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Understanding School Buildingscompletes a study ofmodern Swedish school buildings and the ideas behind them. In aseries of case studies of seven schools built between 1953 and2001, changes in architecture have been found to reflectchanges in the ideas and practices of teaching and learning.The study has raised a number of questions, regarding currentdemands on school buildings. Problems and qualities of schoolbuildings demands on school buildings, problems and qualitiesof school buildings form the 1950s, 60s and 70s, problems foundand qualities lost in the process of changing such buildings,and the motives of architects involved in the design ofschools. In practical terms, the research method has includedobservations of buildings in use, interviews with directors,staff and pupils as well as architects, and the study ofliterature, documents and architectural drawings. Intheoretical terms, different perspectives of architecture havebeen discussed and applied, from the phenomenological approachof Norberg-Schulz to the space syntax theory of Hillier, frompractical, social use of symbolic meaning and aesthetics.Finally, some philosophical themes on art, architecture andsociety, from Dewey, Shusterman, Scruton and Sartre have beenintroduced. Partly diverging from the case study model of Yin, the studydoes not simply aim at verifying or falsifying a hypothesis. Ata point in the study, each case is explained in a morenarrative manner. In the final analysis, understanding schoolbuildings in shown to require a multifaceted view. A schoolbuilding must be seen in a historic/political perspective, as atool for teaching and learning and as the life-world ofteachers and pupils. In cases discussed, a school building isalso the object of strong pedagogical or social intensions ofan architect. In other term, a study of school buildings mustbe a study in pragmatist aesthetics. Keywords:School building, architectural theory, recentsocial history of architecture, intention, experience,pragmatist aesthetics

The concept of home has often been recognized as a foundational concept in popular science-fiction (SF) as the point of departure or place of return in the space odyssey, timetravel mission, or heroic quest. Most SF narratives evidently centre on notions of homelessness, homecomings, threats to home or journeys from it. However, independent of the film’s narrative, home is also considered within SF as the place of the audience member, spatially and temporally, the distinction of which is critical for establishing the alien encounter with the putative future world. As a critical genre, SF continues to offer insights into the contemporary milieu that have significant implications for all areas of cultural research and, more specifically, architecture. While architectural literature and practice has confirmed a sustained interest in SF, representations of home are often overlooked in favour of the various innovations and special effects on-screen. It is the intention of the research to elevate the discussion of home in SF from its often abstract engagement by architectural texts, and more specifically question how notions of home are expressed in SF film through the various narratives and designed environments. Thus, the research posits the notion of home as providing the essential link between SF and architecture by establishing a theoretical framework and detailed analyses of four films adapted from the prolific American SF author, Philip K. Dick: Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990), Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly (2006). The research examines science, method, and truth, in relation to the foundations of the SF genre and its various representations of home. Furthermore, by comparing and contrasting modern and postmodern approaches to design, similarities are drawn between the cultural mechanisms of SF imagery and architecture. The research draws from SF theorists such as Darko Suvin, Scott Bukatman, and Vivian Sobchack, as well as authors focussed on notions of home such as Witold Rybczynski, Mary Douglas, Juhanni Pallasmaa, and David Morley. Topics related to contemporary identity construction, gender roles, domestic environments, global mobility and connectivity, spectacle, surveillance, tourism, and technology, are scattered throughout the chapters offering a broad survey of the notion of home as represented in contemporary SF with the intent of generating further architectural discussion.

<p><i>Understanding School Buildings</i>completes a study ofmodern Swedish school buildings and the ideas behind them. In aseries of case studies of seven schools built between 1953 and2001, changes in architecture have been found to reflectchanges in the ideas and practices of teaching and learning.The study has raised a number of questions, regarding currentdemands on school buildings. Problems and qualities of schoolbuildings demands on school buildings, problems and qualitiesof school buildings form the 1950s, 60s and 70s, problems foundand qualities lost in the process of changing such buildings,and the motives of architects involved in the design ofschools.</p><p>In practical terms, the research method has includedobservations of buildings in use, interviews with directors,staff and pupils as well as architects, and the study ofliterature, documents and architectural drawings. Intheoretical terms, different perspectives of architecture havebeen discussed and applied, from the phenomenological approachof Norberg-Schulz to the space syntax theory of Hillier, frompractical, social use of symbolic meaning and aesthetics.Finally, some philosophical themes on art, architecture andsociety, from Dewey, Shusterman, Scruton and Sartre have beenintroduced.</p><p>Partly diverging from the case study model of Yin, the studydoes not simply aim at verifying or falsifying a hypothesis. Ata point in the study, each case is explained in a morenarrative manner. In the final analysis, understanding schoolbuildings in shown to require a multifaceted view. A schoolbuilding must be seen in a historic/political perspective, as atool for teaching and learning and as the life-world ofteachers and pupils. In cases discussed, a school building isalso the object of strong pedagogical or social intensions ofan architect. In other term, a study of school buildings mustbe a study in pragmatist aesthetics.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>School building, architectural theory, recentsocial history of architecture, intention, experience,pragmatist aesthetics</p>

No description available.

In the early twentieth century, the modernists problematized ornament in their refashioning of architecture for the industrial age. Today, architects are formulating different responses to image and its (re)production in the information age. In both discourses of ornament and image, surfaces are often the perpetrators: visual boundaries that facilitate false appearances, imprisoning humanity in a shadowy cave of illusion. Such views follow a familiar metaphysical model characterized by the opposition between inside and outside and the opaque boundary that acts as a barrier. This model determines the traditional (Platonic) philosophical approach that follows a distinct hierarchical order and a perpendicular movement of thought that seeks to penetrate appearances in order to arrive at the essence of things. This thesis deploys Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy to advance a different understanding of surface, image and appearance in architecture. Using the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum as a catalyst, the thesis argues that many of the concepts with which commentators and critics analyse contemporary architecture follow models of thought that consider surfaces and their effects as secondary categories. Given the significance of visual (re)production and communication for contemporary society, the thesis proposes a different model based on surface as that which simultaneously produces, connects and separates image and reality. This non-hierarchical approach is inspired by surficial philosophy, which relates to Earth, to geology and topology, conjuring up a diversity of concepts from the thickness of the crust to the smooth fluidity of the seas. The result is an unfamiliar, polemical model of thought that does not define surface as a limit or barrier, rather a medium, a pliable space of smooth mixture. In this model, difference is not in the opposition between the two sides of a boundary line, rather it occurs upon and within the surficial landscape that consumes categories, promoting nomadic movements of thought that offer greater flexibility towards creativity and new possibilities. In surficial thought, images and appearances are not artificial copies of an originary reality, rather they possess a unique reality of their own. This approach allows architectural imagery to be theorised as a positive surfacing of architecture beyond disciplinary lines and the locality of a specific time and place.

This study is a critical reconsideration of architecture&rsquo / s affiliation with mathematics and geometry both as practical instrument and theoretical reference. The thesis claims that mathematics and its methodological structure provided architects with an ultimate foundation and a strong reference outside architecture itself ever since the initial formations of architectural discourse. However, the definitive assumptions and epistemological consequences of this grounding in mathematical clarity, methodological certainty and instrumental precision gain a new insight with the introduction of digital technologies. Since digital technologies offer a new formation for this affiliation either with their claim of a better geometric representation or mathematical controllability of physical reality (space), the specific focus on these newly emerging technologies will be developed within a theoretical frame presenting the significant points of mathematics in architecture.

O tema central da tese é o projeto arquitetônico e a constatação de que há uma lacuna epistemológica entre a ação projetual e sua atualização como objeto arquitetônico. A tese delineia um quadro teórico de cunho explicativo que visa estabelecer a base para a compreensão do estatuto epistêmico do processo projetual, do ponto de vista do pensamento arquitetônico. Para tal recorre à interpretação de textos de fontes da teoria e história da arquitetura, da epistemologia e da filosofia que são cotejados, revelando relações que lançam luz sobre o problema. A investigação identifica no surgimento da tradição projetual herdada do Renascimento a origem do distanciamento entre as bordas daquela lacuna, que de resto é inerente à separação entre concepção (teórica) e execução (prática) da arquitetura, portanto à própria atividade projetual. O desenvolvimento dos sistemas de representação em favor do ideal arquitetônico como “cosa mentale” propiciou a relativa autonomia do projeto em relação ao objeto arquitetônico, que, guiado no primeiro momento pelo balanço entre a invenção moderada e a convenção garantida pelos tratados como o de Vignola, paulatinamente orientou-se na direção do esgotamento das possibilidades da representação, ao ponto de tornar a viabilidade de execução do projeto dependente do desenvolvimento de programas de computador voltados à modelagem e representação digitais. A tese identifica a insuficiência das teorias do projeto como resolução de problemas para dar conta do aspecto epistemológico projetual de forma compreensiva, recorrendo como alternativa à epistemologia da prática de Schön e à filosofia da linguagem de Wittgenstein, em especial ao conceito de jogo de linguagem desse último. Este modelo explicativo e operativo é que permite avançar na construção de “pontes” entre as duas margens da lacuna, com a ressalva de que a lacuna é inevitável em função da natureza da atividade projetual. Esta tese se encerra não com a pretensão da resposta definitiva, mas com a problematização que qualifica e ilumina a questão. / The main topic of this thesis is architectural design and the observation that there is an epistemological gap between the act of designing and its concrete realization as an architectural object. The thesis presents a theoretical framework that aims at setting the grounds for understanding the epistemology of the design process from the standpoint of architectural thinking. In order to do so, explores, by interpreting, texts on theory and history of architecture, comparing them with others on epistemology and philosophy; by doing this, tries to uncover connections among such sources, especially connections that may shed light on that issue. The investigation identifies the origin of that gap in the emergence of western tradition, in the Renaissance, of an architectural design in which there is an inherent separation between the concept (theory) and the execution (praxis); thus, this gap is inherent to the activity of designing. The development of representation systems in favor of the ideal of architectural practice as "cosa mentale" produced a relative autonomy of the architectural design in relation to the architectural object. Initially guided by the balance between moderate invention and convention, assured by treaties like Vignola's, the act of designing has gradually oriented itself towards the exhaustion of possibilities of representation. It has reached the point where feasibility of execution of a design relies greatly on the development of computer softwares designed both for modeling and producing digital representation. The thesis claims that design theories are insufficient to account for the epistemological aspect of designing, and alternatively proposes a model based on Donald Schön's epistemology as well as on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, in particular on his concept of language games. This explanatory and operative model allows us to move forward in the construction of “bridges" over the gaps, though some gap is inevitable given the nature of the act of designing. This thesis does not claim to have answered the issue definitely, but it has the intention of having contributed in shedding light on it.

O tema central da tese é o projeto arquitetônico e a constatação de que há uma lacuna epistemológica entre a ação projetual e sua atualização como objeto arquitetônico. A tese delineia um quadro teórico de cunho explicativo que visa estabelecer a base para a compreensão do estatuto epistêmico do processo projetual, do ponto de vista do pensamento arquitetônico. Para tal recorre à interpretação de textos de fontes da teoria e história da arquitetura, da epistemologia e da filosofia que são cotejados, revelando relações que lançam luz sobre o problema. A investigação identifica no surgimento da tradição projetual herdada do Renascimento a origem do distanciamento entre as bordas daquela lacuna, que de resto é inerente à separação entre concepção (teórica) e execução (prática) da arquitetura, portanto à própria atividade projetual. O desenvolvimento dos sistemas de representação em favor do ideal arquitetônico como “cosa mentale” propiciou a relativa autonomia do projeto em relação ao objeto arquitetônico, que, guiado no primeiro momento pelo balanço entre a invenção moderada e a convenção garantida pelos tratados como o de Vignola, paulatinamente orientou-se na direção do esgotamento das possibilidades da representação, ao ponto de tornar a viabilidade de execução do projeto dependente do desenvolvimento de programas de computador voltados à modelagem e representação digitais. A tese identifica a insuficiência das teorias do projeto como resolução de problemas para dar conta do aspecto epistemológico projetual de forma compreensiva, recorrendo como alternativa à epistemologia da prática de Schön e à filosofia da linguagem de Wittgenstein, em especial ao conceito de jogo de linguagem desse último. Este modelo explicativo e operativo é que permite avançar na construção de “pontes” entre as duas margens da lacuna, com a ressalva de que a lacuna é inevitável em função da natureza da atividade projetual. Esta tese se encerra não com a pretensão da resposta definitiva, mas com a problematização que qualifica e ilumina a questão. / The main topic of this thesis is architectural design and the observation that there is an epistemological gap between the act of designing and its concrete realization as an architectural object. The thesis presents a theoretical framework that aims at setting the grounds for understanding the epistemology of the design process from the standpoint of architectural thinking. In order to do so, explores, by interpreting, texts on theory and history of architecture, comparing them with others on epistemology and philosophy; by doing this, tries to uncover connections among such sources, especially connections that may shed light on that issue. The investigation identifies the origin of that gap in the emergence of western tradition, in the Renaissance, of an architectural design in which there is an inherent separation between the concept (theory) and the execution (praxis); thus, this gap is inherent to the activity of designing. The development of representation systems in favor of the ideal of architectural practice as "cosa mentale" produced a relative autonomy of the architectural design in relation to the architectural object. Initially guided by the balance between moderate invention and convention, assured by treaties like Vignola's, the act of designing has gradually oriented itself towards the exhaustion of possibilities of representation. It has reached the point where feasibility of execution of a design relies greatly on the development of computer softwares designed both for modeling and producing digital representation. The thesis claims that design theories are insufficient to account for the epistemological aspect of designing, and alternatively proposes a model based on Donald Schön's epistemology as well as on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, in particular on his concept of language games. This explanatory and operative model allows us to move forward in the construction of “bridges" over the gaps, though some gap is inevitable given the nature of the act of designing. This thesis does not claim to have answered the issue definitely, but it has the intention of having contributed in shedding light on it.

O tema central da tese é o projeto arquitetônico e a constatação de que há uma lacuna epistemológica entre a ação projetual e sua atualização como objeto arquitetônico. A tese delineia um quadro teórico de cunho explicativo que visa estabelecer a base para a compreensão do estatuto epistêmico do processo projetual, do ponto de vista do pensamento arquitetônico. Para tal recorre à interpretação de textos de fontes da teoria e história da arquitetura, da epistemologia e da filosofia que são cotejados, revelando relações que lançam luz sobre o problema. A investigação identifica no surgimento da tradição projetual herdada do Renascimento a origem do distanciamento entre as bordas daquela lacuna, que de resto é inerente à separação entre concepção (teórica) e execução (prática) da arquitetura, portanto à própria atividade projetual. O desenvolvimento dos sistemas de representação em favor do ideal arquitetônico como “cosa mentale” propiciou a relativa autonomia do projeto em relação ao objeto arquitetônico, que, guiado no primeiro momento pelo balanço entre a invenção moderada e a convenção garantida pelos tratados como o de Vignola, paulatinamente orientou-se na direção do esgotamento das possibilidades da representação, ao ponto de tornar a viabilidade de execução do projeto dependente do desenvolvimento de programas de computador voltados à modelagem e representação digitais. A tese identifica a insuficiência das teorias do projeto como resolução de problemas para dar conta do aspecto epistemológico projetual de forma compreensiva, recorrendo como alternativa à epistemologia da prática de Schön e à filosofia da linguagem de Wittgenstein, em especial ao conceito de jogo de linguagem desse último. Este modelo explicativo e operativo é que permite avançar na construção de “pontes” entre as duas margens da lacuna, com a ressalva de que a lacuna é inevitável em função da natureza da atividade projetual. Esta tese se encerra não com a pretensão da resposta definitiva, mas com a problematização que qualifica e ilumina a questão. / The main topic of this thesis is architectural design and the observation that there is an epistemological gap between the act of designing and its concrete realization as an architectural object. The thesis presents a theoretical framework that aims at setting the grounds for understanding the epistemology of the design process from the standpoint of architectural thinking. In order to do so, explores, by interpreting, texts on theory and history of architecture, comparing them with others on epistemology and philosophy; by doing this, tries to uncover connections among such sources, especially connections that may shed light on that issue. The investigation identifies the origin of that gap in the emergence of western tradition, in the Renaissance, of an architectural design in which there is an inherent separation between the concept (theory) and the execution (praxis); thus, this gap is inherent to the activity of designing. The development of representation systems in favor of the ideal of architectural practice as "cosa mentale" produced a relative autonomy of the architectural design in relation to the architectural object. Initially guided by the balance between moderate invention and convention, assured by treaties like Vignola's, the act of designing has gradually oriented itself towards the exhaustion of possibilities of representation. It has reached the point where feasibility of execution of a design relies greatly on the development of computer softwares designed both for modeling and producing digital representation. The thesis claims that design theories are insufficient to account for the epistemological aspect of designing, and alternatively proposes a model based on Donald Schön's epistemology as well as on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, in particular on his concept of language games. This explanatory and operative model allows us to move forward in the construction of “bridges" over the gaps, though some gap is inevitable given the nature of the act of designing. This thesis does not claim to have answered the issue definitely, but it has the intention of having contributed in shedding light on it.