We will publish the book by Nikos Salingaros, Unified Theory architectural, in a series of installments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects worldwide. The following chapter discusses the complexity of the form of language and describes how to use language as a checklist to measure those complexities. If you missed them, be sure to read the Introduction, Chapter One, Chapters 2A and 2B chapter, and Chapter 3 first.
There is a volume of writings by architects in the early 20 e century, and we can look through them to the form languages modernism. Unfortunately, the useful material proves to be very few, most not describing a form of language, but rather marketing and political statements. In addition, these pieces of very personal form of language are presented as normative theories: a prescription of what to do and what not to do with the weight of universal ethics, even if they are based solely on the opinion of not empirical observations or systematic study.
Here are some lists of rules that I found by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier.
For the brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, 1920: " Reject mass and closed volume, and within the model space outward Reject. color, and use only the natural color of building materials Reject ornament "
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1923".. opened up for domestic . the materials are limited to concrete, iron and glass Use only curtain walls and reinforced concrete. - no trussing "
Le Corbusier, 1927". Lift building sitting with his basement in the ground, to be suspended on poles (stilts). Only the construction curtain wall is allowed. The roofs must be flat. Windows only may be horizontal and extend a carrying pillar to another, which makes them very large (long and narrow). "
These three sets of rules for a modernist form of language does contrast with the traditional form of languages, so of course the product looks much different from a building traditional built before 20 e century. This "new look" was part of the appeal of modernist form of language when it was introduced.
Without discussing the merits of the modernist language of forms and variants here, there is a call for universality, and thus a rejection of regional adaptation. There is also a strong motivation to reject items simply because they belong to languages traditional form of :. turn against its cultural tradition for the sake of innovation
Our company adopted the modernist design language for a huge number of buildings, etc. we have forgotten the old and traditional language of shape shop. This represents a great loss to the knowledge base of the profession of architecture. No rational society should take practical, unless the body of knowledge has been proven wrong, or is more useful
Nothing wrong was ever discovered in ancient languages of form .: indeed, they have a lot of adaptability that create pleasant, functional, and comfortable living and working environments. We suggest that an architect can learn all the languages of the form. Some languages will be most relevant to the position than others -. A welcome return to the promotion of regionalism because it leads to sustainability
When deciding to use an older form of language to design a building today, the architect an option. He or she can use the form of language in its original form. Otherwise, the designer can choose to upgrade by introducing improvements or savings through more contemporary materials. The architects also have the option to add individual innovative elements of their own, unless commissioned to design in a particular form of language.
A form of language changes over time, like a written and spoken language does, so the change is natural. What is natural is drastic reversal in a form of language. The main concern here is to modify an architectural form of language so that it does not lose its ability to adapt and expressive. To achieve this goal, the architect must start from a profound respect for what evolved form of traditional languages represent.
An in-depth study and analysis of a particular form of language prepares you to use it as a design tool for understanding how a design derived from the combinatorial structure "linguistic" forms. If the student documents correctly and accurately a form of language, then it could be used to design a new building. The measure of success is if a viewer think the new design looks like an original building enough to be considered as coming from the same language. I want to end the current practice of students as buildings copy images directly, which is both unintelligent and uncreative. The right way to design in a particular language of choice is first extracted and documents that form the language of one or more examples, and use the language of forms to design a new building.
document a language form
through the documentation process a form of language is an educational experience. First, it reveals the complexity of the language: how many words (and diagrams) are necessary to describe so it can be applied to design something. There is a very simple measure of complexity that we can use here. Measuring the Kolmogorov complexity-Chaitin is the minimum length of the descriptor of a system. It is the "code length" without layoffs. In a form of language, it would be the number of words in your form "checklist form of language" [template provided later in this book].
The first measure of the complexity of a form of language opens up new dimensions for understanding the architecture. Responding to user needs, climate adaptation, the region and materials should make a more complex form of language - with a word count. In fact, both highly ordered or random systems are complex, but in a different way. We will study this distinction later. Now we note that the complexity of the linguistic form does not necessarily mean adaptation, and will look for a correlation between complexity and Kolmogorov-Chaitin regional adaptation.
The model also allows to compare the form of very different languages based on their complexity. Separate form of language can not be compared visually, because of the very different images they present, but in terms of overall complexity of each language.
traditional regionalism involves adapting materials, climate, local culture and social practices. (We will discuss later, the possibilities of combining regionalism with 20 e brought century modernism.) Using the model for measuring the complexity of a language form through a number of words in its description verbal, we can study how adaptation practices and strengthening the local culture requires more or less the design process description. Our intuitive experience would lead us to say that a better adaptation to local needs requires more description.
A form of language is an order to create the structural, and its products will have their own characteristic appearance. At the heart of all the spoken or written languages is a set of rules common to all languages. We can compare these general rules in other sciences to understand the commonalities between the visually distinct architectural styles.
I introduced some structural rules to help explain the theory of Alexander adaptive design, we study later. These rules are drawn from physics, not architecture, and establish a useful topic for analysis of form languages. They represent the means to ensure consistency of form.
Three laws for architecture are proposed: (1) for smaller scale consists of paired contrasting elements. (2) For large-scale occurs when all elements working to reduce randomness. (3) Small is connected to a large through a hierarchy of intermediate scales, using a scaling ratio of around e ≈ 2.7.
Let's see the consequences of these rules to create the coherent order. The smallest scale will need to have well-defined components so that they can indeed couple. It can not be completely empty. The coupling is achieved by geometrical locking and contrast. This means that whenever there is repetition, it is a coupled pair repeated
Randomness is reduced using the symmetries of all types :. Repetition, Alignment or translational symmetry, reflection, rotation, and glide symmetries (which are more a reflection translation). The intention is to be able to know the whole structure, rather than having to account for each individual component separately. Components on the same scale are related using common symmetries, while those different scales are related by symmetries scaling.
The rules, first given in the context of a specific design theory, prove useful for writing form languages. For example, look to repeat and contrast (matched) components on small scales. Pay attention to what is happening on many different scales. Search for symmetries, or lack thereof, where they would normally be expected.
We are also aware of this framework for the recognition of frames and borders in the form of language. In the traditional building and design, two structural elements rarely come together without some form of packing, intermediate region, or at the border. It was eliminated in the minimalist design language that we know best, so do not neglect the limits - which appear in all traditional forms of language -. Now
non-form adaptation of languages could actually be generated by relatively simple rules. For example, "generate a sculptural form with a computer program, and build it as a building" or "crumple a piece of paper and then build it as a building" or "draw a doodle on a piece of paper, then construct the building as ". These are descriptions of few words. Yet they are based on an industrial form of language, for example, warehouses and aircraft hangars, to do the work - the sculptural model is not enough to make working drawings for the contractor. brief rules as they are working with a developed form of language. The result is a building with a complex description.
Another brief rule that can generate complex works as a language by reversing or negating an existing form of language. Again, this requires a language developed to act. One can imagine prescriptions such as "reverse scaling hierarchies", or "eliminate straight lines" or "crush forms at the point just before they become uninhabitable," or "oblique walls cut diagonally strip windows. " These simple rules are changing an existing form of language radically and create complex buildings with the appeal of novelty. Otherwise, an architect can greatly simplify an existing form of language with the rule "strip everything off except the support structure", reducing its complexity.
Architects are not in the habit of writing their form language. Either they feel they have a design secret they do not want to see copied by others, or they are simply not used to inform the design of this way. It could also be the case that they generate their form of language by a "shortcut", as one of the above. other architects and researchers usually study after the buildings, and it is people who dive into a form of language. But even those not usually document the form of language.
Measurement of complexity by using the language of form checklist
please just fill in the details of your form of language choice as briefly as possible in the list below. The entries include lists of materials, shapes, sizes, etc. For some inputs, a simple yes or no indicating whether something (a structural element, or property of this element) is present or not. It will be necessary to estimate the actual dimensions of the components and relative ratios of dimensions between the different components. In the list of connections, unusual item of interest (at least for the design thinking today) is to seek and document an intermediate piece that connects two other components. In many contemporary buildings, the intermediate connection is missing for stylistic reasons, to perform this exercise, you will change the way you look at the structures.
So please compute the complexity Kolmogorov-Chaitin language of your form by using the number of words in your checklist. The more "wordy" your checklist is the most complex form of language. Also estimate roughly Regional Adaptation your form language on a scale of 0 to 10 (highest for better adaptation). This is the simplest estimate of regional adaptivity of your building, which is the opposite of everything, or abstract method, formal "universal" design. A building "International Style" will be necessarily a very low rank. Finally, to find a correlation.
What is remarkable is that we are able to measure the complexity of a form of language at all, and by simple means, such as the number of words in a word processing . We now have the beginning of a new survey of the complexity of the architecture. We will go further and correlate this complexity with the adaptability and regionalism much better in our second model presented later.
Form language List
NAME LANGUAGE FORM: the location, the time, the name the architect, including construction
DOCUMENTATION: is there a written description or set of work rules for this linguistic form? (Instructions, not a philosophical or ideological justification).
MATERIALS: titanium, steel, glass, brick, concrete, wood, stone, adobe, thatch, etc.
COMPONENTS: walls, floors, roofs, beams, windows, doors and their dimensions.
CONNECTIONS: cornices, joints, moldings, points wall + wall, wall + floor, wall + window, door + wall, wall + ceiling, front + roof, connection size meeting over it joined.
overhangs and CANTILEVERS: media type, placed above or below
ARCHES: yes / no, the type, spacing, height, dimensions.
COLUMNS: yes / no, type, size, width, alignment, inter-columnar spacing, flute?
COLUMN CONNECTIONS: Column = + floor base, column + = high capital, the relative size.
RECTANGULAR OR OTHER GEOMETRY: rectangular, diagonal or curved.
FORMAL FORMS FEATURE: overall geometry of the components, their relative alignment, and variety.
FORMS OF DIVISIONS: yes / no to the walls for windows, their relative sizes.
grammar and syntax: which components are interconnected (symmetry), or should not be related to each other (asymmetry). All hidden rules
ENTER :? The size compared to other components, the method of definition, the level of change?
porches and balconies: yes / no, depth, roof connections, grille or solid?
FLOOR PLAN: subdivision of space, order and hierarchy of the rooms, traffic.
EXISTENCE LISTS: well defined and the repeating structure usually 1mm to 3mm, 1cm, 3cm or 1 inch, 10cm, 1m or 1yard, 3m, 10m, and other scales.
COLOR: yes / no, which? Intensity? Do the different colors blend
SYMMETRIES wide :? formal symmetries on the scale of 10 m down to about 1m.
SYMMETRIES SMALL: sub-symmetries of 1m down to fine details.
decorative elements: large non-functional elements used only for style.
ORNAMENTS: yes / no, the type and design of the scales on which it appears, extent.
SURFACE: materials and textures presented to the user, "friendly" or not
Architectural Regionalism correlated with complexity design
After documenting a particular form of language, we measure its "complexity" by using the number of words in the description based on the completed "language form list control "above.
at the same time, we believe the regional adaptation on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being the least suitable to the locality, building culture, and the needs of specific users linked to the local culture. We are guided in this estimate by this regionalism means in the context of the use of local materials, using traditional typologies, inexpensive methods of consumption energy and optimization, the historical continuity of design typologies and the use of traditional ornamentation, etc.
Each language form presents an ordered pair of numbers ( number of words , Regional Adaptation ), and these can all be compared. It is instructive to trace Regional Adaptation (on a vertical axis) versus the complexity of a linguistic form as measured by the number of words in his verbal description (on the horizontal axis).
Such plot indicates that regional adaptation is correlated with the complexity of a form of language. This result is all the more striking that the measure of the complexity of the language of form obviously depends on the number of words, and also depends on the verbosity of the person describing! Despite the obvious inaccuracies of the method, these results open a promising subject for further investigation.
During the class discussion assessing each building in the context of the overall results, several students said that their choice of building "turned out not be a good example after all. " Pressed to explain, they said they were originally attracted to their building because the usual criteria of architectural design, but our analysis has shown them that the most important qualities in facilitating human use and 'simple economics were insufficient. Consequently, they understood how to judge whether a form of language was adaptive or not.
Further Reading:
Nikos Salingaros An architectural theory chapter 1, "the laws of architecture from the perspective of a physicist" (Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, 06).
Nikos Salingaros, "Kolmogorov-Chaitin Complexity" meandering through mathematics , 23 September 2012. chapter 9 of theory of the unified architecture .
Nikos Salingaros & Kenneth Masden, "Against Ecophobia" Philadelphia Society on 8 October 2011. Also available in Greek and Italian. chapter 10 theory of the unified architecture , and we will publish this online test.
Henry Glassiem "Folk Housing in the Middle Virginia," 1975.
Order the international edition of architectural unified Theory here and US edition here .
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