Architectural design in object-z

We present a process for introducing an object-oriented architecture into an abstract functional specification written in Object-Z. Since the design is derived from the specification, correctness concerns are addressed as pan of the design process. We base our approach on refactoring rules that apply to class structure, and use the rules to implement design patterns. As a motivating example, we introduce a user-interface design that follows the model-view-controller paradigm into an existing specification.

Kidosaki redux: Trans-cultural trans-location

This paper concerns a collaborative experiment in architectural design teaching and thinking developed during a workshop held at The University of Queensland in 2000. The programme explored the possibilities and the consequences of relocating location-specific architecture to a different context - a 'Trans-Cultural Trans-Location'. The project involved the careful study by Australia-based students of a house designed for a Japanese family in a dense part of Tokyo by the eminent Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and the subsequent translocation of the ideas that underlay the building to a suburban location in Brisbane, for a theoretical equivalent Australian family. This experimental project examined the universality of architectural concepts, their appreciation and the pedagogical setting. The project raised questions of: - How well do students from one culture comprehend architecture designed specifically for another – which are the areas of misunderstanding and understanding? - How can students transpose architectural ideas from one social and physical context to one that is almost entirely the opposite? - What are the limits of collaboration and exchange in design teaching and how do they reveal similarities, inconsistencies and the unexpected in the aims of the teacher and of the student? These questions suggest that in order to comprehend a design, we must understand the culture within which it originated, and that we must understand the cultures within which we work in order to design. This paper is written in two parts. The first part establishes a framework for discussing the contrast of the cultural settings studied. The second part considers the nature, conduct and results of the Studio Workshop itself.

The nomenclature of style: Brutalism, Minimalism, art history and visual style in architecture journals

The naming of styles or movements is a basic mechanism of the architectural journals. The announcement of new tendencies, groups or philosophies, gives a journal its character as ‘news’, and if such terms are taken up in general discourse this demonstrates the prescience of the editor and enhances the repute of the journal. The announcement of phenomenon such as ‘critical regionalism’ or ‘deconstructivism’ referred architectural developments to a context in socio-politics or philosophy, and thus aimed to provide at least an initial resistance to their understanding as the formal styles which they quickly became. A different strategy, or occasion, which this paper will discuss, is where the name of an architectural moment is given in the traditional form of an art historical style. Here the nomenclature of style and a certain attitude to form is introduced as the starting point for a more open ended critical inquiry. Two examples of this strategy will be given. The first is Peter Reyner Banham and the Architecture Review’s promotion of ‘Brutalism’ as an anti-aesthetic which took its conceptual form from early twentieth century art movements, particularly Futurism. The second, identified with Architectural Design in the 1990’s is ‘Minimalism’, a term describing a strand of the visual arts of the 1960’s which can be understood as an attempt to nuance and add seriousness to the present rampant nostalgia for the style of the architecture of the 1960’s.

Oase: Tijdschrift voor Architectuur = Oase: Architecture Journal

In recent years, both architectural historiography and architectural design practice have been characterized by significant shifts. These new perspectives and methodologies did not merely bring about internal changes, but also called into question the boundaries and relations between the two disciplines. This issue of OASE investigates the impact of these changes for both disciplines in a series of dialogues between historians, architects, designers and photographers, exploring themes such as the everyday, the landscape, heritage and visual culture.

A reference architecture for instructional educational software

Our extensive research has indicated that high-school teachers are reluctant to make use of existing instructional educational software (Pollard, 2005). Even software developed in a partnership between a teacher and a software engineer is unlikely to be adopted by teachers outside the partnership (Pollard, 2005). In this paper we address these issues directly by adopting a reusable architectural design for instructional educational software which allows easy customisation of software to meet the specific needs of individual teachers. By doing this we will facilitate more teachers regularly using instructional technology within their classrooms. Our domain-specific software architecture, Interface-Activities-Model, was designed specifically to facilitate individual customisation by redefining and restructuring what constitutes an object so that they can be readily reused or extended as required. The key to this architecture is the way in which the software is broken into small generic encapsulated components with minimal domain specific behaviour. The domain specific behaviour is decoupled from the interface and encapsulated in objects which relate to the instructional material through tasks and activities. The domain model is also broken into two distinct models - Application State Model and Domainspecific Data Model. This decoupling and distribution of control gives the software designer enormous flexibility in modifying components without affecting other sections of the design. This paper sets the context of this architecture, describes it in detail, and applies it to an actual application developed to teach high-school mathematical concepts.

Movement and figurality: The circulation diagram and the history of the architectural plan

Knowledge of the plan competes with self-consciousness of experience. The less we are able to understand our spatio-visual experience by the abstract coordinates of the plan, the more we are thrust back into a lived experience of the building in duration. This formula, frequently unacknowledged, has been one of the main precepts of the experientialist modernism which arises out of the picturesque and which stands in critique of classical idealism. One of the paths to critique this formula is by showing that the attention to the experience of the spaces in duration is predicated on obscuring, complicating and weakening the apprehension of the plan as a figure. Another development in the practice of modern planning has been architects using a kind of over-drawing where human circulation diagrams or 'movement lines' are drawn expressively across the orthographic plane; thus representing the lived experience of buildings. We will show that these two issues are linked; the plan's weak figure and the privilege this supposes for durational experience has a corollary - experience itself demands to be visible in the plan, and this is one origin of the present fascination with 'diagramming'. In this paper we explore the practice of architectural planning and its theoretical underpinnings in an attempt to show the viability of a history of architectural planning methods.

Suit keen renovator: Alternate reality design

Virtual territories and their theme parks are more akin to the physical world of real estate than they might at first appear. The trick in triggering the designer's imagination, is to find a 'nice renovator' (cottage/ house) at a low price, with loads of potential, and by doing it on the cheap to add character, and engage the imagination. Here the designer can construct changes from an imagined space. Vision is more important than how the actual place presents.This work describes a case study involving undergraduate students in the Creative Industries who needed a place to explore, so as to create their own visions and projects. The place had to inspire, trigger engagement, and their imaginations. At the same time it was important that the place did not coerce activity, or distract from the task by confusing tools with task, or architectural navigation with conceptual skills.The solution was an alternate reality.