Journal home Browse Featured articles

Featured articles

  • Select all
  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Chantelle Niblock, Laura McGuire, John Harding, Gerd Zillner, Chris Hamill, Andrew Whitney
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2022, 11(6): 993-1006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2022.04.002

    This research explores the potential of an immersive and interactive online archive to enhance our understanding of historic architecture through the study of models. It reports on implementing an augmented reality mobile application that exhibits a model for the unbuilt Endless House, 1959, by Frederick Kiesler. A reflective critique, from the researcher’s point of view, and initial feedback from a small sample of architecture students, provides an insight into users’ experience of the exhibition, its value as a research tool, and as an educational resource. Building on existing technologies and established research methods, we present an alternative way of exhibiting a large-scaled model for public engagement and research collaboration between academics, archivists, and conservators. Results discuss the development of the mobile application with interactive features specifically designed for an architectural audience. It touches on issues associated with documenting, interpreting, and exhibiting architectural models, emphasizing accessibility, accuracy, engagement, combining 3D and 2D digital assets, and user experience. It was found that the interactive and immersive features of the exhibition enhanced the researchers’ scope to spatially inspect the model, visually experience it, collaborate with others, and strengthen connections between the model and other examples of Kiesler’s textual and visual archival materials.

  • Editorial
    Jin Duan
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2022, 11(5): 781-782. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2022.07.002
  • Research Article
    Alejandro Pérez-Duarte Fernández, José Manuel Falcón Meraz
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2020, 9(3): 485-497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2020.05.001

    Most of the pretending innovative modern housing projects show a common element that can be perceived when looking at the cross-section, evidencing the use of alternate corridors, which was recognized as a projective technique under Wells Coates expression “Planning in Section”. Contrasting virtues concerning the resulting space were observed at different historical moments. The late 19th Century used it to create privacy. The modern architecture used it to increase efficiency, where flexibility was included. However, during the ’60s, the alternative corridor technique started to be used to attend social issues, popularizing the split-level term, and echoing 19th Century privacy interests. Keywords like Smithson’s “doorstep” and Candilis “semi-duplex” section reveal their approaches. Well-differentiated areas (public/intimate/collective) and socially controlled areas were obtained in domestic interiors with a few steps, creating singular spaces where children can play while being monitored by adults. Semi-duplex geometry showed new adaptability to different profiles: a small kitchenless apartment for a bachelor could be inserted aside from a larger two-level family apartment. This paper shows an overview of this projective technique by contrasting different housing projects. Since similar split-level geometries seem to have been coming back recently, questions about it are necessary.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Alex Kaiser, Magnus Larsson, Ulf Arne Girhammar
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2019, 8(1): 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2018.12.001

    A “file-to-factory” process of computer technology is a way to both maximise efficiency throughout the building process, increase a building's performance, and be able to add interesting architectural possibilities throughout the design phase. The authors investigate a novel approach that produces a set of building trajectories rather than a set of buildings, yet yields a series of build-able examples of those trajectories. This paper evaluates how this series of stacked multi-storey timber buildings can be both incorporated within a file-to-factory process, and give rise to creating new innovative solutions throughout the entire design and manufacturing process.

    This process is applied to a real Swedish project called Zembla. It redefines the notion of sprawl, turning it into a progressive tactics for linking the city fabric to rural areas. It is a post-sustainable file-to-factory-produced timber ground-scraper; soaring above ground and water, suggesting a new way of making city-sized buildings for the future.

    A plug-in grid-shell structure is designed to contain a minimal amount of timber elements, beams make up the lattice, cross-laminated panels add structural support, surfaces come together to form the living capsules. Having the structure undulate across the topography and touching the ground in as few places as possible uses the dichotomy between landscape and urbanism, bringing the city to the people living in less densified areas. Each living unit is customised to its topological conditions within the grid.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Jeremy C. Wells
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2018, 7(4): 455-464. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2018.10.001

    A close relationship is assumed to exist between historic preservation and architectural practice. This study explores the nature of this relationship by using evidence from scholarly literature, the job market, and architectural education. The examined literature contains many examples showing that the architecture field views historic preservation as an external interest. Evidence from the job market indicates that architecture employers are uninterested in historic preservation skills, and historic preservation employers are not looking for architecture skills. Architecture schools and accrediting organizations either disregard historic preservation or minimize its importance. Moreover, historic preservation is more closely related to environmental and behavioral studies than it is to the architectural field. The relationship between architecture and historic preservation is tenuous, strained, and based more on stereotypes than on actual evidence.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Gerardo Semprebon, Wenjun Ma
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2018, 7(3): 257-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2018.05.006

    In the period between the idealistic vision of the ‘Reshapingsociety’ and Thatcherism, in the so-called ‘SwingingLondon’, the second wave of modernism is facing the demands and the quantities of bombed cities. The architects of that season, moved by political ideals and interpreting the cultural ferment, have been responsible for shaping the city on the collective dreams and aspirations of the society and for forging the identity of London as unique experience in the international panorama. This paper focuses on the spatial relations between city and home, how they raised in that specific historical context, in which form they realized, and what are the architectural implications for current design culture. The methodology, based both on the literatu rereview and on the graphic comparison of six case-studies, is articulated in four steps. First, the six case-studies are selected according to specific criteria. Second, the sociohistorical background is reported. Third, the cases are shortly introduced using text descriptions and graphic tools. Fourth, the cases are compared. This process leads to the definition of four transversal architectural items: the density, the settlement pattern, the basement, and the threshold, intended as elements able to raise connections between past and contemporary design culture.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Luciano Cardellicchio
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2018, 7(2): 107-121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2018.03.005

    A vast amount of iconic buildings distinguished by complex geometries have been constructed in the last two decades in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. Overall, the construction of these iconic buildings has led to technical innovations. As these buildings are often erected following customised construction details and bespoke technical solutions that are rarely tested in advance, measuring their ageing process has become crucial to understand if these geometries are sustainable in terms of the cost of their maintenance. This study aims to analyse the technical design development and the ageing process of the Jubilee Church in Rome by Richard Meier. Only fourteen years after the opening, this building is affected by extensive decay of construction materials due to both wrong technical design choices and lack of unaffordable maintenance work. This study aims to identify the causes of the premature decay of this building, recording retroactively its technical development and mapping the current state of damages.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Jawdat S. Goussous, Nessma A. Al-Hammadi
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2018, 7(1): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2017.12.001

    This research investigated the place attachment of a heritage place, namely, the Roman amphitheater, by using a valid model, the Kyle, Graefe, and Manning (2005) model. This model presents three factors to reach place attachment: place identification, place dependence, and social bonding. Although the validity of the used model was proved, statistical tests were used to verify the validity of the collected data because the model was used on a heritage site. In accordance with the mentioned model, the sample was interviewed using the model questionnaire to evaluate people's attachment to the heritage place during rush hours. Along with other statistical tests, the exploratory factor analysis of the sample elaborated that the Kyle, Graefe, and Manning model is not completely valid for this study, because the results added a new effective factor, namely, spiritual value. The place attachment estimation was then examined using the new model. The nature of the place was found to affect the model used to evaluate its place attachment.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Ju Hyun Lee, Michael J. Ostwald, Hyunsoo Lee
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2017, 6(4): 431-441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2017.09.003

    This paper presents a method that combines visibility graph and isovist analyses to investigate the spatial and social properties of architectural plans for aged care facilities. The potential of the combined method is examined by measuring the properties of three sets of plans for residential aged care facilities. The first set is a pair of hypothetical, idealized plans, which allegedly reflect the “best practice” in the industry. The second set comprises a pair of plans for recent Australian designs, and the third set is a pair of plans for South Korean facilities. Results of the computational analysis of these six plans suggest that social and cultural factors may shape the design of aged care settings and partially explain their international differences. The application of this methodological approach contributes to the understanding of the relation-ship between spaces and their cultural and social properties in the design of aged care facilities.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Diego Andrade, Mikako Harada, Kenji Shimada
    Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2017, 6(3): 273-289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2017.04.003

    New design tools have created a growing interest for presenting complex geometries and patterns. The need to form curved geometries of facades, without incurring high construction costs and time increases, presents one of the most complex design challenges for any project. In this paper, we present and demonstrate a new computational framework for the creation of patterns on top of facades, via cladding of panels and honeycomb structures. The tool describes a given region on a base model;d ealing particularly with location, size and orientation of general geometric features on the surface of such model. The user inputs curves that manifest the desired user's intention for the panels and a set of seed features that correspond to the initial boundary conditions of a Riemannian metric tensor field. The system interpolates the tensors defined by input features and input curves by solving a Laplace-Beltrami partial differential equation over the entire domain. We show a fast clustering and search operations for correct panel utilization based on size quantization as design variable and implemented via Voronoi segmentation. We present honeycomb structures that can be retrieved from the fundamental mesh producing another option for facade creation and ideation. The system connects to a geometric modeling kernel of a commercial CAD package; the system places features on top of the base model facade using boolean operations from the core geometric engine via its programming interface calls. With this computational tool, thousands of clad panels can be visualized and developed within minutes.