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A conceptual systems framework for the built environment

- Prazeres, Gabriel Luis Alcantara

Authors: Prazeres, Gabriel Luis Alcantara
Date: 2012-02-06
Subjects: Architecture , Sustainable architecture , Sustainable engineering , Sustainable design , Sustainable construction
Type: Mini-Dissertation
Identifier: uj:2001 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/4355
Description: M.Phil. , The building/construction industry is undeniably one of the largest; it however is also one of the most inefficient. These inefficiencies span design, construction and the operational phases. The depletion of natural resources and the need for sustainability has however created an urgent need for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) consultants to address these issues and develop life-cycle integration systems capable of eliminating or substantially reducing waste and efficiently managing the complex process of building design, construction and building operations management. Such systems may be based on advanced production techniques developed in the aerospace industries for the US military and subsequently adapted for use in the industrial manufacturing industry. This dissertation will attempt to explore the following: 1. Identification of current trends in the AEC industry including global warming and sustainable development, to determine the impact on the Building Industry. 2. The relevance of life-cycle engineering and Lean Production philosophy for the AEC industry. Of particular interest is how System life-cycle engineering will benefit the trend towards 'green' environmentally sustainable buildings. 3. Analysis of the AEC Design/Construction/Operation process (Project life-cycle), with the intention of identifying major weaknesses and strengths. 4. Information systems (current and future) and how these are driving change in the industry. Information systems as a backbone for the implementation of a proposed systems framework. The possible implications of life-cycle systems implementation for the architectural profession and other AEC professions will result in new proposed structures, obstacles and opportunities.
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High and low territories : portraits of the new vertical

- Le Bron, Chantelle

Authors: Le Bron, Chantelle
Date: 2018
Subjects: Architecture
Language: English
Type: Masters (Thesis)
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/293350 , uj:31895
Description: Abstract: Cities are inseparable from their built form, with skyscrapers acting as a metonym for the urban fabric itself. These vertical figures serve as both the image of the city and the canvas for the application of secondary and tertiary applied identities. Vertical surfaces of cities become a layered canvas for self-expression, opportunism, commercial chance taking, and conscious city branding through the application of advertising billboards, branded building wraps, graffiti and large-scale artworks. The power and influence of these surfaces declares different territories for trade, consumption and social classes, splintering the notion of a specific place through the generic commodification of the urban visual space - a Heineken or Cartier advert is the same in Johannesburg or Durban as it is in Dakar or Tokyo. The consumerist city is now a global condition. This depositing of applied value onto our urban environment disturbs our relationship with an understanding of the built fabric in our cities. In his book The Urbanism of Exception (Murray 2017), Martin Murray states that symbolically, verticality has meant that the developed and developing world is spread out into a fragmented patchwork that severs territories into separate and discontinuous layers. This practice of layering produces landscapes that resemble an extended ‘territorial ecosystem’ of externally alienated, but internally homogenised, enclave spaces located next to, within, above, or below each other (Murray 2017:131). The layering of the building skin and resultant ‘thickening’ of this surface space further emphasises the sealed, isolated nature of the internal environment. Architect and artist Gordon Matta-Clark exposes this condition in his work by sawing and carving sections out of buildings to reveal the interior, things never meant to be seen. The artist Dan Graham (quoted in Bernstein, 2017) states that “Matta-Clark saw his ‘cuts’ as probes . . . opening up socially hidden information beneath the surface”. This approach by Matta-Clark was an attempt to recover lost and neglected parts of the city and open them up for public enjoyment and co-creation. My proposed project employs a similar methodology to Matta-Clark’s ‘anarchitecture’ – a destructive investigation to expose and interrogate the physical and symbolic construction of our consumerist city. This site for the Major Design Project thus becomes the built structure, the applied branded surface and the thickness of the space between and through internal and external velums... , M.Tech. (Architecture)
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