Architectural form making resources

Critical regionalism

I won't get too deep into architectural theory here, but this essay by Kenneth Frampton is relevant to my work and it relates directly to the development of building form. I’ll link up this seminal essay in the description below if you’d like to read it in its entirety. Essentially, Critical Regionalism is a design approach which critically explores precisely what it means to build in a given context. This includes not only the climate, the light, the building culture but also the human experience of a place. It was a reaction to the placelessness of the international style of modern architecture as well as the decorated sheds of the post-modernists. So, rather than bulldozing a completely flat plane on which to build – the tabula rasa or blank slate of the modernists – critical regionalism would require the building and site to inform the architecture. In this way, they would be intertwined each influencing the other.

Using the cathedral example in the video, a critical regionalist approach would recognize that not all churches need spires. The spire reference used by a post-modernist would be pure decoration and used to invoke an historical past but lacking the deep cultural connection or meaning that once led to its use. So a genuine attempt to design an architecture of its place and time rooted in human experience rather than pure iconography or a building’s image.

Phenomenology in Architecture

How to think about experience in design.

Towards a New Architecture

Seminal essay by LeCorbusier.