This proposal is a catalogue of considerable contextual issues that inform the architect about values, environmental qualities, and principles, found within existing building structures of an American downtown. It is the intention of this collection to help the architect considering a broader range of ideas in a new single building to be designed, with the intent of improving foremost the public quality of a future building in the downtown.The main architectural questions embrace the definition of the contextual influences, dimensional and non-dimensional, and the clarification what type of influences remain under the control of the architect.It is my overall premise that buildings in downtown are indeed of "higher quality" when they reflect the surrounding rules, i.e., when the architects, clients and any other powerful participants of the building enterprise know about the additional ideas that have been established around the proposed site. The downtown is often the oldest part of a city where first housing, first trade, growth, and the idea of neighborhood had its roots, where it all began. I specify downtown still as the traditional center of a community, a center, not defined so much geographically or architecturally as it is socially.How can a future best building become a piece of the existing downtown environment as an ideal. Is there such an ideal answer? Or is the downtown itself a conglomerate of random individual and uncompromising Inventions?What is the basic language, the common traits that all buildings in downtown shareMarkus Vogel, May 1997•What parts of a building are of importance in becoming a part of downtown and what reasons can we identify for attaching importance to those parts?What generates form, use and expression in downtown buildings which we consider as being a successful part of the place.Out of these questions, a catalog of influences will be presented, a reference framework of 21 issues, notions, and contextual influences, divided into dimensional and non-dimensional influences. Each of the influences analyses a single aspect out of the pool of qualities of downtown buildings. The consideration of non-dimensional contextual influences without any obvious visual dimensions such as contextual symbolism, questions of aesthetics, and behavioral aspects is of special importance. In defining the references the following set of questions serve as a guideline:A) Why are the notions important and where are they coming from?B) How can we look at them in downtown Indianapolis?C) What are the related suggestions and implications for a design study?The research includes visual, graphical and oral analysis whereby downtown Indianapolis serves as an example and as a resource city. The target groups includes senior students of architecture, architects and the community, or any other public client involved in design decisions or design reviews which supervise new developments in downtown.It is the position of this paper that only a consideration of all contextual influences together in one building may create what utopists could consider an ideal building. Aware of this heavily difficult ideal, an overview on those constraints that are not sufficiently under the control of the architect will be given in order to clarify the dualism between the ideal outcome and realistic possibilities. This proposal is therefore the creation of a methodology which defines questions and issues rather than providing the answers, describing final design implications.In conclusion, I assume that the belief and the application of such a contextual framework is characteristic of those people interested in particular and individualistic design responses rather than those individuals preferring universal and broad rules honoring all kinds of manifestoes that can be found in the pluralistic mishmash of present day's architectural theories. / Department of Architecture
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/186009 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Vogel, Markus |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Architecture., Laseau, Paul A. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 120 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-in |
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