The period covered by this thesis extends from the mid- 6th/12th century to the late 8th/14th century. These centuries saw the development, maturity and apogee of Islamic architecture in Iraq as regards plan, structure and ornament. They also saw the heyday of the atabeg system, the fall of the Abbasid caliphate with the sack of Baghdad, and the establishment and decline of Mongol power. Long and comparatively peaceful reigns, such as those of the Caliphs al-Nasir and al-Mustansir, Badr al-Din Lulu' and Shaikh Uwais, generated many notable buildings. Occasionally a ruler's change of creed might affect his patronage of architecture. Thus the conversion of Badr al-Din Lulu' to Shi'ism, possibly intended as a move against the 'Adawiya sect, caused not only the conversion of many Atabikid madrasas to maqams and mashads, but also the erection of mausolea to Shi'ite imams. This thesis was undertaken in the hope of shedding light on the comparatively little-known mediaeval architecture of Iraq. The majority Of the foreign scholars who have worked in Iraq ao far have concentrated on tbe pre-Islamic past and even specialists in Islamic art have tended to concentrate on the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods. Thus there seemed to be room for a comprehena1ve work which would not only summarise the present state ot knowledge about already published buildings and their decoration but would also fill in the picture by dealing with little known and in some cases completely unpublished structures.

This thesis is concerned with theoretical aspects which underlie the establishment of a methodological framework which i) takes into account the problem characteristics of the field of built environment; ii) investigates the implications of these problem characteristics on the type of architectural knowledge which can be produced and also on the limits of the methods employed for obtaining it; iii) evaluates the operational value of this knowledge at the level of design practice. There are three major proposals made for the methodological framework. The first emphasizes its structural character. The second identifies problems of organization and production of artificial space as furnishing the specific domain of its empirical orientation. The third argues the necessity for this framework to maintain an operational link with architectural practice at the level of the architectural prototype. The particular epistemological paradigm invoked in order to evolve the framework is the structuralist approach, which consists of many strategies. The structuralist strategy, which has been systematically operationalized within the context of the thesis is (borrowing the term from linguistics) the syntagmatic one, where special emphasis is placed on the priority of the synthetic level of consideration in the investigation of architectural realities. The potential and limitations of the structural syntagmatic framework to deal comprehensively with the complexity and dynamics of architectural structures has been explored, as has the contribution it makes to the elucidation of the concept of the architectural prototype. The study of prototypes is proposed as a productive research paradigm which furnishes the key-link between, and provides for, the conceptual unity of architectural theory and architectural practice. Two interconnected areas of research on prototypes are suggested. The first relates to the investigation of the prototypic potential of the built environment, while the second relates to the development of design-specific prototypes. The thesis offers an illustrative example of the second area of research, which is evolved within the constraints of a new group of polyhedra independently identified and characterized by the author. The architectural extensions of this example and its potential for further development are explored.

This thesis, as its title suggests, is primarily concerned with the potentials and the limitations of applying, from a design point of view, a structuralist paradigm to the study of climate and built environment interaction. It begins with examining a number of theoretical and methodological questions which pertain to architecture in general and to architectural climatology in particular and proposes a strategy organized within the epistemological context of structuralism as an alternative way of dealing with architectural climatological problems within the general process of production of the built environment. The work is presented in four interrelated parts. Part I explains the need of approaching the climate-built environment interaction through the dialectics between its physical and its semantic dimensional, an approach which has boon called here "ecoclimatic". Part II examines systematically the conceptual structure underlying ecoclimatic phenomena and develops a taxonomic framework for these phenomena within the broader context of architectural empirical research. Part III presents a brief review of the main research trends of architectural climatology and attempts to evaluate them with reference to the conceptual framework of the "ecoclimatic approach" developed in the previous parts. The discussion is also extended to certain areas of ecoclimatic research which suggest both the necessity and the possibility of establishing more comprehensive conceptual bases for architectural climatological research and design. Part IV is concerned with the development of a structuralist methodological framework for the study of ecoclimatic phenomena. It examines the applicability of different structuralist strategies to deal with the climatological problems of the built environment and, in a general sense, with broader architectural problems in terms of both research and design. The discussion is supplemented by two papers produced collectively by the author and his colleaques A. Awadalla and Dr. T. Kotsiopoulos. These papers, published in 1976 and 1977, are included here in their original form as Appentix I and Appentix II respectively. Finally Part IV is followed by a Postscript where the general conclusions of the thesis are summarised and certain orientations for further research are proposed. These results suggest that the present microclimatic approach to the climatic research and design of the built environment, though useful in certain levels, is on the whole inadequate to provide a comprehensive conceptual and methodological base for architectural climatology. It is suggested that this inadequacy cannot be effectively overcome simply by an increase of research activity within the present mioroclimatic framework of research, but only through careful considerations of the semantic dimension of the climatic problems of the built environment. The ecoclimatic approach has been developed on the basis of these considerations and it is proposed here as a comprehensive conceptual and methodological framework for architectural climatological research and design. The conclusions reached in this thesis are theoretical in nature and they intend to provide some additional research and design tools for the study of the climatic problems of the built environment rather than to give answers to these problems in the form of final statements.

This thesis is concerned with the study of aspects of the thermal performance of the courtyard house form in hot dry climates. It attempts to establish the relationships between the variation of the parameters of the form and its corresponding thermal performance. Solar radiation is considered the main source of thermal excitation in the physical model upon which the study is based. The parameters of the form which are included in the model are: geometrical (proportions, size and orientation) and physical (reflectivity of its surfaces). The investigation is carried out by developing a mathematical model which simulates the interactions taking place in the physical model at the external surfaces of the courtyard's envelope. It enables the generation of detailed data on the irradiation load on the surfaces. Using Cairo as an example of a typical hot dry region, the model is implemented on a computer and used to systematically evaluate the initial and final irradiation load on the form's surfaces. The analysis of the investigation leads to an identification of the effect of each of the geometrical and physical parameters on the irradiation load and of the ranges within which these parameters significantly affect the irradiation load. Satisfactory thermal design for hot dry climates calls for minimizing the irradiation load in summer and maximizing it in winter. On this basis, a systematic assessment of the consequences of changing any parameter on the departure from the optimum form can be carried out.

This thesis is aimed at formulating a theory of the generation of rectangular single storey house plans using minimum space standards. Its purpose is to eliminate unused space in the design process in order to generate a range of house plans from which architects, planners or future occupants might make a selection appropriate to specific needs. In this study theoretical and methodological aspects which underlie the establishment of a quantitative area/dimension relationship are investigated. Generally in rectangular geometrical arrangements, problems arise in architectural design in the fitting or packing together of rooms into a plan within a certain range of shapes and dimensions. These problems are further complicated by the need to satisfy within the geometrical arrangement, certain required topological relationships between rooms. The method places emphasis on two aspects; first, the interdependence of minimum room dimensions and house plan for different family sizes and with varying degrees of functional segregations; secondly, the possibility of a change in the occupant's requirements necessitating flexible room arrangements or the adjustment of the size and configuration of the plan to arrive at an optimum solution. The investigation takes account of important cultural differences between the U.K. and Korea. It is possible to derive the overall plan outline - the shape of a building's perimeter - in two distinct ways. Either the building is designed from the inside outwards, rooms are aessmbled according to specified criteria, so that the final building shape is merely the end result of this process. Or else the external form of the building is determined first on quite different grounds, and then, like an empty container is filled up with rooms. In this thesis, I considered systematic generation of the minimum space, standard house plans in conjunction with the above two approaches.

This is a survey of a range of Buildings, taking special account of a rural economy, with emphasis placed on Buildings connected with farming from the period of the first enclosures. An extensive survey was inventoried from archival and field work, and when material permits statistical evidence is tabulated. A cross section of representative types of Buildings, which were intensively researched, are illustrated By field sketches. Photographs and estate plans are also included throughout. The influence of the physical geography and geology of the area is considered with relevance to land use and settlement, and also to the distribution and utilisation of Building materials. The social and economic aspects of history are also discussed. (Chapter i) Farmsteadings, including farmhouses, are surveyed with associated cottages, (Chapter II) Some manses, churches, schools and schoolhouses are included, and the layouts of villages and towns are described together with the character of the houses, which gave them three-dimensioned form. (Chapters III and IV") Estate and other regional architecture is considered when it contributes to the character of local Buildings, thus linking vernacular architecture with extraneous influences. (Chapter V) Past and present effects of various factors, which helped to create the vernacular architecture of this county are assessed, noting the changes of attitudes towards style and function in certain Building types, such as manses, which illustrate social and economic changes in regional life. Thus the thesis attempts to bring together into synthesis the social, economic and architectural evidence which the examples studied can produce. It emerges that a regional architecture is Being described; that it arises out of the change from the basically subsistence economy of older times into the more prosperous economy which developed in the eighteenth aid, nineteenth centuries, in conjunction with better communications and the momentum of the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

No description available.

Visual perception and neural processing depend on more than retinal stimulation alone. They are modulated by contextual factors like cross-modal input, the current focus of attention or previous experience. In this thesis I investigate ways in which these factors affect vision. A first series of experiments investigates how co-occurring sounds modulate vision, with an emphasis on temporal aspects of visual processing. In three behavioral experiments I find that participants are unable to ignore the duration of co-occurring sounds when giving visual duration judgments. Furthermore, prolonged sound duration goes along with improved detection sensitivity for visual stimuli and thus extends beyond duration judgments per se. I go on to test a cross-modal illusion in which the perceived number of flashes in a rapid series is affected by the number of co-occurring beeps (the sound-Induced flash illusion). Combining data from structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a behavioral experiment I find that individual proneness to this illusion is linked with less grey matter volume in early visual cortex. Finally, I test how co-occurring sounds affect the cortical representation of more natural visual stimuli. A functional MRI (fMRI) experiment investigates patterns of activation evoked by short video clips in visual areas V1-3. The trial-by-trial reliability of such patterns is reduced for videos accompanied by mismatching sounds. Turning from cross-modal effects to more intrinsic sources of contextual modulation I test how attention affects visual representations in V1-3. Using fMRI and population receptive field (pRF) mapping I find that high perceptual load at fixation renders spatial tuning for the surrounding visual field coarser and goes along with pRFs being radially repelled. In a final behavioral and fMRI experiment I find that the perception of face features is modulated by retinal stimulus location. Eye and mouth stimuli are recognized better, and evoke more discriminable patterns of activation in face sensitive patches of cortex, when they are presented at canonical locations. Taken together, these experiments underscore the importance of contextual modulation for vision, reveal some previously unknown such factors and point to possible neural mechanisms underlying them. Finally, they argue for an understanding of vision as a process using all available cues to arrive at optimal estimates for the causes of sensory events.

No description available.

A built form is embeded in a set of environmental fields such as air temperature, air velocity, sound and light. The form's effect upon the environment is governed by a set of physical laws, such as those of thermal conduction, radiative transfer, air flow, sound and light transmission. Thus, for any form it is, in principle, possible to relate the state of the environment inside the form to the state of the environment outside. Since the form/environment relationship is quantitative, this leads to the possibility of prescribing the properties of the form which will lead to a required state of the environment inside from knowledge of the state of the environment outside. A required state of the environment can be specified on the basis of our knowledge of the response of humans to their environment. In their simplest form, human comfort and/or performance requirements are expressed in terms of a value or a range of values of an environmental field. This leads to a model for generating the required properties of the form from the specifications of human comfort and/or performance requirements and the description of the existing environment. In this study, theoretical and methodological aspects which underlie the establishment of a quantitative form/satisfaction relationship are developed together with methods for representing the relationship so that it is possible to generate the properties of the form from the specification of the required level of satisfaction in a particular environment. A measure of the form's functional performance is also developed. This indicates the performance of the form in terms of the probability of achieving a specified level of satisfaction. The measure can, in principle, be used either to predict the performance of the form during the design process without producing detailed designs, or to generate a range of forms based upon a particular model. Being expressed in dimensionless probablistic terms, the measure can also be used to investigate the implications of the interaction amongst various requirements for the form and vice versa. With the help of simple models of the form the possibility of applying the generative approach to aspects of the form's acoustical, luminous and thermal performance is investigated in order to illustrate the general nature of the form/performance relationship in each case. The extension of the generative approach to other aspects of the form's performance is discussed in order to suggest an overall approach to design. The form/ performance approach is proposed as a unifying research paradigm in architecture.