Color in Architecture: 2011 WAN AWARDS Colour Winner’s Announcement

The role of color in architecture is undoubtedly a crucial criterion towards improvement of the quality of design. Looking at the interior spaces of the exterior views, people as the users of architectural projects expect to have certain feelings while being in a space.

According to the previous studies, each color embodies particular characteristics and feeling to be reflected to the users. For instance, blue is considered a cool color, giving the sense of trustworthy and security. Red increases your heart rate and is deemed to be more energetic. Green is all about freshness while light greens are more likely to be calming. Yellow is a sign of positivism, light, hope and warmth. At the same time, black is classic, powerful and gentle while white is mostly reflecting the simplicity and cleanliness.

Looking at these characteristics which are just the most significant features, it is inferred that it is vital to consider all these characteristics while designing a place/project, however, are we really taking these points into account while being involved in the design process of a project.

Another fundamental issue regarding the role of color in architectural spaces is about the harmony and the circumstances of creating a desirable harmony between colors, hence, we need to learn about color contrasts, color schemes and color reflections. These elaborations put forward the fact that we need to a real artist in order to be able to design perfect projects.

While many designers are always restricted with the context constraints, the 2011 winners of “architecture + color” apply their concept in the historical setting of UK through using “glass fins in hues of purple and orange” and what is really inspiring in their design is the efficient selection of colors, the respective contrasts and the reflections of it.

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Architecture and New Media…

Media has gone through a rapid evolutional process, and today we observe the substantial linkage between people and online news as the new version of the conventional print medias. Despite the previous eras, today, users could simply get the information while being capable of sharing or expanding it. Indeed, this privilege is a point of departure for further evolving…

With view to the architectural news, the role of new media and particularly online media gets fully bound up with the interactive visual media. This is due to the role of design in architecture and the power of images in representing the whole story. In an architectural news article, you may not need detailed explanations as it is preferred to limit yourself to concise explanations while providing sufficient visual documents reflecting the ins and outs of project.

Similarly, in print media, with view to architectural news, it is common to utilize maximum size of images with brief description on the project. In fact, architects, designers and artists can communicate with visuals better than text and this is why the role of new medi in architectural news, where you can have as many images as you want, becomes substantially important.

Return of Mac: Unveiled  by GRAPHISOFT

For instances, recently, the statue of “Steve Jobs” is designed and created by famous artists and this news was widespread through online media with only representing the main image and few words.

According to recent articles about new media, referring to the mentioned points, a good news release for new media must be concise and complete, features with an active headline while highlight the most important information at the beginning.

The Essence of Citizen Journalism

Citizen Journalism: The concept of members of the public, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information…

Today, citizen journalism as the embodiment of news which could be easily reached but are not in line with the conventional stages of news process, has become a widespread phenomenon.

Therefore, it is vital to debate on its advantages and disadvantages. In view of the essence of citizen journalism, it is inferred that the true expression of individuals with regards to a particular news beside the explicit content and way of concluding without interference of public sectors, are the values embodied in citizen journalism. Likewise, according to citizen journalism, news articles could be freely written from the preferred perspective with less control compared to conventional news prints. Nevertheless, it is argued that due to the possible misinterpretations, the final outcome of citizen journalism may not have the expected reliability. However, citizen journalism could not be declined and it is necessary to acknowledge its pure content derived from versatile perspectives with less regards ti any restrictions.

Towards New Agendas for New Media: Architectural Innovations

Nowadays, media and news are highly intertwined with the widespread agendas. Indeed, the agenda directs the flow of the news and restricts the content based upon its boundaries. Looking at architectural news, issue of sustainability is deemed to be the most stimulating topic for news writing, media developments, etc.

Nowadays, media represents many attempts towards informing people, stimulating them and advertising different aspects of green design such as sustainable design of architecture, sustainable products, sustainable materials, and even sustainable lifestyle.

A green design, a sustainable home, and many many similar themes have become the main agenda for national and international medias, conferences and forums with regards to the field of architecture and built environment.

Agendas for today and tomorrow:

Designing buildings from discarded materials: a new sustainable design…. Read more

Plastic bottle houses as another sustainable approach in architecture… Read more

What do you think about these buildings?

Vernacular Architecture as Smart Sustainable Built Environments

Various studies have been carried out and many are ongoing to focus on the vernacular architecture of different regions. This remarkable source of research in the field of vernacular architecture in recent years represents the interest of architectures, scholars and researchers in this specific field. Many studies tried to identify the essence of vernacular architecture as the pioneers in the field of vernacular architecture like Amos Rapoport and Paul Oliver. Respectively, many of them expressed that identifying the essence of vernacular architecture is based on understanding their sustainable values.

The phrase vernacular is derived from the Latin root vernaculus which means native. Paul Oliver who is one of the pioneers in the field of vernacular architecture denoted that the vernacular architecture is “the common speech of building”.

Additionally,  Frank Lloyd Wright defined vernacular architecture as “ Folk building growing in response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no better than to fit them with native feeling”.

Referring to these issues, the sustainable thinking as a new agenda for communities may need to scrutinize our architectural heritage encompassing vernacular houses.

With view to the sustainable concerns towards architectural developments, according to a study by Kroner (1997), it is highlighted that:

The primary purpose of architecture – defined as the built environment of cities, including infrastructures, buildings, spaces and places – is to support and celebrate human activities. Except as a purely artistic pursuit, the basis for architecture to exist at all is to serve and preserve human values and human rights; to respond to human needs; to protect and shelter; to support, provoke, and promote human growth; and to do this in ways and means which free rather than enslave people.

Egg-Shaped Habitat in China

With view to the sustainable agendas for future, an architecture student in China has designed and constructed an egg-shaped habitat to be located in small court yard in Beijing. The house is entirely intertwined with sustainable concepts and green design techniques. Using natural sources of energy in this small building represents the possibility of the application of these strategies in mass construction and architectural developments.

FRAMING A NEWS ARTICLE

A news article could be framed and seen from different perspectives representing the essence and point of view of the content.

In architecture, the news articles are mostly bound up with description of the exterior and interior characteristics of the project, elaborations on the concept and the related details. But how can we look at an architectural news article from a new angle?

Visual Essay…

This visual essay is designed and developed to highlight the current architectural and construction developments in Malaysia and urban areas besides representing the abandonment of architectural heritages, and vernacular architecture of the region. The vernacular architecture is designed based upon natural resources and is entirely in harmony with the surrounded environment. Moreover, it is designed and constructed by the users and therefore, it is fully in accordance with the expectation and desires of locals. Nevertheless, the modern architectural and urban developments are not taking these environmental and socio-cultural values into account. Hence, the users are not satisfied with the projects which are not designed based on their expectations and the environmental requirements. On top of that, the modern architectural developments are consuming lots of energies for the sake of construction and maintenance which is totally against the issue of sustainability. However, the vernacular architecture, paticularly Malay houses are a sample of true sustainable design.

 

The significant role of photography in a news article…

Richard Meier and partners are currently involved in the design of an Italian residence which is targeted to be finalized by 2014. This figure is the visualization of the 3d model of the respective building located in the actual site.

What do you think about this villa?

Does it respond to the natural site?