//week thirteen

reflection...to sum up the semester, i believe it is important to be able to read a city in order to design for a city. For example in renaissance style planning the cities are symmetrically planned cities with perfect symmetrical geometry which makes it easy to design symmetrical architecture for as you can read the city through its form. Today we are trying to change the way we look at and others look at urban design. The ideal future city are those of eco cities which are sustainable and highly proficient in the use of resources. These are the cities which we are trying to ultimately achieve.

Below are some questions which were posed to us at the beginning of semester which i will answer now after finishing this unit:

what is architecture? architecture to me is sleepless nights, and more importantly the act of designing buildings which are site specific and connect with there surrounding context


what is good architecture? a good architect will design buildings which complement and connect with there surroundings


what is a city? although in past times geographically walls once determined a city, today a city tends to have no physical boundaries and is usually a large developed area of commercial, economical and residential merit.


what does it mean to be a good architect? it means being cleaver about design and architecture, understanding the context and site of the project and being respectful and compliant to already existing urban environment.

my comment on the images from first week, revisited....

image one:

building dominates context

image two:

blocks views to significant mountains

image three:

scale is out of proportion

I found it interesting to note how different my opinion and comments were on these images. I remember in week one when i first looked at these images and i struggled to find anything to say about them. Now when i look at them i see this huge building that takes over the whole landscape and dominates the context of the place. The buildings architectural form also differs from the rest of the surrounding buildings strengthening the fact that this building has little relationship with its context.