FIN

stuck in traffic!!! 🙂

i think that medieval planning they used the landmark as a navigation and street evolved in such a way as to be able to see it from anywhere. this gives the whole street/city a human feel and people could travel through the spaces easier with a knowledge of where they were.

disaster… how come small? isn’t promoting art? possibly not in the traditional sense i suppose…still some exposure from about the house wouldn’t go astray and might nudge them towards giving more generously next year! there could be scope of providing a service in both directions. u show off there projects and provide link for them and they plug u in show!!! even might get sponership from programmes sponsers…just a thought but it may help..

oh! and while i’m here, ammm.. good show and all but when duncan told a qualified roofer why and how to put felt onto a roof it didn’t inspire confidence in that particular roofer…i know it’s for the lay people but the poor guy must have felt like a complete idiot! liked your idea of doing a few minutes on the apprenticeships…:-)

ha,ha…shiver with the thought. i know a lot of architects who watch it too however and might get some more people getting involved in the discussions. there is a group of western architects that i shall have to tell to start posting. they may be able to show some pictures of designs i wouldn’t be able to get my hands on and other such things. by the by…did u get a grant for the web-site paul?

that’s them..thanks sw101.

yeah it was italy. i was there last year for a medieval festival. it was in some small town about an hour outside rome. like paddy’s day but much more interesting. had a play basically played on the street. horses carring knights etc. it was class and to see the interaction between the users and the streets was facinating. i will try and find the name of it for u. the little town came alive. we got to see most of the architecture of it because as i said it was a kinda play that brought u around different churches culminating in a finish in the main square. how even ther large churches interacted with the people and the smaller houses.

i find sociology, in the way different communities/ethnic groups/classes are in tune with their world, in which architecture forms a large part, helps my thinking in regards to design.
this can range from a small building to city design. this is very much to the fore nowadays because of the social housing debacle that the government introduced. creating slums. what may have seemed a good idea and a vote getter is turning out to be something that could bite all our asses in the future.
but back to the point. the interaction of the user and the building is as u say like clothing. the user has to be comfortable in the environment to be able to perform to their designated tasks.
i would however suggest the a building be thought of as a item of clothing rather than the clothes. it has to match with the rest of the fabric. to interact with the roads, light rail system, pedestrian movement even metro system. there may to be a uniformity of experience of a building from first contact or it may have distinct experiences but all these must tie in with the what the average user experiences as an overload may lead to loss of familiarity. In this I mean the user won’t get emotionally attached to it. When the user gets emotionally attached to the building is when u know u have created a building that works.
I think the fact you are beginning to experience your city as a whole and not as individual buildings is great. I have to look at Rome for this. It is an amazing city. One where you could never get tired of walking around because even though some of the buildings are of a large scale they somehow feel close to the average punter. The point about the weather is a good one and the fact that one has to experience it in the rain. Then it maybe the case that the model of Rome wouldn’t work here.
I think the idea in Edinburgh of creating a sub-terrain shopping complex underneath princes street maybe deserves merit due to the fact that it is understanding and taking into consideration the weather and the user. Would it work in Dublin? There is also and forgive me cos I can’t remember the city but in Canada something similar where a large swathe of the city is beginning to go underground. I am crap with names but I think it’s Montreal!!! They are taking into account of the weather also. Would this work in Dublin? Would we be able to create a city underground. Or would it become a haven for criminal’s and graffiti artists. This is where sociology comes into play again. Would we be able to create a place where everyone becomes emotionally attached to so as to dissuade them from soiling it?

Again I digress, and I offer my apologies, architecture is a complex subject as we are expected to know a little about a lot of things. There is often a weight of information heaped on students without any form of coherent evaluation. This may hinder the development of some or most. Speaking from personal experience and I have to go back and finish off yet. They are then reduced to thinking of a building in isolation or near isolation, with only the surrounding buildings as a guide instead of taking the whole area/city into context as well. This may seem to involve too much thought but I think it helps to at least consider it when designing. The language of the whole city then comes into play. This is where the item of clothing fits into the suit perfectly and one becomes trendy.