proportion and architecture re-opened.1 – The term ‘dominant fiction’ was outlined in Silverman, Kaja. Male Subjectivities at the Margin, Psychology Press (1992)

Discrete Automation - Eyes of the City

Observing people’s presence in physical space and deciphering their behaviors have always been critical actions to designers, planners and anyone else who has an interest in exploring how cities work. It was 1961 when Jane Jacobs, in her seminal book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, coined a famous expression to convey this idea. According to Jacobs, “the natural proprietors” of a certain part of the metropolis – the people who live, work or spend a substantial amount of time there – become the “eyes on the street.” Their collective, distributed, decentralized gaze becomes the prerequisite to establishing “a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city.” Almost half a century later, we find ourselves at the inception of a new chapter in the relationship between the city and digital technologies, which calls for a reexamination of the old “eyes on the street” idea. In the next few years, thanks to the most recent advances in Artificial Intelligence, deep learning and imaging, we are about to reach an unprecedented scenario, the most radical development in the evolution of the Internet-of-Things: architectural space is acquiring the full ability to “see.” Imagine that any room, street or shop in our city can recognize you, and autonomously respond to your presence. With Jacobs’s “eyes on the street,” it was people who looked at other people or the city and interpreted its mechanisms. In this new scenario, buildings and streets similarly acquire the ability to observe and react as urban life unfolds in front of them. After the “eyes on the street,” we are now entering the era of the “Eyes of the City.” What happens, then, to people and the urban landscape when the sensor-imbued city is able to gaze back? What we are currently facing is an “utopia or oblivion” crossroads, to say it with the words of one of the most notable thinkers of the past century, Richard Buckminster Fuller. We believe that one of the fundamental duties of architects and designers today is to grapple with this momentous shift, and engage people in the process. “Eyes of the City” aims to experiment with these emerging scenarios to better comprehend them, deconstructing the potential uses of new technologies in order to make them accessible to everyone and inspire people to form an opinion. Using critical design as a tool, the exhibition seeks to create experiences that will encourage people to get involved in defining the ways in which new technologies will shape their cities in years to come. For this reason, it recognizes in Shenzhen’s Futian high-speed railway station its natural home – a place where to reach a broad, diverse audience of intentional visitors and accidental passersby, and a space where, just like in most other liminal transportation hubs, the impact of an “Eyes of the City” scenario is likely going to be felt the most

The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now and In the Future

Authored by architecture theorist Mollie Claypool, it’s your one-stop-shop for the history of digital thinking in architecture. From debates around parametric design to the emergence of collaboration, the report condenses the interplay between digital innovation and architecture into one, tangible piece to reference

Sharing but not Caring - Performance of TCP BBR and TCP CUBIC at the Network Bottleneck

Loss-based congestion control protocols such as TCP CUBIC can unnecessarily fill router buffers adding delays which degrade application performance. Newcomer TCP BBR uses estimates of the bottleneck bandwidth and round trip time (RTT) to try to operate at the theoretical optimum – just enough packets to fully utilize the network without excess queuing. We present detailed experimental results that show in practice, BBR can either over- or under-estimate the bottleneck bandwidth and RTT, causing high packet loss for shallow buffer routers and massive throughput variations when competing with TCP CUBIC flows. We suggest methods for improving BBR’s estimation mechanisms to provide more stability and fairness

Assessing Indicators of Early Reading Skills

Measures that assess pre-reading skills were examined. The measures included a typical informal kindergarten inventory for Initial Consonant Sound Identification, and Good\u27s (1997) DIBELS measures that include: Letter Naming Fluency, Onset Recognition Fluency, and Phonemic Awareness Fluency. Participants included 50 kindergarten students from three different classrooms from two elementary school buildings in the same school district. Results demonstrated that the four measures were highly correlated with each other, and that the Onset Recognition Fluency measure best predicted the classroom teacher\u27 predictions of at-risk students for reading difficulties. The four measures together were moderately to highly predictive of the teachers\u27 ratings of at-risk students. In addition, means, standard deviations, ranges, and cut off points were established for the group of participants in this study

Stresses in suspension bridges

A suspension bridge is one in which the roadway over the stream or span to be crossed is suspended from chains or wire ropes. A suspension bridge consists of the towers or piers over which the main chains or cables pass; the anchorages to which the ends of the cables are attached; the main chains or cables from which the roadway is suspended; the suspending rods or chains which connect the roadway with the cable and the roadway. The sub-structure consists of the foundations, piers &c. The super-structure consists of the roadway and the chains or cables --page 1