Theories of Architecture & Urbanism Project 1B

1. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Loong Bo Lin ID No.: 0321469
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Tutorial Time: 12pm
Reader/Text Title: Urbanism as a Way of Life Synopsis No: 1
Author: Louis Wirth
Louis Wirth who was an American sociologist and member of the Chicago school of sociology wrote his
landmark paper entitled 'Urbanism as a Way of Life' which been published in the American Journal of
Sociology in 1938, as major transformations were occurring.
To a greater extent, people were moving into cities and the world was rapidly urbanizing, and Wirth
discussed that urbanism was become the way of modern life. On the other hand, the author defined that
urbanization is focusing more on the density and the culturally diverse nature of the people that reside in
certain location, therefore he described it as a “relatively large, dense and permanent settlement of socially
heterogeneous individuals”.
On the contrary, with these three factors, Wirth proposes three “interrelated perspectives” on a theory of
urbanism, such as physical structure, social organization, and attitudes. According to Wirth’s perspective,
urbanism is essentially expressing our way of life in the city in comparison to the way of life in the rural area.
On the basis thereof, social assimilation is very precarious in the cities because the urban area is essentially
a multi-ethnic environment. Most of the time, people are more likely to settle in the urban areas when they
are traveling to a country. Although the urbanites can interact with different types of people without any
hesitation, but the city influences the urbanites that they are less friendly with others. This actually have my
attention to the impersonal nature of urbanites as compare to people of the rural areas.
Based on my understanding, the urban people associate with a larger number of organized groups of a
minor kind because they are more dependent upon others than rural people. None the less, contact
between full personalities is impossible and individuals are prevented from knowing many people or having
an intense knowledge of them in the city.
Word Count: 307 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No. 1

2. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Loong Bo Lin ID No.: 0321469
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Tutorial Time: 12pm
Reader/Text Title:
Body, Memory and Architecture
Synopsis No: 2
Author: Kent Bloomer & Charles Moore
“Body, Memory, and Architecture” by Kent Bloomer and Charles Moore teach architecture with the belief
that buildings are something we experience, that architecture affects us emotionally and provides us with a
sense of joy, identity, and place. Also, they try to show how the human body is at the center of one's
understanding of architectural form, because this humanism has been practically disregarded from
architectural thought today, the authors suggest that new thoughts of the body be introduce again to
readdress contemporary building.
The inhabited world within boundaries can be recognized a syntax of place, path, pattern, and edge. In my
personal perspective, place is defined as objects in a void, to voids in a solid, or to extraordinary conditions
at an edge between solids and voids. However, paths are mixtures of straight lines and curves, and they
can intersect. A more prevalent kind of architectural path is of course the street, edged perhaps on one or
both sides by continuous buildings or flanked by free standing structures in between. Also, the usual kinds
of patterns can be classified as haptic, haptic with geometric, centripetal radial, centrifugal radial, the grid,
and lately the three-dimensional grid. Moreover, the edges that can easily been notable are the facade, the
parapet, the wall, the bay, and the fold in the system. The fold in the system is the place where the pattern
stutters to produce an edge.
What are missing from our dwellings today are the potential connections between body, imagination, and
environment. Comfort is disordered with the absence of sensation. The unique, perfect collision, in which
building or landscape pieces come sharply up against one another without loss of their individual
uniqueness of inner self, is exclusively important in the making of memorable places. Architectural design
thus becomes choreography of collision which does not impair the inner vitality of its parts in the process of
expressing a collective statement through them.
Word Count: 319 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No. 2

3. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Loong Bo Lin ID No.: 0321469
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Tutorial Time: 12pm
Reader/Text Title:
Space, Place, Memory and Imagination
Synopsis No: 3
Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
Juhani Pallasmaa discusses in his essay ‘Space, Place, Memory and Imagination’ that ‘buildings project
epic narratives’, reaffirming the view that the creation of place is essentially important to society’s
attachment to memory, individual and collective – to human constructions of space and its use.
On the basis thereof, memory is the ground of self-identity, we are what we remember. From the text,
Pallasmaa thinks that remembering is not only a mental event. In that case, it is also an act of embodiment
and projection. We are in a constant exchange with our surroundings, simultaneously we take on the setting
a project of our own bodies, or parts of our bodily schemes.
On the other hand, landscapes and buildings are amplifiers of emotions. At the same time, they emphasize
sensations of belonging or alienation, invitation or rejection, tranquility or despair. Through their ability and
sensation, they evoke and toughen our own emotions and project them back to us as if these feelings of
ours had an external source. According to my personal perspective, the memory and the history of a site
can lead to the development of a newly imagined or continued sense of place.
Based on Pallasmaa’s perspective, he intimates that architecture can be used to preserve history. It’s my
understanding that not only architecture, human constructions also have the task of preserving the past. By
any means, the author states that modern architecture has no self-identity which is hard to evoke and
articulate, but I would say that I had been guided towards understanding a building not in terms of its
outside and the visual, but from the inside; how a building makes us feel. By taking this dwelt perspective, I
understand what it means to exist in a building and aspects of this that contribute to establishing a notion of
'home'.
Word Count: 302 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No. 3

4. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Loong Bo Lin ID No.: 0321469
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Tutorial Time: 12pm
Reader/Text Title: Six Points of an Architecture
of Resistance (No. 4, 5 & 6)
Synopsis No: 4
Author: Kenneth Frampton
According to Kenneth Frampton, the physical space of region and the place where the communication
between people are not the same things. When applying critical regionalism to the design, architects should
consider the knowledge that there is no restriction of physical space and the representative of place cannot
be made up of a free standing building. Spaces may be created by enclosing. Furthermore, its borders
should be the starting point of the place, instead of its ending. The spatial organization of a building should
be solved in terms of its relation between exterior qualification of place such as; its entrance, exits, and the
circulation.
According to Frampton, “Critical regionalism necessarily involves a more directly dialectic relation with
nature, more than abstract, formal traditions of modern avant-garde architecture allow.” Frampton is
analyzing the necessity of these two elements while creating an architectural structure that associates local
culture and the qualities of the landscape. From my understanding, while creating architectural structure on
the natural environment, both of these two elements should be combined with each other in order to
accomplish the connection between its concept, rather than create an independent object. By creating the
“place-form” balance between natural environment and the cultural legacy identifies societies, the physical
characteristics and the cultural legacy will be conclusive in the ecology, climate, and the symbolic aspect of
place.
However, Framptom discusses the both visually and the other senses’ capabilities should take a part while
designing. At my point of view, the collaboration between the all senses makes architecture deeper and
irreplaceable. Also, the concept supports the usage of all materials which aim all senses and that will allow
different emotional reactions.
To Frampton, “Critical Regionalism seeks to complement our normative visual experience by readdressing
the tactile range of human perceptions. In so doing, it endeavors to balance the priority accorded to the
image and to counter the Western tendency to interpret the environment in exclusively perspectival terms.”
Word Count: 322 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No. 4