Williams Heather IAR 221 Blog Post 10

Solar Panels are a change in technology that have impacted the way we view building and natural light. After attempts to use more sustainable technology, building has changed tremendously in the way structures are designed. Now, buildings are designed to be environmentally sustainable and use as few resources as possible. Insulation is better, to keep heating and cooling to a minimum, water systems such as showers and sinks are built to use higher air pressure and less water, and even grey water systems are used in some homes. The change to trying to build sustainably has shaped the types of materials buildings are made of, where they are built, and how much it costs the builders to make them. I think Solar Panels are a good example of this because they show how energy use has changed. You go from using natural sunlight to making energy from oil for electricity, and then back to using natural lighting as energy with the use of Solar Panels.

 This reminds me of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park from Roth pages 487 and 488. This structure was built in 1851 and was made sustainably so that it would not disrupt the environment around it. The structure was made to be disassembled and built around the existing environment. The walls and ceiling were made of glass to allow light to come in so that the trees could get sunlight that way. This represents an attempt at sustainable building and using natural light as energy through the glass walls. In this time period, we are using the same similar ideas of obtaining solar energy not through glass ceilings, but through solar  panels to provide electricity for our homes, and are attempting to build more sustainable structures that leave less of an impact on the environment, similar to the Crystal Palace.

Williams, Heather Reading Response 10

Industrialization leads to new technologies and Sustainability

• A need for larger structures
• Technology used for greenhouses such as wrought-iron and glass
• Engineers designing structures, not architects
• The idea that structure needed to be able to be disassembled and built in a short amount of time

The industrial revolution resulted in factories and urban populations. Engineers built the factories and used the technology of cast iron and wrought iron building. Then, greenhouse gases used these technologies and incorporated the use of glass paneling to keep exotic plants in other climates. The use of these new technologies allowed larger structures to be built without using as much material. The Crystal palace, designed by Joseph Paxton, was created using cast iron columns and beams. He used glass panels for the walls of the structure. This was basically a giant greenhouse and it was the fist structure that had a greater amount of space on the inside, then mass or materials of the building. This shows the huge impact industrialization and urbanization had on building. As human needs and ideas change, structures are changed to fit them. For example, The reason for building factories was the demand for factory jobs which led to the technology that was used for the design of the  Crystal Palace. Also the idea of sustainability that we still use today is present, because they did not want to cause destruction to the environment. Instead, the built the structure around the environment that was already there. The ceiling and walls were made of glass so the trees inside could still get sunlight, and after they were done using the building, the structure was disassembled and the environment was left as it was before.

Williams, Heather IAR 221 Reading Response 9

The original Tempietto structure in Rome was built to represent perfection of the heavens. It is a representation of Heaven on earth by its symmetry and the perfect circle of the structure. A circle is representative of eternity, so it has a lot of importance in the idea of eternal after life in heaven. Another idea supporting this thought is that the dome is pulled upward toward the sky and the windows were made so that the view outside of the building would be toward the sky, cause people to think of eternal life when looking through them. The outside view of this structure shows this through the tall windows that pull upward similar to the gothic cathedral, and the tall center point in the middle of the dome pointing toward the sky, or heavens. St. Paul's Cathedral in London is representative of this structure because it takes the same idea of eternity using a dome shape, but does not copy the building. Instead, it incorporates the dome by making it the center of the structure on top of a cross shaped building. To accentuate the idea of reaching upward, the outside was built taller, and the inside vault was painted to make it appear taller. This shows How two different structures take ideas from another and represent them in their own way, like how the structure in London used the idea of a dome but put it on top of a cross shaped building instead of a circle, and painted the inside to reinforce the idea of height making it appear larger.

Williams, Heather IAR 221 Blog Post 9

           John Charnock's Toomb in Calcutta India

This building represents geometry through stacking of layers and angles. It also shows a dome on the top which is a perfect circle, so the building is based off of a circle while incorporating stacks and angles. The horizontal divisions are interupted by verticle divisins at each of the angles around the building pulling it upward despite the representation of horizontal stacking. The openings around the building are represetative of the importance of reaching high and expanding upward in the gothic cathedrals because they are narrow arches going upward. This reinforces also the done at the top of the building that also shows height and expanse toward the sky through the one point in the middle at the very top of the dome and the way it is stretched upward.

Constantia Cape town 

This building is also white and has perfect symmetry down the middle unlike the other that represents radial symmetry. This building uses vertical windows to show the idea of verticality. The door in the center of the building reaches up and is made more prominent through the triangle shape above the door pointing upward to the highest point of the building. The religious figure above this is at the highest point of the building where it is reaching upward representing verticality through religion.

Both of these structures represent how ideas migrate to different places and these ideas are not copied, but built off of to make structures representing the same ideas, in this case verticality, without copying an exact structure. For example, these buildings represent verticality through aspects of a gothic cathedral: vertical windows and openings stretching upward and a higher center point, but they are built horizontally instead of vertically.

In the late seventeenth century, especially in france, "nature was seen as something to be mastered, tamed, and controlled-something having no inherent form or beauty in its own right"(Roth 425). Sir Henry Hoare's English Garden at Strourhead, Wiltshire, England is an example of how we build off of previous ideas in architecture. Unlike the structures above, this was an attempt to see nature as beauty the way it naturally is instead of creating lines of symmetry. This idea was working with the natural land and accentuating the non symmetrical aspects of it instead of forming it to be symmetrical, geometrical, or horizontally arranged in rows. This is a change from the perfectly symmetrical and horizontally stacked attempts at recreating perfection and ideas representing verticality reaching toward the sky.

Williams, Heather Blog Post 8

The Nautilus Shell represents eternity or infiniti and the idea of no boundaries because it representative of the golden ratio which is a number that has no end. It is possible that ancient architects used Phi, representing the Nautilus shell,  in each of these structures because the golden ratio found somewhere in the building. This shows that the idea of an unsolvable number which relates to not having knowledge to an end, is present  everywhere. The Nautilus Shell represents Phi in itself mathematically but also through the fact that the nautilus continuously adds onto its shell when it outgrows the space and because they are the most ancient animal we know of so they present a mystery. This connects with the mystery of where architecture will go in the future and from where it began; for example: the meaning behind stone henge. The infinity concept of the shell is shown in how our architecture continuously changes and uses ideas from previous structures to build off of like the nautilus builds from its shell repeatedly over time.

Williams, Heather Reading Response 8

The Taj Mahal was built for Mumtaz Mahal. It's great vastness is significant to the idea of a life in heaven. This burial site was so important to the Shan Jahan because of their belief of moving into a life after death and he wanted to construct heaven on earth for her. This is shown through the expensive materials like stones and the amount of time it took for this to be built. The garden of Eden in the old testament was used as an inspiration to the building of the Taj Mahal because of their faith in heaven. He wanted her to be in paradise and represented this by building her tomb to represent the islamic Garden of Paradise. Symmetry is used to show that the Islamic Garden of Paradise is perfection. The light colors of stone make the building look weightless despite the weight of the marble. He wanted it to appear that it was rising up and floating above to represent a higher spiritual place. 

Sources: A Global History of Architecture, Ching Jarzombek Prakash; http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/gallery/photos/20.html