Reading Response 12

Unit Summary 2

Reading Response 11

Reading Response 10

Reading Response 9

Reading Response 7

Blogpost 7

For me, having an architecture of happiness means to have a place that you can go that has the ability to change you mood in a positive form. It makes you happy to be there and can be quite relaxing. Having a place of happiness ties in to the rules of architecture because it is all about personal satisfaction.  The agenda of it is no longer to just have religious meaning, although it may, but to have a more personal meaning. A happy space on campus to me is the EUC courtyard. More specifically, in that vast space, the place that stands out as particularly happy to me is the swing area. In that place people can relax, let loose, and just be a child again. It allows you to just let go of all of the stress that comes with college and adulthood and takes you back to the carefree days of childhood when there was nothing to worry about but when you what you were going to play that day. 

Reading Response 6

Blogpost 6

Although there are many similarities among the different Gothic cathedrals, there are also a variety of unique differences that allow you to see a difference. These differences also assist in defining a particular region to each of the different cathedrals. The cathedrals that were viewed by the phoenix group were in Cologne, Germany and Amiens, France.

http://www.featurepics.com/online/Cologne-Cathedral-1541420.aspx

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2355920650031963949lMPNrI

 

 

 These two buildings both have the gothic style, but the differences that help to show their regions are all in the material selections. In Cologne, the stone that is used is much darker than that of Amiens.  Traditionally Gothic cathedrals in Germany tend to lean towards this darker style, and the tendency for French building to be of a lighter color has been around long before the Gothic era, and continues in French design long after. Another thing that helps to define a difference is the colors used in the stain glass that is selected to accent the windows of the cathedral. Cologne used much brighter colors than Amiens, which is what would be expected due to the fact that the stone chosen in Germany has more color to is as well. 

http://www.anicursor.com/colpicb.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amiens_cathedral_Son_et_lumi%C3%A8re_003.JPG

My final difference that adds to the accent of a regional difference is the statues that are chosen to put on the outside of the cathedral. As was seen above the cathedrals in Cologne tend to be of a more masculine build and those of Amiens tend to have a more sleek, feminine look to them. This continues on in the statues that are placed. Those of Cologne have a powerful, masculine, dominant look to them. In contrast, the statues of Amiens are elegant and sleek.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-45566953/stock-photo-cologne-cathedral-of-saint-peter-and-mary-exterior-statues-famous-church-in-germany-seat-of.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgparry/3143105972/

Unit Summary

Unit One

• Finding out what it meant to design ("There is a great need to revise and broaden our view of the human situation, a need to be both comprehensive and more realistic, not only about others, but about ourselves as well." - E.T Hall)
• construction
• meaning
• symbols in design
• the symbols all had their own meaning to the that stayed strong throughout time
• circles groves and stacks came into the picture

• The circles, groves, and stacks all represent sacred places
• this is true throughout the history of design
• Ancient Egyptian pyramids were made of stacks 
• Pyramids of Giza: 2589 BCE
• Stonehenge: 2500 BCE, England
• Circle of tall stones that puts emphasis on the importance of what is inside
• Light shines through at certain times

• Combinations of groves and stacks
• temples & palaces
• Acropolis: Athens, Greece: 405 BCE
• Parthenon 
• stacks (columns <3types doric, ionic, corinthian>) 
• design got more sophisticated
• made so that it would look perfect
• matching the need and represent the meaning of the building in the way that it is designed

• Design changes as needs of the people change
• Commodity, Firmness, Delight
• commodity (function)
• firmness (structure & stability)
• delight (satisfying aesthetic features)
• Precedents help mold design
• Different societies have different ways of designing the same kind of building
• their own style unique to the country
• Many different building forms in western civilization
• plan
• road/street
• aqueduct
• bath
• basilica
• temple
• arch
• column
• market
• forum
• amphitheater
• colosseum
• dome
• Colosseum: Rome, Italy: ca 72-80 CE
• center of Roman society
• tells history of the society on the building
• ties in circles, groves, and  stacks (key ideas from the unit)
• fits 60,000 people
• still used today as a precedent for the design of present day colosseums 
• high commodity, firmness, and delight 
• the essence of unit one can all be found in this building

Reading Response 5

Blogpost 5

Balance. Unity.

The waves all move together.

Harmony lives on.

Reading Response 4

Blogpost 4

The music building on UNCG campus is a building that stands out to me as a very high scoring building in it commodity, firmness, and design as a whole. But more specifically the entranceway to it from the bridge leading from College Ave is astonishing. It is a very stable entranceway which gives is a high firmness score, and it also has also clearly does its job in marking the entrance to the building. It is a circle surrounded by columns that lead into large class doors.  When looking at the exterior of the building it stands out simply because of its form and mass. Not only does it do its job and stay strong, it is also beautifully crafted from the top of the columns to before.  This beautiful craftsmanship does not just stop on the outside of the building however. It continues on into the lobby as you walk in. The circles on the ground outside of the exterior echo in the tile on the floor of the interior lobby area. This gives it a wave-like musical effect, which reemphasizes the purpose of the building. It also does this with the columns that lead you around the space while also adding to the beauty of the building as a whole. 

Blogpost 3

In class we discussed 10 different ideas and how they relate to the Acropolis is Greece and the Xianyang Palace in China. These ideas include space, power, experience, principles, precedent, size, order, scale, technology and surface. The question now is how do these principles relate to present day architecture. More specifically, UNCG campus. To begin with, space or location has been important from the very beginning. The Acropolis is place upon a hilltop and Xianyang is located in the middle of the city.  These are both very important spaces in their cultures. UNCG goes along with this precedent that was set thousands of years ago. It is located in the heart of Greensboro. In comparison to the surrounding area, the size of the land that campus takes up is much larger. Next we have scale which coincides with the size. Each of the locations were spread out which allowed them to appear much more grand. The size along with the scale of them both help to contribute to their aspect of power. Xianyang does this as well. The buildings surrounding is are not very large, so the palace stands out amongst them which gives it a more powerful appearance. Another thing that adds to the power of UNCG are the various emergency poles that are located around campus. That shows people that it would not be difficult to get an alert to the police that protect the campus.

Another idea to be thought on is experience. In both Xianyang and Acropolis, the materials that were used in building were materials that could be found in the area. Therefore, they were materials that the people had experience working with. They were the surface materials that existed on the land. Today it is much easier to get your hands on different materials because of our means of transportation, and this allowed the people that built UNCG to have a much wider range of materials at hand. This also meant that they had more experience with these materials and that made it easier to select what should be used. For example, dorms are made with brick instead of wood. This is because if they were to be made of wood they would not be as durable and would also be much more susceptible to fires. This is something that was learned through experience with using the different technologies. This kind of experimentation was also used on determining the size and shape of the columns on the Acropolis. It took many trials and errors to come up with a design that would emphasize the beauty of the building.

All three of these places were established on a certain set of principles. The all have their own purpose. Be it a place of worship of gods or an emperor when referring to the past, or a place of learning when talking about the present. These principles also help to relate to the order of the places. In the Xianyang palace the person with the most power is the emperor, and it becomes less and less as you go down the chain of power. This occurs in UNCG as well starting with the Dean and going down from there.

Blogpost 1

As I walked around campus on Friday the 21st a deep sense of oneness with my environment came over me. I started to realize how big of an impact it has on the way that we live our lives and what things we find subconscious meaning in. To begin with, the significance that a circle represents is seen all around us. It marks ritualistic, important, and many other places of meaning. Circles are found all around campus. One of which I witnessed was in the entrance to the EUC. The entire entrance has a circular form, and in the very center there is a moderately sized circle with rays protruding from it, evenly spaced around. When groups of people meet in this area it is only natural that they would migrate to that very center point due to its presence that it has in the room.

Groups are another thing that I found there to be a significant amount of on campus. Most of these were found in the forms of columns. One in particular that has a powerful stance were the columns found outside of the Ferguson building. These columns mark the pathway between Ferguson and the School of Education, and because there is great repetition of them, they have more of an impact on the environment. They are seen as more important. This is true not only with these columns, but with anything that is repeated numerous times in nature. As it occurs more the significance of it grows and changes it from something meaningless into something worth attention and praise.

Lastly, we have stacks. Stacking has been seen around since ancient times and has always been a successful way of giving something presence and meaning. For example, the pyramids in Ancient Egypt. The higher they were stacked the more important they were seen as. This remains true today. On UNCG campus, the library is the highest stacked building. Its stacks can be seen all throughout campus. The sheer mass of these stacks gives it a strong presence from almost anywhere. Although they do not take the form of a pyramid they still give that same feel and this remains true for stacks all around the world. 

Reading Response 1