Le Corbusier's Modulor: Anthropometric Myth

The city is formed as a mosaic of various elements which affect its attractiveness. These elements range from location attributes, through economic opportunities, to social aspects. Therefore, urbanity and urban planning should be considered in a multi-dimensional context. In the paper we address the problem of urban planning by Le Corbusier according to praxeological and system knowledge. From praxeological point of view an active human being takes his/her choice between various possibilities by preferring one of these possibilities to the others, and by manifesting it by her actions. The same applies to the design process. Due to this fact, the scientific design process can be treated as a systematic rational reconstruction of the designer’s behaviour. Such a reconstruction requires previous reflection on designer’s work, as well as some consideration and design experience, thus know-how knowledge based on methodological knowledge. In the paper several city visions of Le Corbusier, as well as the characteristics and organisation of his design process are analysed. Le Corbusier’s innovative design ideas resulted from industrialisation changes and motorisation accelerating progress, which gave foundation to a new urban array. This array based on strict geometric forms, regularity and repetition determining standard. Thanks to his theories, Le Corbusier established principles of modern city construction and planning. Although some doubts were expressed as to the scale of centralisation of the cities designed by him and his class-based conception, he was awarded that overall welfare of the individual living in a city was the quality of built environment. Therefore, his designed creations were not only functional but they also produced emotions. The analysis of his prolific design activities allows us to state that the organisation of his architectural and urban planning process was very efficient and complex. The city concepts proposed by him were the subject of analysis by generations of designers. Also now, they can still be the basis for modelling virtual and navigable cities by modern planners. Le Corbusier’s comprehensive approach to modern city planning showed that research activities, that is theoretical thinking, and production activities, that is practice, are linked methodically. Therefore, urban planning should be understood not only as a projection of the possibilities of architecture, but as a multidisciplinary process. Due to this fact, an urban plan, as a result of that process, should be a synthesis of various social, industrial and economic aspects.

George Dudley is an architect and planner who was present and kept official notes of the 45 meetings of the international Board of Design for the United Nations. In this book he unfolds the first eyewitness account of the creation of a landmark building that was functionally and symbolically important in its time, marking the emergence of modern architecture as the dominant language of post-war institutions and cities. In tackling long-standing questions of authorship, Dudley reproduces pages from Le Corbusier's UN, sketchbook for that period, long thought to be irretrievably lost, and sheds new light on Le Corbusier's contribution to the design process. A Workshop for Peace is a record of a design process in which the principal players - Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, Sven Markelius, Wallace Harrison, Howard Robertson, Louis Skidmore, Julio Vilamajo, Ssu-Ch'eng Liang and Max Abramovitz - disagree with one another and collaborate in turns. The Board of Design took pains to present the design as the unanimous result achieved by this group, and agreed that no individual credit should be given to any one architect. But Le Corbusier began a campaign after he left New York to claim that the central idea for the UN's design was his alone. Dudley carefully analyzes the evolution of the design and compares the scheme to dated entries made in Le Corbusier's sketchbooks during the design process.

Tall stature is rarely pathologic, but the pediatric health care clinician must be able to distinguish familial causes from those due to endocrine or genetic reasons. Defined as a height 2 SDs above the mean for age and sex or greater than the 95th percentile, tall stature is usually familial or secondary to obesity. Although there is known psychological stigma associated with short stature, the paucity of evidence that tall stature in females or males is psychologically detrimental makes the previous practice of sex hormone administration to decrease ultimate adult height no longer acceptable.When evaluating tall stature, it is first necessary to plot serial height measurements during multiple visits. If these measurements confirm the criteria for tall stature, the clinician should calculate the child’s projected adult height by calculating the midparental height as follows:Parental heights should be measured directly because self-reported heights are often overestimated, especially in men. If a child has at least one tall parent and plots within 5 cm of the target adult height range, he/she is considered to have familial, or constitutional, tall stature. In this circumstance, no further investigation is warranted as long as the child is developing normally and has normal physical examination findings. Measurement of body proportions is also important, including upper body to lower body ratios and arm span, because these measures can help differentiate between pathologic and familial tall stature. At birth, the upper extremity to lower extremity ratio should be 1.7. By early childhood, this proportion should be 0.89 to 0.95. In addition, a child’s arm span is generally 1 cm shorter than his height, whereas an adolescent’s arm span is generally equal to his height. Klinefelter syndrome should be considered in a patient with tall stature, increased arm span, sparse hair, small testes, and a high-pitched voice, predicating the need for karyotype testing. A tall patient with decreased upper to lower body segment ratio, hyperextensible joints, and scoliosis may have Marfan syndrome.If pathologic tall stature is suspected, a bone age radiograph of left hand, fingers, and wrist should be ordered. A normal bone age is consistent with familial tall stature, whereas accelerated bone age in a nonobese child must lead the pediatrician to consider precocious puberty or growth hormone excess. Obesity leads to tall stature in childhood with a normal final adult height and is associated with accelerated skeletal maturation. Although the exact mechanism for obesity’s role in tall stature is not understood, the hormone ghrelin, the growth hormone secretagogue receptor, insulin-like growth factors, and insulin all have the potential to mediate linear growth.In conjunction with bone age, precocious puberty can be diagnosed with Tanner staging and assessing testicular volume in males, with a postpubertal testicular volume being greater than 4 mL. Patients with late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia present with precocious puberty, tall stature, and an increased 17-hydroxyprogesterone level in the blood. Growth hormone excess is rare in children, yet when present is usually due to pituitary adenomas. Growth hormone excess before epiphyseal fusion results in tall stature and markedly increased height velocity. If it occurs after epiphyseal fusion, adolescents may also have signs of acromegaly, such as coarsening of facial features, enlarged jaw, and distal body overgrowth, including large hands and feet.There are other rare genetic syndromes associated with tall stature, all of which have significant clinical stigmata that should be apparent on physical examination. Sotos syndrome should be considered if the bone age is accelerated and the child has accompanying symptoms of facial flushing, frontal bossing, and a narrow face and head. Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome is considered if hypoglycemia is present at birth, along with anterior abdominal wall defects and macroglossia. Marshall-Smith syndrome is associated with unusually rapid physical growth, abnormal facies, and respiratory issues.A pediatric health care professional can diagnose most causes of tall stature with a careful history and physical examination. If suspicion is high for disease or the cause is unclear, the clinician should consider radiographic bone age and focused laboratory testing. Although the social stigma behind tall stature has decreased, clinicians must still be aware of potential pathologic causes of tall stature that would warrant intervention.Comments: This In Brief emphasizes the importance of accurate height measurements. My experience is that height measurement can often be inaccurate, especially in supine measurements in young children or very active children who have difficulty standing still. When transitioning from supine measurements to standing measurements in toddlers, there may appear to be a false perception of a decrease in height because standing height is often shorter than supine length. Accurate measurement of upper to lower body segment ratios is important in identifying several syndromes and can be performed in the following way. To measure lower body segment, measure from the symphysis pubis of the patient to the floor. The upper segment can be calculated by subtracting the lower segment from the total height. Measurement of arm span is best accomplished by measuring from the tip of the middle finger of one hand, with arms outstretched at a 90° angle to the tip of the middle finger of the other hand.A recent study of self-reported adult height measurements in parents found that men have a tendency to overestimate their heights but women’s self-report is more accurate. When looking at estimating the other parent’s height, women were more likely to overestimate the men’s height, whereas men were more accurate in estimating women’s height. Their conclusions were that attempts should be made to use measured heights of parents when the results would have an effect on diagnostic workup or treatment of patients with tall stature.

Recently, digital fabrication techniques have captured the attention of many architects and makers due to their ability to challenge traditional construction techniques and complex forms that were hard to apply in the past. Digital fabrication has bridged the gap between the architectural design and construction processes by creating a direct digital link to the appropriate fabrication machines. Nevertheless, integrating digital fabrication techniques in the architectural design processes is still a major challenge to creating a culture of digital building all over the world. In this regard, this paper has arranged 10 key questions and their answers with a particular focus on how to integrate digital fabrication techniques into the architectural design process. It provides an overview of digital fabrication concepts and processes, computer software, material selection, the most popular digital fabrication techniques and their architectural applications such as free-form geometries, façades design, buildings, bridges, pavilions as well as structures like columns, walls, and slabs, along with the most significant challenges and opportunities facing the widespread use of these techniques in architecture. In an effort to identify new research trends, this paper concludes by discussing the state of the art in architecture-related digital fabrication research and research potential gaps, which will be beneficial to further research and scientific investigations in this field. Hence, a conceptual framework is suggested as a guideline for numerous architects, fabricators, and researchers to follow for integrating digital fabrication techniques into the architectural design process in order to take advantage of this strategy at scale.

This paper aims to answer the questions whether human height measurement from video is affected by human motion and how accurately human static height can be measured from a video or from a single image frame that captures a walking subject. In this paper, we present a new approach for measuring human height based on the cross ratio. This approach is performed in parallel with the vanishing point based approach for comparison. The accuracy of each approach is examined by comparing the estimated value to the actual static height value which is measured directly. For the height measurement from video, our analyses show that human height varies significantly during human motion and the highest point in a human stride is the most accurate measurement of the static height. We also model the height variation as a sinusoidal pattern to maximize the accuracy of the estimated height. For the height measurement from a single frame, a correction method is developed in which the length of the human torso with human head and the length of the human leg are separately estimated. We conclude that static human height can be measured accurately, even though the variation of human height is significant during human motion.

Having been a promising visualization tool since 1950s, ironically, virtual reality is not widely used in the architectural design and evaluation process due to several constrains, such as the high cost of equipments and advanced programming skills required. This paper described the collaboration between design computing courses and architecture design studios that have been taught at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in 2004 and 2005. These courses explored several practical methods to integrate Low Cost Virtual Reality Aided Design (LC-VRAD) in the architectural design process. As a summary of the collaboration, this paper refers to three main aspects: (1) How to use game engine to design an affordable VR system in the ordinary studio environment. (2) How to integrate VR, into the design process, not only as a visualization tool, but also as a design instrument. (3) How to evaluate different methods of representing architectural models based on the efficiency of workflow, rendering quality and users' feedback. Support by the Game and Interactive Design Department at SCAD, students in the School of Building Arts implemented two Low Cost VRAD methods in various design phases, starting from site analysis, schematic design, design development to the final presentation. Two popular game engines, Epic Game's Unreal engine and Director MX's Shockwave engine, were introduced to students to visualize their project in real-time. We discussed computer-aided design theories including the application of VR, as well as digital computing and human computer interaction. At the end of each quarter, feedbacks from students and faculties were collected and analyzed. These methods were revised and improved consistently across 2004 and 2005 academic year.

The paper poses the question about the planning modernization processes happened in Latin America, and about the role that disasters, and specifically earthquakes, played within them. In the case of Chile, earthquakes have been present all along its history. During the 20th century, some of them have been significant factors in the development of modernization process: Valparaiso, 1906, Talca 1928, among others. What kind of discussion about urban modernization did those disasters open, and how was modern planning perceived within them? The proposed hypothesis suggests that resilience, developed as a cultural feature, after a long exposure to earthquakes and others disasters, not only promotes the reconstruction processes, but also offers the opportunity to discuss urban models and paradigms. Following the way in which Schumpeter and others have put it (creative destruction), reconstruction processes have been occasions to promote already existing urban agendas or introduce new concepts, methods and paradigms. The Chillan earthquake, happened in Chile in January 1939, is proposed as an study case to examine those processes. The earthquake coincided with a political crises, involving social, economical and cultural dimensions. The reconstruction of Chillan and other cities in the region, opened a big discussion among local planners. This surpassed the technical domain and permeated into the media and the public opinion. The two main struggling forces were those of Karl Brunner disciples and Le Corbusier partisans. Both considered themselves as modern planning representatives, but conceiving this in very different ways. Karl Brunner (1887-1960) had visited Chile in 1929 and 1932. He delivered the first Latin American planning seminar at Universidad de Chile and did urban plans for the government and Santiago Municipality. He had set an agenda for urban modernization in the country, which had been developed by his disciples in the following years. Le Corbusier (1887-1965) on his side, had visited some Latin American countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay)in 1929, while Brunner was working in Chile. After the Chillan earthquake, a group of architects invited Le Corbusier to visit the country and have a leading role in the reconstruction process. Brunner disciples strongly opposed the idea, detonating a public controversy about the nature of modern planning. The paper suggests that this local discussion reflected tensions that went far beyond the local realm. They had to do with different conceptions about modernization processes and urban planning renovation. At the same time, this polarization, taking place within the experts’ realm, reflected a wider dispute about Latin America as a possible professional field for European or North American planners.

Structural Imperative and the Origin of New Form ROBERT MARK AND DAVID P. BILLING TON Contemporary writing on architecture, following art history, tends to focus on formal analysis where visual ideas dominate the discussion of the origin and meaning of style. Technology is rarely touched upon; and structure, although generally understood as necessary, is hardly seen as a legitimate giver of form, even for large-scale building.1 This modern point of view must be understood, at least partly, as a reaction to the ideas of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814—79), self-trained architect, restorer, archaeologist, and theorist. Mainly on the basis of his extensive practical experience with the restoration of medieval monuments, Viollet-le-Duc compiled a ten-volume encyclopedia, Dic­ tionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (1854— 68), that remains even today probably the single most important pub­ lished work on medieval building technology (fig. 1). He also inferred from this experience that many of the principal stylistic elements of the Gothic were originally derived from the demands of the construc­ tion process or the laws governing structural forces. Furthermore, he argued, since these laws apply to all building at all times, innovation in visual form springs from appropriate response to structural de­ mands in terms of the materials of construction.2 In this light, he then Mr. Mark is professor in the School of Architecture and the Department of Civil Engineering, and Mr. Billington is professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, at Princeton University. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support for these studies provided by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., Foundation. ’The need for structure, however, would not seem to be universally accepted. In the award-winning text by Alberto Perez-Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis ofModern Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), the late-18th-century architects Etienne-Louis Boullee and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux are especially lauded just because their unbuildable “architec­ tural intentions . . . did not lit into the new, essentially prosaic world of industrial society” (p. 161). For writers like Perez-G6mez, the process of creative design is only hindered by considering technology. 2Viollet-le-Duc’s polemical Entretiens sur !architecture, originally published in Paris in 1863 (vol. 1) and 1872 (vol. 2), was translated into English by Henry Van Brunt as© 1989 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X789/3002-0001$01.00 300 Fig. 1.—High Gothic construction as illustrated in Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionnaire by his drawing of a portion of the nave of Amiens Cathedral. 302 Robert Mark and David P. Billington attempted to demonstrate through new designs how the recently in­ troduced metals of his own age might be used to develop a modern style of building. And although Viollet-le-Duc’s designs may not have been persuasive in themselves, his writings on structural rationalism, which led Sir John Summerson to characterize him as “the last great theorist in the world of architecture,” affected a whole generation of architects.* 3 He has been credited even with seeding the idea of the metal-framed American skyscraper.4 Rather than searching for elegant structure, many 20th-century designers found a more appealing basis for visual form in merely taking up the notion of a “machine aesthetic,” often unrelated to machines but used, for example, to justify adopting Cubist forms in architecture—as when photographs of cylindrical reinforced-concrete grain elevators served as models for new styles of urban dwelling. Indeed, the onset of this new formalism can be marked, in 1923, with the publication of Vers une Architecture by the influential Swiss architect Le Corbusier. According to Le Corbusier, the engineer alone could never create beauty; it is only the architect “who by his arrangement of forms realizes an order which is pure creation of the spirit.”5 And, as Summerson makes clear in his eccentric yet clever set of essays designed primarily to dispose once and for all of Viollet-le-Duc’s the­ ories, “[While Viollet-le-Duc’s] disciplined, daring, economical, ingen­ ious designs [lack] style, . . . Le Corbusier’s...

Museum of Contemporary Art by Artists

Introduction: With the rapid development in computational design, both architectural design and representation processes have witnessed a revolutionary change from the analog to the digital medium, opening new doors for adaptability in the architectural design process by leveraging nature concepts in design. The computational design approach starts with the mathematical model definition based on numerical relations and equations, thus, replacing the standard visual representation. Purpose of the study: We aimed to integrate computational design technologies to create self-learning buildings that could adapt to environmental challenges and adjust accordingly by collecting data from the surrounding environment via the implementation of sensors. Methods: We started with extensive research on state-of-the-art computational design in architecture, followed by the design implementation and the implementation of the architectural design of a building. The design followed a parametric approach to design and strategies. An algorithm was developed with Grasshopper Scripting to generate documents that mimic the growth process of cellular bone structures and adapt that form to a selected project site. To ensure that the generated form is adaptable, we performed multiple analyses, such as sunlight, radiation, and shadow analysis, before selecting the form and finishing its development. The results show that an environmentally responsive form that extends from the surrounding environment is characterized by high levels of adaptability. Results: In the course of the study, the effectiveness of computational design technologies in architecture was established.

Purpose This paper aims to establish a notion of speculation in the design process in architecture studios as a way to invent new ways of thinking and making beyond narrow pedagogical approaches in the service of designing buildings. The notion of speculation is formulated on the basis of the concept of practical judgment, and articulated as a way of going beyond habitual ways of teaching architecture. The article discusses a design studio process where different cultural artifacts are juxtaposed on each other in an iterative process that sets out a hermeneutical horizon for new possibilities of seeing and understanding to emerge. Design/methodology/approach Unrelated to each other, a filmic narrative and a cityscape are combined in collage studies to initiate imaginative readings of both. These initial studies are followed by other constructs in various media, to form the history of a thinking process where the constructed objects open up in iterative reverberations to establish a sense of place in the design process. A tectonic and spatial emphasis on lived experience underlines the speculative and improvisational aspects of this iterative/generative procedure. Combined through certain experiential threads, the design studio project emerges as the culmination of this history of thinking and making. Findings The design studio shows the effectiveness of using different cultural artifacts to establish a conceptual/poetic framework in the design process where the constructs are infused with creative narratives in the pursuit of meaningful places. It also shows the viability of an iterative/generative design sequence that moves between various scales and media, from hand drawings to physical models to digital makings and reflections. A key discussion in the process is the complementary modalities of physical and digital productions where each step not only reflects back on the previous but also projects further experiential possibilities. Originality/value This study is an attempt to bring cultural disciplinary reflection into the design studios at a time when the mainstream cultural narratives and practices that shape our lives continually diminish the range of meaningful human experiences. Architecture today is consumerized on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok with its sleek forms. The profession of architecture more and more sees itself as a service provider to developers, authority and power, comfortably sustaining an image of individuality projected by consumer and social media. Where more and more students join architectural schools for an architecture degree itself rather than a well-rounded architectural education, and where academia is also being restructured on corporate business models, to encourage the professional degrees over disciplinary thinking, this study brings in a critical voice to architectural pedagogy and shows ways of pursuing architectural design as a creative reflection on human existence.

Le Corbusier, quien durante los años 1947 y 1953 diseñó algunas de las obras arquitectónicas y urbanas más importantes del siglo XX, también desarrolló una de las creaciones artísticas más interesantes de toda su carrera: el Poema del Ángulo Recto. En esta obra, Le Corbusier reflexionaba acerca de aspectos relacionados con la creación que nunca antes había expresado. Él siempre atribuyó a este poema este papel fundamental, considerándolo como una síntesis de su pensamiento y de su actividad creativa. En este sentido, el presente artículo se propone desvelar, a través del estudio del Poema del Ángulo Recto, pero también del análisis de sus escritos, proyectos, obras, dibujos y apuntes de viaje, ese lugar imaginario que precede y en el que se asienta su actividad creativa, con el objetivo de conocer mejor no sólo su obra, sino también aspectos acerca del proceso creativo del que surge esta y de su pensamiento.

An architectural approach through Le Corbusier’s groundings Roughly, all through history of mankind, solar solutions in constructions always have been purchased fiercely during periods of energy crisis, mostly when non-renewable energy sources were endangered in some way.For this paper an architect of the 20th century was chosen, Le Corbusier, as a good example of how to design and build with the sun. Not only he knew how to harvest the sun for comfort issues, balancing wisely natural light and heat (gathering and storing heat for cold periods, or protecting openings from harsh sun beams), but he also dominated the light to valorize shapes and volumes. Here one of his famous project: the “Unité d’habitation de Marseille” is analyzed to show a well conceived architecture in urban area. Le Corbusier teach us awesome lessons on how to take sides of so called “passive” solutions and fully merge them in architecture, creating not only energy efficient buildings but an astounding architecture. This study focuses on a particular building to point out comparatively simple solutions in architecture and looks forward to the possibility of sprawling such solutions with a huge potentiality in energy savings. It also tries to demonstrate that good design must consider architecture ruling an ensemble of fields, including urban inclusion and respect to local social and geographic peculiarities. Harvesting solar energy in architecture doesn’t mean necessarily adding technical devices to buildings but certainly depends on designers’ postures and abilities to integrate technical solutions into an artistic and aesthetical whole.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the Kansei of the architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965), concerning the change process of the architectural concept on “garden” from the viewpoint of Kansei-philosophy. Le Corbusier defines the natural garden on the ground as “liberated land (le sol libéré)” and the artificial garden above the ground as “conquered land (le sol conquis)”. According to his definition, we can classify several types of Le Corbusier's garden; “front garden”, “courtyard”, “piloti”, “terrace”, “hanging garden”, “loggia” and “roof garden”. As a result of our analysis, we show that Le Corbusier's architectural concept on garden preserves the natural and the artificial.

Comparing the effect of letrozole on the growth of boys aged 12–16 years with constitutional short stature: A clinical randomized trial study