Bulgarian National Ethnographic Museum – Meeting the Challenges of Digitisation

The conservation, spread, comprehension and recreation of traditional culture heritages is one of the main purpose of the National Ethnographic Museum in Bulgaria. As other cultural and scientific heritage institutions, it begins to use new information technologies and strategies for providing access to its cultural heritage treasures. This paper aims to present digital libraries with multimedia content as a modern technological solution for innovative presentation of Bulgarian ethnographical heritage. It includes some basic concepts of digital libraries with multimedia content and a description of three types of architecture. The paper also describes the ideas, conceptual decisions and strategies in the project Experimental Digital Library “Bulgarian Ethnographic Treasury”.

Complex Protection System of Metadata-based Distributed Information Systems

A description of architecture and approaches to the implementation of a protection system of metadatabased adaptable information systems is suggested. Various protection means are examined. The system described is a multilevel complex based on a multiagent system combining IDS functional abilities with structure and logics protection means.

Portable architecture

What is the architecture of transience? What role does architecture play in the impermanent context of the nomad? What form does architecture take when our perception of shelter transforms from fixed and static to flexible and transportable? How does architecture react to the challenges of mobility and change? Traditional building forms speak of stability as an important aspect of architecture. Does portability imply a different building form? During the1950s Buckminister Fuller introduced the idea of mobile, portable structures. In the 1960s Archigrams' examples of architectural nomadism made the mobile home an accepted feature of our contemporary landscape. Currently, new materials and new methods of assembly and transportation open opportunities for rethinking portable architecture. For this thesis, a shelter was developed which provides inhabitable space and portability. The shelter was designed to be easily carried as a backpack. With minimum human effort, the structure is assembled and erected in a few minutes. Although this portable shelter needs to be maneuvered, folded and tucked away for transportation, it does meet the demands of nomadic behavior which emphasizes comfort and portability.

Parallel relationships, architecture and water : the urban spa

This thesis explores the relationship of architecture and water through the design of an urban spa that offers both a bodily and a poetic experience of water. Research included investigation of recent architectural projects that enhance and order the view, sound, and touch of water as well as projects that integrate fountains, showers and reflecting pools into the experience of a building. In the design of the spa, the movement of water was based metaphorically on the natural water cycle: evaporation, condensation and collection of water in pools. The building presents fountains, rivulets, and pools in a descending sequence that represents the natural flow of water. The temperature of water and the activities of the spa follow the same descending sequence, progressing from a warm water bath at the top of the building to cool swimming pool at the plaza level in a contemporary interpretation of the experience of a Roman Bath.

On decentring ethnicity in buildings research : the settler homestead as assemblage

Peer reviewed

The Capital Sculpture of Wells Cathedral, c. 1184-1210

The understudied capital sculpture of Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England (c. 1184-1210) provides ample opportunity of expanding the current scholarship and understanding of interior ecclesiastical sculpture in a West Country cathedral. While the Gothic style of architecture is typically understood as, according to Paul Binski (2014), rational in execution and reception, the capital sculpture at Wells Cathedral has been considered illogical in terms of both its iconography and location within the nave, transepts, and north porch. Utilizing Michael Camille’s post/anti-iconographical approach, this project examines the Wells figural capitals in five case studies: labour, Old and New Testament Scenes, animals and beast fables, busts, and monsters and hybrids. Each group of capitals will be approached with an understanding that this type of art was viewed by people of different classes and professions, with each viewer bringing their own personal experiences and abilities into how they could have read and understood these types of images. Therefore, the capitals at Wells must be read through layers of meaning and interpretation while also considering their locations within the cathedral and how they react and respond to surrounding figural capitals.

Clichy-Batignolles, Paris: a case of successful inner-city regeneration

The third issue of the column deals with the regeneration of inner-city rail station areas. The successful case of Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris is analyzed by Giulio Verdini, an architect and urban planner based in China and Paris. The quality of this recent project is evident at different levels: as an innovative experiment of planning with public consultation, as a new mixed-used neighbourhood organized around a beautiful park, as a collection of interesting contemporary buildings promoted through open architecture competitions. The memory of the old rails has been interpreted as an occasion for creating significant urban connections, and the city of Paris demonstrated again and again its rare capacity to regenerate itself. 内城火车站区域的更新历来不是件轻松的工作,这在1990年代以来诸多的欧洲城市中都已经得到印证.伦敦的国王十字车站和柏林的中央火车站区域都是著名的更新案例,此外还有鹿特丹和斯图加特中央火车站这些争议性的案例,它们都表明了这个更新过程有多么复杂而难料.其原因包括众多相互角力的私人及公众影响、改造带来的未知花费及收益,以及市民群体在其中扮演的越来越重要的角色.这个位于巴黎17区的克里希·巴蒂涅奥勒开发区更新项目同样如此.不过,随着项目的建造渐入佳境,我们愈发可以看出,它很可能会成为欧洲内城最成功的更新案例之一.这篇简要介绍的目的就是勾勒出这一成功案例背后的构思和动机,以展现这个理应矛盾重重而得到未充分利用的地段如何成为让巴黎西北区改头换面的良机.

Architecture, Energy, Matter

This book comprises a collection of essays and an edited selection of the work produced by Design Studio 18 (DS18) tutored by Lindsay Bremner and Roberto Bottazzi, 2013-2016.

Thinking Architecture with an Indian Ocean Aquapelago

This article takes up the charge of thinking architecture with one of the Indian Ocean’s central coral atoll formations, the Maldives archipelago. It is undertaken as a critique of the concept of the archipelago as deployed in architecture since the 1970’s. Architects have used the archipelago as a metaphoric metageographical concept based on a land/sea binary, to conceive of architecture as autonomous from its environments. This permits the discipline exemption from its contexts and frames its engagement with the diverse mobilities of contemporary globalization. To counter this, the article draws from a broad body of literature familiar to readers of GeoHumanities, namely island studies, urban island studies, political ecology and thinking with water to undertake a reading of the Maldives as an oceanic aquapelago, as an alternative metageographical concept for architecture in today’s globalized world.

‘Don’t look down!’: A short history of rooftopping photography

The article examines the practice known as ‘rooftopping photography’ and its significance for the representation of vertical cities. It begins by charting the historical development of architecture as a viewing platform in the age of the camera, and dwells on the imagery of cityscapes from above that emerged in the inter-war period. Against this background, the essay investigates how rooftopping arose out of the urban exploration movement and became a global trend in the early 2010s. This phenomenon is situated within its wider social and cultural context, and is discussed with reference to the online media discourse that contributed to its public visibility. A set of ideas from the philosophy of photography and visual culture inform the critical analysis of rooftopping photographs: this broad and diverse body of images is examined with a focus on two predominant modes of representation—panoramic and plunging views. The affective responses elicited by so-called ‘vertigo-inducing’ images are discussed through the concept of vicarious kinaesthesia, which offers insights into the nexus between visceral experience and visual representation that lies at the core of rooftopping. By unpacking this interplay, the essay explores a phenomenon that has hitherto been given little scholarly attention and reflects on its broader implications for the relationship between photography and architecture today.