Le Corbusier's urbanism: An urban characterisation of his proposals for inner cities

Le Corbusier's urbanism is routinely met with a backlash of criticism, which often overlooks the complexity of his work. There is a tendency to focus on the characteristics of his proposal for Paris in 1925 or on the ideas of CIAM's Athens Charter. However, such affirmations ignore the conceptual and qualitative evolution of his urban proposals. In this sense, the research hypothesis is that Corbusian urban models go beyond the Plan Voisin, diffused by urban planning theories as the unique paradigm of his urban ideas.Through analysis and characterisation of the inner-city urban plans of Le Corbusier, this report seeks to demonstrate the existence of other models and compares them to those often showcased in the partial examination of Le Corbusier's urbanism. The following parameters will be analysed: (1) population densities and areas for (2) buildings, (3) vehicles, and (4) pedestrians.The results of this research indicate the need to parameterise and analyse Le Corbusier's cities beyond a single case to demonstrate the diversity and evolution of his urbanistic work. This process seeks to dissipate the common view that falsely extrapolates ideas of his urban planning, largely that of his first proposal, for Paris.     

New urban forms: the crescents of Bath and Le Corbusier's plan for Rio de Janeiro

This article considers whether formal references in Le Corbusier's work may be traced to the eigtheenth century crescents of Bath and, in particular, Lansdowne Crescent. By exploring this line, it raises the possibility that in the work he produced for the Latin American context, this arch-modernist planner moved beyond the de-contextualized approach for which he is known and explored the possibility of integrating new urban forms with nature. The article also shows how Le Corbusier's plans for Rio de Janeiro allowed him to become an important formal reference point for successive generations of local architects and planners.     

Monastic paradigms in modernism: Le Thoronet and the romantic legacy

This essay explores the role of monasticism as a paradigm in post-war French modernism. It focuses on the interest that architects, most importantly Le Corbusier, took in Cistercian architecture generally, and in Le Thoronet Abbey in Provence in particular. The role of the image of Cistercian architecture in modernism has hitherto received only cursory treatment by scholars. My focus is not so much on historicist stylistic revivals, or the question of an ‘accurate’ historical understanding of the past in modernism, but rather on the spiritual appropriations of architectural motifs by scholars and intellectuals and how this exercised an influence on leading architects. This particular episode of modernist mediaevalism is situated within a broader tradition of the modern reception of the Middle Ages. This essay shows that the Romantic legacy, and the rival national claims to the past it encompassed, have played a significant role in modernist historic consciousness. A contextual interpretation of the limited, though evocative, body of sources testifying to the modernists' elective affinity with Cistercian architecture in the post-war period shows how mediaeval monasticism would surface as a profound motif on the margins of the late-modernist imaginary.     

'Beyond the clichés of the hand-books': Le Corbusier's architectural promenade

This study places Charles-Edouard Jeanneret/Le Corbusier's concept of the architectural promenade within the culture of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1887-1917. It is based on in-depth empirical research being currently carried out in private and public archives in La Chaux-de-Fonds and in other Swiss towns. The paper also considers to a lesser extent specific aspects of the architecture of Le Corbusier in Paris after 1917, which are in accord with the La Chaux-de-Fonds period of 1887-1917, based on current in-depth research in private and public archives in France. The essay, which thus presents completely new empirical evidence, is part of research in progress towards a monograph in preparation for the MIT Press. By extrapolation, through its analysis of Jeanneret/Le Corbusier's architectural promenade within the cultural and intellectual context of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1887-1917, the study addresses the problematics of the architectural language of the Modern Movement.     

柯布西耶建筑作品回顾 ——解读细部元素中的"建筑漫步"理论

"建筑漫步"是20世纪现代主义建筑大师勒·柯布西耶①所提出的重要建筑理论,蕴含了其建筑作品复杂思想体系的重要内容.该理论通过独特的时空观与叙事结构,引导体验者运用自身感知能力与建筑进行互动,从而产生全新的体验.文章通过解读勒·柯布西耶的建筑漫步理论,并结合其建筑作品中门、窗、楼梯与坡道几种经典建筑细部元素的设计分析,总结探讨有关"建筑漫步"理论的现实意义,以从业者的角度对建筑师与使用者之间良性关系培养提出新的思考.     

新建筑五项原则与结构体系--谈1910～1929年柯布西耶住宅设计的发展

建筑大师柯布西耶在他的建筑作品中将空间、形式、结构及理念完美地统一起来,因此建筑作品能够充分揭示柯布西耶的建筑理念、建筑形式与建筑结构等之间的联系.本文分析1910～1929年间柯布西耶早期的住宅作品,从结构方面剖析新建筑五项原则形成的历程及背景,透视柯布西耶不为人熟悉的一面,即自始至终对结构关注的设计思想.     

窗之"窗框"在建筑中的表现性初探——对柯布西耶建筑实践的分析

该文以柯布西耶建筑实践中窗的设计为考察对象,通过对他不同时期设计实践的比较分析,试图呈现一条基于"窗框"的观察视角与演变线索.     

An integrated planning concept for the emerging underground urbanism: Deep City Method Part 1 concept,process and application

Four underground resources have been seen as having a long-term potential to support sustainable urban development: underground space, groundwater, geomaterials and geothermal energy. Utilization of these resources proposes a new paradigm of economic development: underground urbanism. The new management approach named “Deep City Method” is put forward to aid decision-makers to integrate global potential of the urban underground into city-scale strategic planning. The research output will be presented in form of two papers each with a different focus. Part 1 aims to introduce the concept, process and initial application in Switzerland; Part 2 is devoted to show methodological insight for a new zoning policy in China and investment scenarios for project cost viability.This Part 1 paper will begin by presenting the fundamental concept of the Deep City Method, followed by a proposition for a trans-institutional planning process. The application is firstly based on a rating system to identify cities having a potential for underground development. The city of Geneva is selected for conceptual application and strategic level study. Further operational steps are required in order to generalize the concept to other cities around the world.     

AutoCAD与Coreldraw制作户型图的比较分析

对AutoCAD户型图和Coreldraw户型图在绘制方法、图形效果及图形信息获取等方面做了比较分析,并提出了AutoCAD户型图在Coreldraw中二次编辑,即将标准户型图转化为广告宣传用户型图的方法,以充分利用软件优势,使户型图绘制更为精确快捷.     

Adelaide: Reflections on the scope for public policy

Abstract

Metropolitan Adelaide, a crucible of urban policy innovation in the 1970s, has recently been the subject of pessimistic prognoses about its economic future. The pessimism is overstated. This article documents positive features — economic, institutional, historical — which might form the basis for greater optimism.     

An integrated planning concept for the emerging underground urbanism: Deep City Method Part 2 case study for resource supply and project valuation

Four underground resources have been seen as having long-term potential to support sustainable urban development: underground space, groundwater, geomaterials and geothermal energy. Utilization of these resources proposes a new paradigm of economic development: underground urbanism. The new management approach named “Deep City Method” is put forward to aid decision-makers to integrate global potential of the urban underground into city-scale strategic planning. The research output will be presented in form of two papers each with a different focus. Part 1 aims to introduce the concept, process and initial application in Switzerland; Part 2 is devoted to show methodological insight for a new zoning policy in China and investment scenarios for project cost viability.The Part 2 paper will demonstrate a comprehensive evaluation methodology for underground resources beneath the municipality of Suzhou in China, in order to formulate 3D land zoning. Strategic districts in Suzhou city of China are selected for feasibility outlook and policy instrument proposition. Finally, a new economic index “Underground cost efficiency premium” has been proposed to aid project developers to justify competitiveness of underground development.     

An approach to urbanism in Argentina: urban types and their evolution over four hundred years

From the colonisation of the present Argentine territory by the Spaniards onwards, the foundation of towns and villages implied the effective occupation of the land. Towns were settled along the main commercial routes, while villages appeared in relation with the defence of the frontiers or the exploitation of natural resources. Most urban centres were the result of a pre-existing plan that included an urban layout and a plots system. After independence from Spain, new towns and villages were founded, especially in territories that had not been occupied in colonial times. The regular grid pattern layout introduced by the Spaniards continued to be predominant up to the twentieth century, something that allows us to refer to the typical Argentine urban feature and to its presence in the country's cultural identity. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the evolution of the most typical urban layout over four hundred years, including reference to the present situation of the main Argentine cities.     

Trial-and-error urbanism: addressing obduracy,uncertainty and complexity in urban planning and design

This article argues that sustainable and communal neighborhoods could be significantly more common in North America if development practices addressed the barriers posed by sociotechnical obduracy and the inevitable limitations of expertise through expanded opportunities for experimentation. In reconceptualizing the problems faced by alternative urbanisms through the lens of science and technology studies, I explore how the intelligent trial-and-error (ITE) framework for governing emerging technologies could be extended to partially address the barriers of obduracy, uncertainty and complexity when pursuing alternative urban designs. An examination of how Baugruppen (cooperative building groups) were integrated into the planning process of Quartier Vauban, Freiburg, is used to illustrate both the potentials and a concrete application of an ITE-like approach. I then discuss some of the barriers to an ITE model of urban planning in North America and recommend further research at the intersection of urban studies and science and technology studies.     

Unformed drawing: notes,sketches, and diagrams

This text discusses drawing as a place where design imagination and critical thinking intersect. In particular, it examines the role informal notes, sketches and diagrams play in the development and communication of architectural ideas difficult to describe in either only words or only images. Note-making shifts between writing and drawing, and takes advantage of both. Sketches work as intuitive devices, stimulating the imagination, entailing spontaneous action, but also posing questions and tempting one's curiosity to explore things through longer processes. Diagrams, on the other hand, are spatio-temporal abstractions that use more intellectual means of representation. They extract the fundamental issues of a scheme and visually articulate them in the form of signs. Architects need notes, sketches and diagrams to imagine, understand relationships, construct and communicate what is important. Once a project is completed a revision of old scribbles, made during its creation, often reveals lost possibilities and different paths that might have been taken. Because of their minimal and incomplete form, notes, sketches and diagrams are open to variable interpretations. They can be ambivalent but trap a dense residue of intentions and meanings difficult to express in more elaborate modes of representation. Notes, sketches and diagrams are fundamental tools of human creativity and communication, and they have significant implications for the progress of design knowledge: as ambiguous rather than prescribed signs, they enhance collaboration, doubt and change. As unformed and incomplete drawings, they lead to new architectural possibilities (Figs 1, 2, 3, 4).     

Unformed drawing: notes, sketches, and diagrams

This text discusses drawing as a place where design imagination and critical thinking intersect. In particular, it examines the role informal notes, sketches and diagrams play in the development and communication of architectural ideas difficult to describe in either only words or only images. Note-making shifts between writing and drawing, and takes advantage of both. Sketches work as intuitive devices, stimulating the imagination, entailing spontaneous action, but also posing questions and tempting one's curiosity to explore things through longer processes. Diagrams, on the other hand, are spatio-temporal abstractions that use more intellectual means of representation. They extract the fundamental issues of a scheme and visually articulate them in the form of signs. Architects need notes, sketches and diagrams to imagine, understand relationships, construct and communicate what is important. Once a project is completed a revision of old scribbles, made during its creation, often reveals lost possibilities and different paths that might have been taken. Because of their minimal and incomplete form, notes, sketches and diagrams are open to variable interpretations. They can be ambivalent but trap a dense residue of intentions and meanings difficult to express in more elaborate modes of representation. Notes, sketches and diagrams are fundamental tools of human creativity and communication, and they have significant implications for the progress of design knowledge: as ambiguous rather than prescribed signs, they enhance collaboration, doubt and change. As unformed and incomplete drawings, they lead to new architectural possibilities (Figs 1, 2, 3, 4).     

Designing hospitals for Australian conditions: The Australian Inland Mission's cottage hospital,Adelaide House, 1926

Whilst it is generally recognised that hospitals designed in major Australian centres have drawn heavily on British and American precedent since colonial settlement, little research has been undertaken on these connections in terms of remotely located, small-scale, cottage hospitals. This study of the Australian Inland Mission's cottage hospital Adelaide House (1926) contributes to our understanding of strategies used to design hospital environments in the early twentieth century through critical analysis of historical documents and existing literature. Preliminary findings suggest that the adoption or adaptation of international design precedent to meet inland Australian conditions was informed by ideas about climate, gender and race, and, to some extent, the advice of field-experienced nursing sisters.