Atlanta Skyways

Atlanta Skyways:

By: Chris Pacanowski

                Seeing a new city is always one of the greatest things in the world, and just last week I had the opportunity to go visit Atlanta, Georgia. The city itself is a little smaller than I was use to since I have lived near Chicago my whole life. The city of Atlanta had a lot of interesting things that I hadn’t seen in a city. One of the interesting things that I had seen was the fact that the public transportation throughout the city was poor in comparison to many other cities that I have visited in the past. The city was divided into four quadrants, NE, SE, SW, NW, by two train lines going directly through and crossing in the middle of the city. The problem with that is the fact that the people in the four quadrants that weren’t within walking distance to the train lines would not have a chance to be able to take that type of public transportation. These are all issues that an architect has to think about when doing city planning.

One of the architecture firms that we had visited, Perkins and Will, had actually been working on a project that would assist on getting more people that lived in the outskirts of the city, to the main city center.  This project was a very interesting project because the idea was to utilize an abandon train line that was around the whole city called the “beltline” and connect to the existing two train lines that cross the city. This project has a great opportunity to utilize a train system to transport more people that didn’t have any method to get to the downtown area. The reason why I had thought that this project was such an amazing project was the fact that the head architect had come up with this idea to utilize this train “beltline” in college and had done his thesis project on this idea. That showed me that even as a graduate student my thesis project could actually become a reality.  

                Another interesting thing that I had seen when I was at Atlanta was the fact that a lot of the buildings in the downtown area were interconnected with large skyways. These skyways varied in lengths and level that they were on. When looking at the skyways it almost created a feeling of connectivity between every building that it connected together, almost like it was designed by the same architect. When thinking of the reason for why they had connected the buildings together the first thing that had come to mind was that they were utilized to walk from building to building on a rainy day so the employees wouldn’t get wet. I believe that was a valid reason for them but after walking through a bunch of them I started to notice that they were a lot harder to navigate through because of the fact that the skyways were on different levels and you almost had to know exactly where they were to go from building to building. Another thing that I had noticed with the skyways was the fact that they were all almost leading to one point, a central mall type area with a large food court. This lead me to believe that the skyways could have been designed to be utilized to go from their building and go directly to lunch without going outside on a rainy day.

                Overall my experience in Atlanta was good and I highly recommend people to always experience as many cities as you can and to just get lost in them.

Architecture Master School

Architecture Master School

By: Colleen O’Malley

After spending four very extensive and dedicated years as an undergraduate architecture student, I decided to pursue my masters in architecture. Not only had I made this decision because finding a job without a master’s degree in the architecture profession is very difficult, but I wanted to pursue my dreams of becoming an architect. Making this life changing decision for myself only brought up more questions. Where do I want to go to receive my master’s degree? What do I want to focus on during my master’s program? Where do I see myself after master’s school? These are all common questions that many students face, but the meaning and impact they had or were going to have on me, intimidated me. To begin the process, I started asking around for advice. I talked to many professionals, teachers, and past and present graduate students asking how they got to the position they were at today and why they made the decisions they did. Understanding their paths they took helped me open my eyes to see the different options and paths out there. Knowing what Southern Illinois University Carbondale had to offer and being comfortable with the university and area from spending undergrad there, I knew it was the right fit for me. Within the first couple months, I can already tell that I have made the right decision. I am excited to begin my thesis and be able to focus on my own interests.

My thesis is another topic that has made me really step aside and think about the impact it is going to have on my future. On a previous class trip to Perkins and Will, an architect, Ryan Gravel, talked to my class about how his thesis from graduate school is actually being built today. Seeing the impact that it had on his life really helped me understand the impact my thesis can have on my life. As I begin researching for my thesis, I will consider: what problems are driving architecture today? What impacts will they have in the future? What research is out there now about the topic? What types of sources are available about the topic? And how will this impact my future?

Urban Fabric of the City

HISTORIC NEWARI SETTLEMENT: KIRTIPUR, NEPAL Continue………..

Urban Fabric of the City

By Jabina Shrestha

The town: Kirtipur, which emerged as the fourth royal city, is one of the last remaining refuges of a conservative Hindu urban culture, which has been enriched by an inflow of Buddhist and indigenous elements of the local newar population. Kirtipur, a comparatively compact small settlement has developed on a non-irrigated high plateau with surrounding farmland. Like other settlements, this also has access to water and large ponds or tanks usually flank the approaches to the town. The houses are built in a most compact form using as little horizontal space as possible but showing the strong tendency towards vertical expansion.

    Urban Fabric: Historical edifices

Temples

a.         Bagh Bhairav complex: Bagh Bhairav, the extant-tiered temple of Kirtipur, may be one of the oldest sites on the hillock. Although it now occupies in central place, in earlier times it could have been at the northeast corner of the settlement, the location most situated to Siva according to the ancient scriptures. (Ref. Fig1)

Style: Tiered Temple

Material: Mud brick and wood

Date of Construction: 1099-1126AD a year after the establishment of Kingdom of Kirtipur

Constructed by: King Shiva Dev III

Architectural Significance: Bagh Bhairav temple depicts the traditional architecture of Kathmandu Valley. The temple is four tiered and like every other Bhairav temples of the valley, is rectangular in plan. The top most roof is of bras and the lower two roofs are of mud tiles. The temple has 18 pinnacles and the walls of ground floor are covered by one of the most ancient wall of the Kathmandu Valley. The images of Bhagwati and the scenes from Mahabharata and Ramayana are illustrated by the paintings.

b.       

Uma Maheshwara complex : The Uma Mahesvara Temple is sited just below the highest point of the town, the highest spot being reserved for taleju Chee, the temple has suffered earthquake and storm damage over the years and it is said that long after the damage in 1833 it was rebuilt in four tiers by Bhim Shumsher rana. The temple is square in plan with a colonnaded circumambulatory at the level of the sanctum, with five bays on each side. The three carved windows have been replaced by a central door, an element not used in the upper part of any other temple of this style.

c.         Narayan Temple

 

: This temple, dominating all the landscape of the entire complex, is constructed over three succeeding of podium on the north Depukhu, the reflection of which in the water in an eye catching one. (Ref. Fig2)

Style: Domical Style

Material: Mud brick

Date of Construction: 1580-1605 AD

Constructed by: Jakerraj

Architectural Significance: At present the temple has domical roof over square plan. But from the records and the inner lower portion says that the temple was a 3 tiered temple which was destroyed in the earthquake of 1832 AD.  The present outlook for the temple was given by Laxman Pradhan in the year 1920AD with the guidance from his father Kaji Man Pradhan, who was the descendant of Jakeraj who constructed the temple12 generations before.

d.       

Loh Dega: (Ref. Fig3)

Style: Shikhara (Granthakut) Style

Material: Stone

Date of Construction: 1664 AD

Constructed by: Bajracharya Family of Kirtipur

Architectural Significance: This famous temple of stone had the artistic image of Shakyamuni, Pragyaparamita and Padmapani, which were stolen between1979-1982. The temple was inaugurated by the king of Patan, Sri Niwas Malla. The temple is highly decorated by the icons of Buddha, Ganesha, Mahankal, snakes, lions etc. This temple beautifully portrays the coherence between the Hindus and the Buddhists.

Water & Architecture

Initial Thesis Idea: Water & Architecture

By: Jonathan Smith

During my Senior year here at SIUC, I was an undergraduate research assistant for Professor Robert Swenson. Over the course of the school year I worked on various parts of 3D modeling and research to go in his book on steamboats. I learned a great deal from the experience. It turns out that steamboats were every bit as architectural as many buildings I've experienced, they just weren't land locked. It turns out that the water drove the design of the "moving buildings." This concept stuck with me over the course of a year and I began experimenting with multiple water-based concepts in architecture.

Now imagine a few hundred years in the future. By then technology will have an extraordinarily larger impact on our lives than it even does today. The environment we live in will not be as it is today either. What sort of meaning will the architecture of this futuristic time period have in society? One thing is for certain, the parameters that architecture is designed around are constantly changing and will continue to do so throughout time. In this future, what if global warming were to have a substantial impact? Would this make land a commodity that is very uncommon? How would the architecture adapt to non land-based areas? These are a few of the questions that have intrigued me about building architecture on water in the future.

These questions and interest I have explained are to give you an insight as to the direction I am heading for my thesis and why. I want to design a water-based architectural site that will act similar to a self sustaining city. Although the timing for this design may be a bit premature, it is very much relevant. There are a variety of conceptual ideas for manmade islands and barges that sustain life on long sea bound trips. For my thesis I wish to incorporate many of these aspects. I want the "city on water" I design to be completely self sustaining and allow for expansion of population. I foresee the project being highly conceptual, but on the same note, very realistic for the not so distant future.

A piece of architecture on water could start to help alleviate a multitude of issues. Some of these issues include global warming, overpopulation, sustainability, and devastation from natural disasters. I still have a vast amount of information to attain in order to make the project worthy of a graduate thesis, but the idea has stuck with me so long that I'm almost self obligated to pursue it. I'll keep my research and new finds up to date on the blog and you as the reader can find out if I crash and burn!