Cover
Half Title
Endorsements
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Prelude – the essence of architecture
□ The origin of architecture – place-making
□ Selling apples – a girl ‘architects’ her world
□ Degas’ vitrine – making frames
□ La Bajoulière – a place enclosed
Introduction
‘Architecting’
Studying the architectural mind at work
Drawing (and its limitations)
The exercises
Interludes and observations
Materials and equipment
Keeping a notebook
Producing good work
Section One – fundamentals
Materials
Exercise 1: the substance without substance
1a – imposing an idea
1b – centre
1c – identification of place (by object)
1d – introducing the person
1e – person at the centre
1f – identification of place (by person)
1g – circle of place
1h – threshold
In Your Notebook: circles of place
□ Urban circles of place
Exercise 2: flipping perceptions
2a – container for a dead person
2b – pyramid
2c – theatre and house
In Your Notebook: examples of flipping
□ Competing priorities
□ Tensions
Exercise 3: axis (and its denial)
3a – doorway axis
3b – quartering
3c – relating to the remote
3d – temple
□ A timeless syntax – ‘The Artist is Present’
□ Axis in use – Woodland Chapel
In Your Notebook: exploring axis
□ Axis in urban design
3e – lines of doorways (enfilade)
□ Enfilade – lines of doorways
3f – denying the axis
□ Denying the axis – a few historical examples
3g – senseless doorway axis arrangements
In Your Notebook: denying or avoiding axis
Exercise 4: doorway places
4a – doorway place
In Your Notebook: doorway places
4b – hierarchies of transition
In Your Notebook: hierarchies of transition
Section Two – geometry
Exercise 5: alignment
5a – geometries of the world and person
5b – geometries aligned
In Your Notebook: alignment
Exercise 6: anthropometry
6a – the ‘Goldilocks’ principle
□ Human measure
6b – some key points of measure
In Your Notebook: human measure
Exercise 7: social geometry
7a – social circle
7b – other situations framing social geometry
□ A choir stall – personal and social geometry
In Your Notebook: social geometry
Exercise 8: geometry of making
8a – form and geometry
8b – adding a roof
8c – parallel walls
□ Geometry of making – Welsh house
8d – try toothpicks…
□ Geometry of making – building materials
In Your Notebook: geometry of a house
□ Geometries of being – regarding the circle
8e – squaring the circle
□ Geometry – Korowai house
□ Geometry – Farnsworth House
□ Classic form – megaron variations
8f – roofing greater spans
Corbel structures
□ Geometry of making – corbel dome
Columns and beams
Arch
In Your Notebook: structural geometry
□ Conflict in geometry – for a poetic reason
□ Geometry – attitudes
□ Mind–nature dialectic
□ ‘God’s law’
□ Stretching the geometry of making
□ Disregarding the geometry of making
□ Excavation
□ Sensational distortion
8g – transcending the geometry of making
In Your Notebook: attitudes to the geometry of making
Exercise 9: geometry of planning
9a – squares, rectangles
9b – parallel walls
9c – multi-room buildings
9d – relations with places open to the sky
In Your Notebook: enclosed places open to the sky
□ Harmony of the rectangle
□ Modifying the rectangle
In Your Notebook: modifying geometry
9e – columned spaces/free plan
In Your Notebook: ‘free’ plan
Exercise 10: ideal geometry
10a – a (perfectly) square space
10b – extending the square
10c – cube
10d – problems with ideal geometry
□ Problems of thickness
□ 9 Square Grid House
□ Fascinating geometry 1
□ Fascinating geometry 2
□ Fascinating geometry 3
In Your Notebook: ideal geometry
□ Sphere
Exercise 11: axial symmetry
11a – axis of symmetry
□ Is perfect axial symmetry possible?
11b – subverting axial symmetry
In Your Notebook: symmetry and asymmetry
□ Nuanced symmetry
Exercise 12: playing with geometry
12a – layering geometry
12b – twisted geometry
12c – breaking ideal geometry
□ Forces beyond your control
In Your Notebook: forces beyond control
□ Artificial ruin – broken geometry
□ Geometry challenged by conditions
12d – more complex geometry
Catenary curve
Spiral
Möbius strip
12e – distorting geometry
In Your Notebook: distorted geometry
□ Computer-generated form
□ Thinking in geometry
Section Three – out into the real world
Exercise 13: making places in the landscape
13a – preparation
What you could learn
□ Place as frame
13b – identify place by choice and occupation
In Your Notebook: place-making by recognition
□ Dunino Den
□ Prospect and refuge; refuge and arena
□ Relationship with the horizon
□ Place and memory
□ Uluru (Ayer’s Rock)
13c – begin to make your place better
Senses other than sight
Exercise 14: making places just by being
□ Richard Long
14a – circle of place
14b – modifying your circle of place
Marker or focus
Performance place
Doorways and axes
Temple, church, mosque
14c – making places with people
□ Australian aborigine place-making
□ Ettore Sottsass
14d – anthropometry
Exercise 15: geometry of making
□ Nick’s camp
□ Ray Mears – places in the landscape
Exercise 16: responding to conditions
In Your Notebook: responding to conditions
Exercise 17: framing atmosphere
In Your Notebook: draw your places
□ Drawing plans and sections
Exercise 18: measured drawing
Exercise 19: setting down space-time rules
19a – make up your own spatial rules
19b – experiment with time as an element
In Your Notebook: space-time rules
Section Four – additional exercises
Exercise 20: place descriptions in literature
Exercise 21: architecture without sight
Exercise 22: eliciting an emotional response
Exercise 23: framing
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index