From Drawing to Building - Essay Example

Changes in houses architectural development. Name Date Cities and urban centers across the world have been developing over a long period of time, what lead to their establishment and development varies. Small urban areas can grow into cities within a short time or in some occasions fail to develop. The architecture of buildings and design of cities varies depending on country. Over a long period of time these designs have been changing due to different reasons, there has been many themes and debates in urban design that has help shape the city design and architecture. Several architects historians and planners have investigated the relationships between urban patterns, society, and design and planning that can promote a more sustainable and better urban areas (Evans, 1997). Urbanism develop as a result of disciplines like urban planning and urban sociology. Urban planning is the physical design and management of urban buildings while urban sociology concerns urban life and culture. Urbanism emerged towards the end of 19th century and its emergence is associated with the increase of centralized manufacturing, social organizations, mixed use neighborhoods, and networks (Evans, 1997). There are several architect historians and planners that we learned in class and two important are Robin Evans and Duanfang Lu. Robin Evans was a British architect and an historian born in 1944 and died in 1993. He was brought up in Essex and he attended British state school. After his high school education he joined Architectural Association School of Architecture to study architecture where he earned a diploma (Evans, 1997). He went further to study prison architecture in his PHD. In his career he wrote several essays and reviews which was published in journals. He also taught in several schools such as Polytechnic of Central London, University College London, and Cambridge school of architecture (Evans, 1997). In his life he wrote about architecture concern for the meaning of space and matter, perception and imagination. He also travelled to U.S and lectured in several institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. Dr. Duanfang Lu is another personality who has written widely in the field of architecture. He lectures at Sydney School of Architecture, design and planning. She is very educated holding a PhD in architecture from the university of California and bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Tsinghua (Lu, 2006). She has earned research grants from US Social Science Research Council and best article price in planning perspectives. She has done researches on modern Chinese architecture and planning history, housing design and neighborhood planning, modern architecture and urban development, and many others. Towards the end of 19th century architecture and housing models in Europe has been changing. The buildings was shifting from the traditional sense of buildings to evolution in housing, this evolution started as a result of people thinking of space in their houses from a different perspective. At the beginning of 19th century building for both the rich and elites was built in symmetrical facades and rigid floor plans (Evans, 1997). The rooms in the houses accommodated for both vertical and horizontal circulation between rooms. The floors was designed in a way that could enable the flow of fluid outside all the way to the stairways and to termination point. The doors was aligned in such a way that it will allow the movement of fluid between rooms to stairways to termination in predominant spaces in the building. This form of buildings designed was observed by Evans, wrote about it and thought of ways in which it can be improved. In 20th the house design start to change and there was development of a different circulation space. The development of different circulation space was meant to allow servants enter and leave the house without being seen anywhere else, this provided privacy to the house owners also. Hallways in the house gave a chance to the servants to move in the house quietly without disturbing the building residents. The plans for the floor start being less rigid because of the development of the new and separate circulation space (Evans, 1997). New ideas about what buildings can accommodate and its uses start to emerge because of growing population and diminishing space. Evans documented how the rich and poor was leaving in Europe and U.S in 19th and 20th century, in his writings he explained the confusing mature of mass development of housing in urban areas. In Europe the houses for the poor had several doorways leading to many places, but houses for the rich had few doors, the several number of doors led to several problems in families. There was a problem of privacy because people being able to move through rooms easily made privacy hard especially in houses made for public life, uses of rooms was also confusing because sometimes they were used as sleeping places (Evans, 1997). Evans explained two problems with the houses for the poor in London that is lack of dead end spaces and space overlap. When it comes to issues of space overlap there was little space in the house not enough for a family to function as a family and dead end spaces could yield privacy and clarity in the house such that where a person is can be known and how one should behave in a room. The two problems according to Evans is still there but the problem is that the current house design is not getting it right and we are moving in the wrong direction. Dead end spaces still remain a thorny issue within the modern American and European housing as it stops and enable certain living situation. Spacing is such a bigger issue and particularly the overlap and besides it is different from the 20th century London design. Despite U.S effort to revolutionize housing industry by introducing sleeping program there are still complain about the overlap and houses build are too big from a household (Evans, 1997). The argument from the industry is that it is less involving when an expensive and bigger house is built as compared to trying to utilize a space available from other uses more making that space quality and attractive. The U.S housing industry is less concerned with the problems of the poor by enticing the rich while at the same time creating more problems for the poor. The solution to these is to build medium houses that satisfies both upper and lower class families according to Evans analysis (Evans, 1997). Following the need for modern house, there is English housing reforms that led to the development of better houses especially in Europe. In the mid-19th the poor lived in overcrowded homes with poor conditions and this led to continuous criticism from many and this led to the era of domestic legislation especially that touches on the housing sector. To force the government act on the poor conditions, the investigators of those who were agitating for change descended into the crowded areas and rookeries to see the scandals of poverty in those areas, they intentionally did so in order to make a clear picture of what has already been wrote and the message will easily etched into the mind of each reformer. The two things that was developed by the investigators was issues of moral and physical. It was believed that the poor state of those living in slums affect their morality. The government was then pushed into developing the poor areas. Ideas about urban development and how houses should be developed spread across the world. One of the concept that originated from U.S and reach other countries was neighborhood unit schema which was largely practiced in China. This was analyzed by Duanfang in his writings. The neighborhood unit schema was developed first in U.S in early 1920s, this model provides a model for integral residential district (Lu, 2006). Duanfang look at the several involvement of the schema and its variants in the process of urban modernization in China. First he looked at the history of neighborhood unit. Neighborhood for a long time has been the main spatial unit followed in organizing cities and towns. Long time ago in China, the principal of urban planning that organized the urban areas into separate wards existed since the times of Zhou. In Europe, urban centers contained autonomous quarters, each having its own centers and markets. The neighborhood unit concept became a subject of worldwide interest since its development. This interest came out in 1930 CIAM (Congress International Architecture Moderns) meeting whereby speakers came up with the question on how the whole groups of dwellings can be organized into neighborhood units in a manner that the needs of the people can be attained (Lu, 2006). The concept was first developed in China by Japanese colonial planners in Changchun. Its development took five years and it was carried out by Sano Toshikata and his associates. When it was developed others towns around start consulting the Sano Toshikata and his associates for the development of similar design in their urban centers. Following the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949, there a shift in the development of urban areas. The ruling Communist Party vowed to develop an egalitarian society that is based on socialist economic system. Urban development was then controlled by 5 years plan managed by the government. The development of urban centers and village still followed the original principals of neighborhood schema though there were some adjustments such as the population that will occupy (Lu, 2006). The thing that is importantly described in architecture plan is the nature of human relationship because the elements that trace its records that are walls, windows, doors, and stairs in the house are employed first to separate the rooms and selectively re-unite space that is inhabited (Evans, 1997). One thing that lacks even in houses that are most elaborated in the drawings is the way the occupants will occupy. If the architectural drawings are taken beyond the rooms drawings, it is expected that there should be some tally between the house commonplaces and ordinary ways in which occupants dispose themselves in relation to one another. Evans explained that if a house plan is taken and portrayal of human figures are also taken at a given time, if a person look at them together as an evidence of the way life is in houses and coupling between the life of everyday conduct and architectural structure can become more lucid. One of the drawings that open the subject of how rooms should be designed was the ‘Madonna in a room’ that was done by Raphael as an architect and a painter, because his drawings provide a clear indication that the idea of secluded domesticity is more local than the way many thinks. Villa Madama is one of the ancient drawings that portrays the picture social relationship. From the picture drawings, there are two organizations structures that are clear and they ae important because it shows what the house was meant to sustain. The first important characteristic is that the house rooms has more than one door, the feature in early years was seen as a fault in domestic buildings irrespective of the size and use. The reason why this was seen as a fault was explained by Robert Kerr, he explained that thoroughfare rooms in a house cause inconvenience and it makes domesticity and retirement unobtainable (Evans, 1997). Robert favored terminal room with one strategically placed door. During that time Italian rooms had several doors this follows the advice of Italian theorist Alberti. Following several debates on the best way of placing doors in a room, the English architecture undergoes transition and by 19th England convenient room in a house had one door only. The transition was significant because the entire house was to be rearranged and because it recast the pattern of domestic life. After the doors was limited, a new technique aimed at reducing the necessary intercourse between different people present in the house was developed, that was systematic application of independent access. The development of corridors was a device of getting rid of traffic in the rooms because without corridors the house occupants will have to move across one room into the other hence causing disturbance and congestion (Evans, 1997). The issue of development of corridors first appears in house designs in England. It appears in Beaufort house that was designed around 1590 in Chelsea by John Thorpe. it was something architects became curious about and it was improved in England, the central corridor start developing and corridors was then connected to the staircases instead of being terminated in the rooms. The emerging internal changes in the new houses became evident from 1630 in houses build for the wealthy in the society, there were no changes being made in the houses belonging to the poor. The development of open stairs, rooms with one door, passages, entrance hall, and backstairs combined to form a network of circulation space that touches every room in the house (Evans, 1997). These form of new network was first thoroughly used in the development of Coleshell that was built by Roger Pratt in 1650. On every floor of the building there were passages tunneled through the entire floor, the building had backstairs and at the center was a double story entrance hall with staircases. Each room in the building had one door into the passage or hall. According to the Roger Pratt writings, the reason why one common way in the center of the house was to stop the offices (utility rooms) from one molesting another one by continuous passing through it (Evans, 1997). Furthermore, in the rest of the house the servants will no longer be seen going and coming out for their occasions. His reasoning was that the passage will keep the servants away from each other’s way and more important is to keep them away from disturbing their bosses. The Coleshell corridor concept became every important to extend of becoming an important route through a large part of a building. The corridor development was improved by John Webb in the building of Amesbury House, whereby the corridor was placed along the middle of the house and it serves all, all the rooms was connected to the corridor (Evans, 1997). The new plans of introducing new plans in the middle of the house in domestic architecture inscribed a division between different ranks in the society, it confined servants into a certain territory, adjacent to the house but never within, always around but never present. This gave humble time to the privileged in the society and actualized the dream of domesticity. The new changes brought about modern definition of the word privacy, in which the self was for the first time felt to be, not risking from the presence of other people but others being disfigured from him. In the 17th century there was a commonplace analogy that compares human soul to privy chamber. But which one become private first is hard to tell. The reasoning of containment was not followed with a lot of interest in 18th century (Evans, 1997). Many of those who were developing their houses followed the concept of Amesbury by attempting to reconcile independent access and interconnection by having the two. In the begging of 19th century, there was a move back towards larger systematization of access. The improvement on this was done by Soane and Nash. Soane works is well known to have given birth to the new architecture of modern buildings. In his development he layered space upon space such that the eyes will no longer be confined to a small place but could wander wide, up, across and through from one point to the other (Evans, 1997). Following the concept of privacy in which many people like, the Soanian vistas occurred in circulation spaces or out of windows. In the middle of 20th century, Kerr wrote that the corridor and universal requirement of privacy had been established and its application will be advanced so that it can be applied in all dwellings whether small or large houses, servant quarters, family apartments and others. The discrimination that existed was a subsidiary to the main difference between route and destination and this will henceforth pervade house planning meant for domestic use. Kerr develop diagrams that reduces buildings plans into two categories that is trajectory and position (Evans, 1997). The issue of space again came up. The ancient drawings shows rooms that are occupied by many with little space for movement. This can be related to the slums that had develop in London in 18th century. The use and utilization of the rooms was the considered. For example the size of bedrooms was designed to be small as compared to sitting rooms. In conclusion, development of cities and its housing units has undergone many transform for the last 3 centuries, these designs have been changing due to different reasons. There has been many themes and debates in urban design that has help shape the city design and architecture. Several architects historians and planners have investigated the relationships between urban patterns, society, and design, they include Robin Evans and Duanfang Lu. In 19th century architecture and housing models in Europe started changing. The buildings was shifting from the traditional sense of buildings to evolution in housing, this evolution started as a result of people thinking of space in their houses from a different perspective. In 20th the house design start to change and there was development of a different circulation space. The development of different circulation space was meant to provide privacy to the occupants. In Europe the houses for the poor had several doorways leading to many places while the houses for the rich had few doors. There was a problem of privacy because people being able to move through rooms easily made privacy hard especially in houses made for public life, uses of rooms was also confusing because sometimes they were used as sleeping places. Following the need for modern house, there is English housing reforms that led to the development of better houses especially in Europe. Ideas about urban development developed from a certain area and spread across the world. For example the neighborhood unit schema developed from U.S and spread to China and shaped how cities develop in China. References Evans, R. (1997). Translations from drawing to building and other essays. London, Architectural Association. Lu, D. (2006). Travelling urban form: the neighborhood unit in China. Planning Perspectives. 21, 369-392. Evans, R. (1978). Figures, Doors and Passages. Weiner, D., E., B. (1994). Architecture and Social Reform in Late-Victorian London. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Carson, M. (1990). Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990 Perry, C., A. (1926). The local community as a unit in the planning of urban residential areas, in C. A. Perry. The Urban Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 238–41. Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Melbourne: Penguin Books Read More