Schools of architecture are in general oriented to place more importance on the shape of buildings, following fancy models and "discovering" rules of composition based in new fashion, and in the past of architecture as principle generators of design. Most of those schools have forgotten that the final product of architecture must be in the thinking of the users who are going to be the final consumers of the project. In designing, Architects should try to fulfill the basic needs of people and to consider the environmental characteristics of each project more than creating elements for the critical admiration of other colleagues.There is not a specific rule or order to follow in a design process which guarantees that the final product will fulfill the necessities of its future users. Each designer should discover his or her own process of design and which factors must be considered in each case. This thesis is based on the study of important elements called Environmental Factors and their intervention in the process of design, projection and creation of any architectural event. Several factors are necessary to consider in a process of design. They could be divided into physical factors such as illumination, acoustics, and climatic factors such as sun orientation and protection, wind orientation, passive and active energy systems. There are cultural factors which include psychological and social elements. Every architect should consider those elements as part of the design process in order to produce an architectural event that fulfills the needs of its potential users.The first part of the this thesis proposes a strategy of design for large scale projects that includes all the environmental considerations necessary to obtain a final habitable product starting in a small element called The Cell. The second step analyses the union of several Cells into a new element called The Unit, and the last step is the study of The Residential Development which becomes a product of the union of different Units and has urban connotations.Jose Luis Magan Architect As a conclusion, three different methods used in the design of a house are studied. In the first example, one works in the organization of a house as a whole element. Working only with a section of the house is the second method. Finally, using the geometry to generate each spatial component of the house is the third method exemplified.This thesis is the product of experience in research, design and construction of different housing solutions. It is just one step of a research in which I will be involved for the rest of my life. This is a research about the meaning of housing involving the physical, social, cultural, psychological and economical necessities of people, and how an architect could contribute with his design to make of this planet a more comfortable place for living. / Department of Architecture

<p> The primary objective of this thesis is to evaluate the effects of torsion on the nonlinear seismic response of a thirteen-story reinforced concrete frame-wall structure with an asymmetric stiffness in plan. The NEHRP building structure, located in Berkeley, CA and previously designed by Andr&eacute; Barbosa, was modeled in ETABS and SAP2000 to perform several analyses. The models accounted for realistic cracked concrete section stiffnesses, expected material properties, and nonlinear plastic hinges. Due to limitations of ETABS in performing nonlinear dynamic time history analysis, the model was exported to SAP2000. An asymmetric lateral stiffness model was created by moving one of the shear walls from the center of the building toward the outside of the building. OpenSees was used to find the nonlinear hinge moment-rotation relationships. </p><p> Using a suite of seven ground motion record pairs, an essentially linear dynamic time history analysis was performed on the symmetric and asymmetric ETABS models. The SAP2000 models were used to perform a series of nonlinear static (pushover) analyses. Fully nonlinear, including material and geometric nonlinearity, time history analyses were performed on the SAP2000 models using the seven ground motion pairs, appropriately cut to shorter lengths to reduce the analysis run-time. In each analysis case, the results of the symmetric and asymmetric models were compared. Overall, the asymmetric model typically experienced torsional effects and larger displacement responses than the symmetric model. The more nonlinear the structure behaved, the more influence torsion had on the response of the model with asymmetrically-placed shear walls.</p>

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Current trends in architectural education lean toward presenting and discussing the end product more than the process that leads to it. They equally highlight students' passive participation at the design studio practice. In response, this research aims to develop a design-learning tool that should overcome these dilemmas and others, and develop a design practice that enables and encourages students to share the responsibility of developing their design practice with the design tutor. This tool is called the Architectural Learning Tool or ALT. ALT has therefore four objectives to achieve: I- Improving students' design practice; 2- Increasing students' participation in the design studio; 3- Exposing students to other designers' experiences; 4- Increasing the students' understanding of the design practice. The theoretical grounding of the ALT is mainly Kolb's and Schon's theories. The Experiential Learning Theory by David Kolb aims to activate learners' participation at the learning environment through the use of their prior experiences at the new learning activity. The Reflective Practice Theory, by Donald Schon, provides a paradigm for describing design action that deconstructs the design process into four actions, naming, framing, moving, and reflecting. Therefore, it could be utilised by students in the design studio to explicit the design practice, present and discuss it in meaningful manner. These theories have given this research the theoretical framework to create the ALT, and develop it as design teaching technique. Based on these theories and the extensive review of the architectural education literature, researcher has developed a ALT teaching model for students to practise design in the new environment, and according to the required studio setting. This design-teaching model consists of four parts: I- Designing according to the students' existing design mode; 2- Deconstructing the design practice according to Schon's framework; 3- Replicating the design practice of other students; 4- Re-Designing the project in the manner of other designers. The research data consists of recorded students presentation and discussion sessions, and in-depth interviews with students, as group and individuals, after they have completed the ALT's project. All of these data are analysed to clarify the achievements of the ALT and its role in developing students' design practice. The research results indicates that the student design practice has been improved in three domains: I- Enhancing the designing activity by providing students with different design techniques to practise design professionally. 2- Assessing students' design practice to determine the strong and weak sides. 3- Enhancing students' ability to communicate meaningfully with others during the presentation and the discussion activities of the design practice.

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Long limited to universities and very-high-income firms, interest in computer-aided drafting and design has been growing rapidly among smaller architectural practices. Pressure exerted by clients and peers, as well as the promise of better design capabilities and faster design cycles, has fuelled the integration of CAD into architectural practice. / This thesis investigates the implications of CAD acquisition and integration through an analysis of the changes experienced by firms which have acquired this technology. We will look at the effects of CAD on office organization, staff, drawings and models and the design process. We will examine CAD as a means of replacing and surpassing traditional methods of representation and documentation, and consider its impact on the managerial aspects of professional practice. / Although this study is not exhaustive, it can serve the architect as a primer for a better understanding of the use of computers and their impact on architectural practice.

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The process drawing is defined as a constant meandering between the consciousness or hunch towards an object and the concept of understanding or rationalizing that object. This falls back to a search for form submitting to critical reflection including both intuition and analysis. With Process Drawing, this reflection initially comes from an ideal conception as opposed to a pragmatic idea. In such a way that during the design discourse a functional brief is replaced by a series of self-inflicted design instructions moving the mind further and further away from 'the familiar'. For a brief moment, the ideal exists only in the drawing, the model, or any other artefact produced, free from concept, free from pragmatic application yet aiming towards the discovery of a new program or new application.