The modern movement architecture of four South African cities

South Africa's modern architecture is not confined to the cities, but the ideas of the movement were mostly disseminated by architects and academics in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town, its four major urban centres. The lay out of significant areas of each city was also influenced by international modernist plans. In outlining the achievements and innovative designs of architects in these cities between the 1930s and 1970s, this article draws a picture of the importance of modernism in South African urban space, and of its diversity. It also draws attention to the political nature of the South African landscape and space, where modernist design was used for racial purposes, and to past and present conservation ideologies. The second part of the article concerns the conservation of modern buildings in these centres; it quotes bibliographies and lists the registers, those existing or under construction. It concludes with an overview of the conservation legislation in place and the challenges of conservation in a context of changing cultural values.

Architecture for a free subjectivity : Deleuze and Guattari at the Horizon of the Real

Architecture for a Free Subjectivity reformulates the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's model of subjectivity for architecture, by surveying the prolific effects of architectural encounter, and the spaces that figure in them. For Deleuze and his Lacanian collaborator Félix Guattari, subjectivity does not refer to a person, but to the potential for and event of matter becoming subject, and the myriad ways for this to take place. By extension, this book theorizes architecture as a self-actuating or creative agency for the liberation of purely "impersonal effects." Imagine a chemical reaction, a riot in the banlieues, indeed a walk through a city. Simone Brott declares that the architectural object does not merely take part in the production of subjectivity, but that it constitutes its own.

Effects of the architecture of tissue engineering scaffolds on cell seeding and culturing

The advance of rapid prototyping techniques has significantly improved control over the pore network architecture of tissue engineering scaffolds. In this work we assessed the influence of scaffold pore architecture on cell seeding and static culturing, by comparing a computer‐designed gyroid architecture fabricated by stereolithography to a random‐pore architecture resulting from salt‐leaching. The scaffold types showed comparable porosity and pore size values, but the gyroid type showed a more than tenfold higher permeability due to the absence of size‐limiting pore interconnections. The higher permeability significantly improved the wetting properties of the hydrophobic scaffolds, and increased the settling speed of cells upon static seeding of immortalised mesenchymal stem cells. After dynamic seeding followed by 5 days of static culture, gyroid scaffolds showed large cell populations in the centre of the scaffold, while salt‐leached scaffolds were covered with a cell‐sheet on the outside and no cells were found in the scaffold centre. It was shown that interconnectivity of the pores and permeability of the scaffold prolongs the time of static culture before overgrowth of cells at the scaffold periphery occurs. Furthermore, novel scaffold designs are proposed to further improve the transport of oxygen and nutrients throughout the scaffolds, and to create tissue engineering grafts with designed, pre‐fabricated vasculature.

Enterprise architecture and the integration of service-oriented architecture

In recent years, enterprise architecture (EA) has captured a growing attention as a means to systematically consolidate and interrelate diverse business and IT artefacts in order to provide holistic decision support. The recent popularity of a service-orientation has added “service “and related constructs as a new element that requires consideration within an Enterprise Architecture. Since the emergence of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), many attempts have been made to incorporate SOA artefacts in existing EA frameworks. Yet, the approaches taken to achieve this goal differ substantially for the most commonly used EA frameworks to date. SOA in the context of enterprise architecture is one of the future research challenges. Several authors argue that further research is needed in order to understand how SOA impacts prior enterprise architecture frameworks. This study explores SOA integration within EA, identifies SOA integration approaches within EA and identifies factors that impact SOA integration within Enterprise Architecture.

Reconstructing the event stratigraphy from the complex structural - stratigraphic architecture of an Archaean volcanic – intrusive – sedimentary succession : the Boorara Domain, Eastern Goldfields Superterrane, Western Australia

Two main deformational phases are recognised in the Archaean Boorara Domain of the Kalgoorlie Terrane, Eastern Goldfields Superterrane, Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia, primarily involving southover- north thrust faulting that repeated and thickened the stratigraphy, followed by east northeast – west-southwest shortening that resulted in macroscale folding of the greenstone lithologies. The domain preserves mid-greenschist facies metamorphic grade, with an increase to lower amphibolite metamorphic grade towards the north of the region. As a result of the deformation and metamorphism, individual stratigraphic horizons are difficult to trace continuously throughout the entire domain. Volcanological and sedimentological textures and structures, primary lithological contacts, petrography and geochemistry have been used to correlate lithofacies between faultbounded structural blocks. The correlated stratigraphic sequence for the Boorara Domain comprises quartzo-feldspathic turbidite packages, overlain by high-Mg tholeiitic basalt (lower basalt), coherent and clastic dacite facies, intrusive and extrusive komatiite units, an overlying komatiitic basalt unit (upper basalt), and at the stratigraphic top of the sequence, volcaniclastic quartz-rich turbidites. Reconstruction of the stratigraphy and consideration of emplacement dynamics has allowed reconstruction of the emplacement history and setting of the preserved sequence. This involves a felsic, mafic and ultramafic magmatic system emplaced as high-level intrusions, with localised emergent volcanic centres, into a submarine basin in which active sedimentation was occurring.

Architecture post mortem : the diastolic architecture of decline, dystopia, and death

Architecture Post Mortem surveys architecture’s encounter with death, decline, and ruination following late capitalism. As the world moves closer to an economic abyss that many perceive to be the death of capital, contraction and crisis are no longer mere phases of normal market fluctuations, but rather the irruption of the unconscious of ideology itself. Post mortem is that historical moment wherein architecture’s symbolic contract with capital is put on stage, naked to all. Architecture is not irrelevant to fiscal and political contagion as is commonly believed; it is the victim and penetrating analytical agent of the current crisis. As the very apparatus for modernity’s guilt and unfulfilled drives-modernity’s debt-architecture is that ideological element that functions as a master signifier of its own destruction, ordering all other signifiers and modes of signification beneath it. It is under these conditions that architecture theory has retreated to an “Alamo” of history, a final desert outpost where history has been asked to transcend itself. For architecture’s hoped-for utopia always involves an apocalypse. This timely collection of essays reformulates architecture’s relation to modernity via the operational death-drive: architecture is but a passage between life and death. This collection includes essays by Kazi K. Ashraf, David Bertolini, Simone Brott, Peggy Deamer, Didem Ekici, Paul Emmons, Donald Kunze, Todd McGowan, Gevork Hartoonian, Nadir Lahiji, Erika Naginski, and Dennis Maher. Contents: Introduction: ‘the way things are’, Donald Kunze; Driven into the public: the psychic constitution of space, Todd McGowan; Dead or alive in Joburg, Simone Brott; Building in-between the two deaths: a post mortem manifesto, Nadir Lahiji; Kant, Sade, ethics and architecture, David Bertolini; Post mortem: building deconstruction, Kazi K. Ashraf; The slow-fast architecture of love in the ruins, Donald Kunze; Progress: re-building the ruins of architecture, Gevork Hartoonian; Adrian Stokes: surface suicide, Peggy Deamer; A window to the soul: depth in the early modern section drawing, Paul Emmons; Preliminary thoughts on Piranesi and Vico, Erika Naginski; architectural asceticism and austerity, Didem Ekici; 900 miles to Paradise, and other afterlives of architecture, Dennis Maher; Index.

Proceedings of the Interior Space in Other Places : An IDEA [Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association] Symposium [Edited Volume of Proceedings]

Conference curatorial outline The focus of this symposium was to question whether interior design is changing relative to local conditions, and the effect globalization has on the performance of regional, particularly Southern hemisphere identities. The intention being to understand how theory and practice is transposed to ‘distant lands’, and how ideas shift from one place to another. To this extent the symposium invited papers on the export, translation and adoption of theories and practices of interior design to differing climates, cultures, and landscapes. This process, sometimes referred to as a shift from ‘the centre to the margins’, seeks new perspectives on the adoption of European and US design ideas abroad, as well as their return to their place of origin. Papers were invited from a range of perspectives including the export of ideas/attitudes to interior spaces, history of interior spaces abroad, and the adoption of ideas/processes to new conditions. Paralleling this trafficking of ideas are broader observations about interior space that emerge through specificity of place. These include new and emerging directions and differences in our understanding of interiority; both real and virtual, and an ever-changing relationship to city, suburb and country. Keeping within the Symposium theme the intention was to examine other places, particularly on the margins of the discipline’s domain. Semantic slippage aside, there are a range of approaches that engage outside events and practices enabling a transdisciplinary practice that draws from other philosophical and theoretical frameworks. Moreover as the field expands and new territories are opened up, the virtual worlds of computer gaming, animations, and interactive environments, both rely on and produce new forms of expression. This raises questions about the extent such spaces adopt or translate existing theory and practice, that is the transposition from one area to another and their return to the discipline.

A comparative analysis of the integration of SOA elements in widely-used enterprise architecture frameworks

In recent years, enterprise architecture (EA) has captured increasing interest as a means to systematically consolidate and manage various enterprise artefacts in order to provide holistic decision support for business/IT alignment and business/IT landscapes management. To provide a holistic perspective on the enterprise over time, EA frameworks need to co-evolve with the changes in the enterprise and its IT over time. In this paper we focus on the emergence of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). There is a need to integrate SOA with EA to keep EA relevant and to use EA products to help drive successful SOA. This paper investigates and compares the integration of SOA elements in five widely used EA frameworks: Archimate, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), Department of Defence Architecture Framework (DoDAF) and the Ministry of Defence Architecture Framework (MODAF). It identifies what SOA elements are considered and their relative position in the overall structure. The results show that services and related elements are far from being well-integrated constructs in current EA frameworks and that the different EA frameworks integrated SOA elements in substantially different ways. Our results can support the academic EA and SOA communities with a closer and more consistent integration of EA and SOA and support practitioners in identifying an EA framework that provides the SOA support that matches their requirements.

Simulation architecture for the design of cooperative collision warning systems

Simulation has been widely used to estimate the benefits of Cooperative Systems (CS) based on Inter-Vehicular Communications (IVC). This paper presents a new architecture built with the SiVIC simulator and the RTMaps™ multisensors prototyping platform. We introduce several improvements from a previous similar architecture, regarding IVC modelisation and vehicles’ control. It has been tuned with on-road measurements to improve fidelity. We discuss the results of a freeway emergency braking scenario (EEBL) implemented to validate our architecture’s capabilities.

Designing the information architecture of governmental one-stop portals : on the application and analysis of card sorting

The latest paradigm shift in government, termed Transformational Government, puts the citizen in the centre of attention. Including citizens in the design of online one-stop portals can help governmental organisations to become more customer focussed. This study describes the initial efforts of an Australian state government to develop an information architecture to structure the content of their future one-stop portal. Hereby, card sorting exercises have been conducted and analysed, utilising contemporary approaches found in academic and non-scientific literature. This paper describes the findings of the card sorting exercises in this particular case and discusses the suitability of the applied approaches in general. These are distinguished into non-statistical, statistical, and hybrid approaches. Thus, on the one hand, this paper contributes to academia by describing the application of different card sorting approaches and discussing their strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, this paper contributes to practice by explaining the approach that has been taken by the authors’ research partner in order to develop a customer-focussed governmental one-stop portal. Thus, they provide decision support for practitioners with regard to different analysis methods that can be used to complement recent approaches in Transformational Government.

The architecture of children’s use of language and tools when problem solving collaboratively with robotics

This paper demonstrates, following Vygotsky, that language and tool use has a critical role in the collaborative problem-solving behaviour of school-age children. It reports original ethnographic classroom research examining the convergence of speech and practical activity in children’s collaborative problem solving with robotics programming tasks. The researchers analysed children’s interactions during a series of problem solving experiments in which Lego Mindstorms toolsets were used by teachers to create robotics design challenges among 24 students in a Year 4 Australian classroom (students aged 8.5–9.5 years). The design challenges were incrementally difficult, beginning with basic programming of straight line movement, and progressing to more complex challenges involving programming of the robots to raise Lego figures from conduit pipes using robots as pulleys with string and recycled materials. Data collection involved micro-genetic analysis of students’ speech interactions with tools, peers, and other experts, teacher interviews, and student focus group data. Coding the repeated patterns in the transcripts, the authors outline the structure of the children’s social speech in joint problem solving, demonstrating the patterns of speech and interaction that play an important role in the socialisation of the school-age child’s practical intellect.

Newstead House : the social history, culture and architecture of a bygone era

Historic house museums form a significant component of the built heritage and social history of a country. They vary from the elaborate mansions of the wealthy to modest dwellings of the working class. Regardless of the original owner's status in society these house museums are vital to an understanding of architecture, culture and society from a bygone era. The Newstead House, the oldest surviving residence, in Brisbane, is the first house to be designated a 'Historic House Museum' in Queensland. It is a representative example of a house that demonstrates the British colonial heritage of 19th century Australia. Originally a modest cottage, on 34 acres of land, the Newstead house was built by a Scottish migrant. The ownership of the house and land changed many times, during the period from 1847 to 1939. During this period a series of prominent residents of Brisbane either owned or rented this residence. They included, an officer of the Royal Navy, politicians, magistrates, merchant ship owners, and a Consul General of the United States of America. As a result, the house went through a series of renovations and extensions to accommodate the needs of its owners and their position in society. This paper aims to investigate the significance of historic museum houses in educating the community on aspects of social history, culture and architecture of 19th century Australia. It will focus on the heritage listed Newstead House as a case study to demonstrate the significance of the house as an artefact and an educational tool.

Characterisation of the micro-architecture of direct writing melt electrospun tissue engineering scaffolds using diffusion tensor and computed tomography microimaging

This article describes the first steps toward comprehensive characterization of molecular transport within scaffolds for tissue engineering. The scaffolds were fabricated using a novel melt electrospinning technique capable of constructing 3D lattices of layered polymer fibers with well - defined internal microarchitectures. The general morphology and structure order was then determined using T 2 - weighted magnetic resonance imaging and X - ray microcomputed tomography. Diffusion tensor microimaging was used to measure the time - dependent diffusivity and diffusion anisotropy within the scaffolds. The measured diffusion tensors were anisotropic and consistent with the cross - hatched geometry of the scaffolds: diffusion was least restricted in the direction perpendicular to the fiber layers. The results demonstrate that the cross - hatched scaffold structure preferentially promotes molecular transport vertically through the layers ( z - axis), with more restricted diffusion in the directions of the fiber layers ( x – y plane). Diffusivity in the x – y plane was observed to be invariant to the fiber thickness. The characteristic pore size of the fiber scaffolds can be probed by sampling the diffusion tensor at multiple diffusion times. Prospective application of diffusion tensor imaging for the real - time monitoring of tissue maturation and nutrient transport pathways within tissue engineering scaffolds is discussed.

Braving a New World : Design Interventions for Changing Climates. Papers from the Subtropical Cities 2013 Fall Conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA)

We no longer have the luxury of time as the effects of climate change are being felt, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, on every continent and in every ocean. More than 50% of the population of the United States and 85% of Australians live in coastal regions. The number of people living in the world’s coastal regions is expected to increase along with the need to improve capacity to mitigate hazards , and manage the multiple risks that have been identified by the scientific community. Under the auspices of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) design academics and practitioners from the Americas, Asia, and Australia met in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the fourth Subtropical Cities international conference to share outcomes of research and new pedagogies to address the critical transformation of the physical environments and infrastructures of the world’s vulnerable coastal communities. The theme of Subtropical Cities, adopted by the ACSA for its Fall 2014 Conference, is not confined entirely to a latitudinal or climatic frame of reference. The paper and project presentations addressed a range of theoretical, practice-led, and education-oriented research topics in architecture and urban design related to the subtropics, with emphasis on urban and coastal regions. More than half the papers originate from universities and practices in coastal regions. Threads emerged from a tapestry of localized investigations to reveal a more global understanding about possible futures we are designing for current and future generations. The one hundred-plus conference delegates and presenters represented 33 universities and institutions from across the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, the Middle East, Peru and China. Case studies from India, Morocco, Tahiti, Indonesia, Jordan, and Cambodia were also presented, expanding the global knowledge base. Co-authored submissions presented new directions for architecture and design, with a resounding theme of collaboration across diverse disciplines. The ability to deal with abstraction and complexity, and the capacity to develop synthesis and frameworks for defining problem boundaries can be considered key attributes of architectural thinking. Such a unique set of abilities can forge collaboration with different professional disciplines to achieve extraordinary outcomes. As the broad range of papers presented at this conference suggest, existing architectural and urban typologies and practices are increasingly considered part of the cause and not the solution to adapting to climate change and sea level rise. Design responses and the actions needed to generate new and unfamiliar forms of urbanism and infrastructure for defense, adaptation, and retreat in subtropical urban regions are being actively explored in academic design studios and research projects around the world. Many presentations propose provocative and experimental strategies as global climate moves beyond our “comfort zone”. The ideas presented at the Subtropical Cities conference are timely as options for low-energy passive climatic design are becoming increasingly limited in the context of changing climate. At the same time, ways of reducing or obsoleting energy intensive mechanical systems in densely populated urban centres present additional challenges for designers and communities as a whole. The conference was marked by a common theme of trans-disciplinary research, where design integration with emerging technologies resonate with a reaffirmation of the centrality of design thinking, expanding the scope of the traditional architecture studio pedagogy to integrate knowledge from other disciplines and the participation of diverse communities.