Why are Most Buildings Rectangular?

And Other Essays on Geometry and Architecture
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-138-22655-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 282 Seiten, Format (B × H): 245 mm x 174 mm, Gewicht: 620 g

This book brings together a dozen of Philip Steadman’s essays and papers on the geometry of architectural and urban form, written over the last 12 years. New introductions link the papers and set them in context. There are two large themes: a morphological approach to the history of architecture, and studies of possibility in built form. Within this framework the papers cover the geometrical character of the building stock as a whole; histories of selected building types; analyses of density and energy in relation to urban form; and systematic methods for enumerating building plans and built forms. They touch on a range of key topics of debate in architectural theory and building science. Illustrated with over 200 black and white images, this collection provides an accessible and coherent guide to this important work.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Steadman, Philip (University College London, UK)

Steadman, Philip

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gestaltung, Darstellung, Bautechnik
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Berufspraxis
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I: Plan geometry, rectangular and circular 1. Why are most buildings rectangular? 2. Architectural doughnuts: circular plan buildings, with and without courtyards Part II: The history and ‘evolution’ of building types 3. The contradictions of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon penitentiary 4. Samuel Bentham’s Panopticon 5. The changing department store building, 1850 to 1940 6. Evolution of a building type: the case of the multi-storey garage Part III: Built form and urban form: geometry, energy and density 7. (with Stephen Evans and Michael Batty) Wall area, volume and plan depth in the building stock 8. (with Ian Hamilton and Stephen Evans) Energy and urban built form: an empirical and statistical approach 9. Density and built form: integrating ‘Spacemate’ with the work of Martin and March Part IV: Theoretical approaches to possibility in built form 10. (Frank Brown with Philip Steadman) The analysis and interpretation of small house plans: some contemporary examples 11. Generative design methods, and the exploration of worlds of formal possibility 12. (with Linda Mitchell) Architectural morphospace: mapping worlds of built forms; Index

Über Autor(innen)

Philip Steadman is Emeritus Professor of Urban and Built Form Studies at the Bartlett School (Faculty of the Built Environment), University College London, UK. He studied Architecture at Cambridge University from 1960 to 1965, and after graduating joined the newly formed centre for Land Use and Built Form Studies at Cambridge (later the Martin Centre). In 1972 he was a visiting research fellow at Princeton University. In 1977 he went to the Open University to join the Centre for Configurational Studies, of which he was Director until 1998. He joined the Bartlett in 1999. Much of his research has been on the forms of buildings and cities, and their relationship to the use of energy.

He has published three previous books on geometry and architecture: The Geometry of Environment (with Lionel March, 1971), Architectural Morphology (1983), and Building Types and Built Forms (2014). His study of The Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts came out in 1979 and was republished in an updated edition in 2008. He has also written books on energy and the built environment, American cities, the effects of nuclear attack on Britain, and the painting technique of Johannes Vermeer (Vermeer’s Camera, 2001).