21st Century

21st Century materials are very advanced and creative in there usage. The introduction of man made material such as Styrofoam  and PVC were very revolutionary in the building industry. The man made materials that were popularized in the 21st century have also created the need for a green movement due to the impact all of the non-biodegradable materials.  
The green movement encourages the use of environmentally responsible materials. It also takes inspiration from nature and mimics its appearance or blends with it. It also often uses recycled or re-purposed materials.
The 21st century has many divers building materials and also uses them in diverse ways.

Concrete Encounter

The Concrete was an interesting activity. I really enjoyed getting to experience a medium. Mixing the concrete was challenging as you had to have the correct consistency to get it to form correctly. This wasn't something I had expected, I thought that it could just be thrown together and it turn out. It was also really hard to remove the rubber glove because of the way the concrete had gotten into the creases of the glove. It was really fun though.
Concrete was more difficult to work with than I had thought it would be so I can imagine building something out of it, I struggled to fill a glove, building a dome out of concrete had to be incredibly challenging.

Unit Summary 2

Scale is something that we often do not think of, but at the same time we cannot imagine a building without it. Scale helps a building fit in with its surroundings or stand out. In many of the buildings we have seen in class such as the Pope Villa scale is what is notable about the building. The large front porch makes the building seem even larger than it truly is. The tall ceilings make the rooms much larger as do the curved walls of the drawing and dining room, Scale is used in this space to alter the perceived area of a space. The Pope Villa was not an exceptionally large building but the way it was constructed and used scale it made it seem much larger. Scale can be used to describe design as it how parts relate to one another and so this can be used to describe the design. Scale seems to be nearly as important as the principles and elements that we learned about in the last unit.

The Pope Villa porch makes the rest of the house seem far grander that I could be on its own. The porch adds to the  façade and makes it much larger because of the scale of the porch and the windows.

 

The round walls in the drawing room and dining room use scale to make the space seem larger than they really are, it also makes the room more interesting.

The chairs we looked at in class also used scale, the tall backs created a space within a space useing scale.

Materials Ideas

Materials are one of the first tings we notice about a building, they help to define that space and give it the defining characteristics. They help a building blend or stand out in their environment.
In the Al-Refa'i Mosque has marble details throughout which help to make the Mosque stand out and define the area. The marble pillars of the Mosque give the building a sense of importance and dignity that couldn't be accomplished with other materials.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/refaimosque.htm

   

Chairs

The moderns chairs that were presented in class show that modernism constantly barrows from the past and future. Earlier modernism was more structured and geometric, where as the newer modern chairs were more organic. the color scheme also got more bold. 

Scale was changed throughout the modern movement. The earlier modern chairs used scale to create a space with in a space. The newer modern chairs used scale to fit in with the space. 

Scale is the use of objects to define spaces.   

Case Study 2

In the Al-Rifa'l Mosque you will find many arches and in-lets like the one pictures above. These arched inlets are a classic example of Islam influenced architecture. The details in the marble are all very important in the religious structure. The in-let seems massive due to the color and designs. 

Timeline

I find it interesting that the style of the Greek buildings have continued throughout most of history. The Greek style almost seems to be a more perfect form of stacking, which is interesting when though about in terms of all of history. The columns of the Greek buildings seem almost like the pillars of Stonehenge. Its also interesting to note that later the Romans added a dome to the existing Greek style, again mirroring historical ideas (sacred circles). It is interesting to think that almost all of the styles throughout history are just modified forms of history's first buildings.