Five Points of a New Architecture

Global Earthquake Model!
Caribbean Regional "
!
!
Programme Workshop"
Trinidad and Tobago, 2011 May 02-04!
The Five Points
of a New Architecture
…in Earthquake Zones"
Panelist – Robert V. Woodstock!

Configuration!
The most important architectural
d e c i s i o n s t h a t a f f e c t s e i s m i c
performance are the critical decisions
that create the buildingʼs configuration
i.e. its size and shape.!
!
Simple symmetrical plans and forms are
r e c o m m e n d e d o v e r c o m p l e x
asymmetrical ones. !
!
“A square plan provides for a near
perfectly balanced system”!
- Christopher Arnold, “Seismic Issues in Architectural
Design, Designing for Earthquakes, A Manual for
Architects”!
!

Influences on Seismic
Performance!
• Scale!
• Horizontal size!
• Proportion!
• Symmetry!
• Distribution and Concentration!
• Structural Plan Density!
• Corners!
• Perimeter Resistance!
• Redundancy!
!
-­‐ Christopher Arnold and Robert Reitherman!
“Building Configura3on & Seismic Design”!
Redrawn from Building Configura3on & Seismic Design, Christopher Arnold and Robert Reitherman

Seismically desirable building attributes:!
• Continuous load path!
• Low height to base ratio!
• Equal floor heights!
• Symmetrical plan shape!
• Identical resistance on both axes!
• Identical vertical resistance!
• Uniform section and elevation!
• Seismic resistance elements at
perimeter!
• Short spans!
• No cantilevers!
• No openings in diaphragms (floors!
and roof)!

Historical Precedents:!
The Parthenon!
Golden Sec3on/Eleva3on redrawn from “Architecture:Form.Space & Order” – Francis Ching
Photo credit: Google

Historical Precedents:!
• The Pantheon!
!
Plan redrawn from “Architecture:Form.Space & Order” – Francis Ching
Photo credit: David Mixer.com

The Domino System 1914-15!
The Domino skeleton
consisted of six thin
concrete columns that
simply carried two
horizontal slabs as the
floors and another as
the roof. The columns
and slabs were
connected by a
staircase. Apart from
this nothing else was
fixed, thus permitting a
great flexibility. !
Redrawn from Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complete, Willy Boesiger

LeCorbusierʼs Five Points of a New Architecture!
• 1 - Raising the building on Pilotis!
!
• 2 - The Free Plan!
• 3 - The Roof Garden!
• 4 - The Free Elevation!
!
• 5 - The Horizontal Window!
!
!

1. Raising the building on Pilotis
“The rooms are thereby removed from the
dampness of the soil; they have light and air; the
building plot is left to the garden, which
consequently passes under the house.”
-­‐ Le Corbusier Originally published in Almabach de l’Achitecture moderne, Paris 1926
Redrawn from Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complete, Willy Boesiger
Photo credit: Valueyou, Wikiepedia

2. The Open or “Free” Plan!
“The support system carries the intermediate
ceilings and rises up to the roof. The interior
walls may be placed wherever required, each
floor being entirely independent of the rest. ”!
- Le Corbusier Originally published in Almabach de lʼAchitecture
moderne, Paris 1926!
Redrawn from Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complete, Willy Boesiger
Photo credit: Great Buildings

3. The Roof Garden!
The roof gardens will display highly luxuriant vegetation.
Shrubs and even small trees up to 3 or 4 metres tall can be
planted. !
!
In this way the roof garden will become the most favoured
place in the building. In general, roof gardens mean to a
city the recovery of all the built- up area.”
-­‐ Le Corbusier Originally published in Almabach de l’Achitecture moderne, Paris 1926
Redrawn from Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complete, Willy Boesiger
Photo credit: Great Buildings

4. The Free Elevation!
“By projecting the floor beyond the supporting pillars,
like a balcony all round the building, the whole facade is
extended beyond the supporting construction. It thereby
loses its supportive quality and the windows may be
extended to any length at will, without any direct
relationship to the interior division.
-­‐ Le Corbusier Originally published in Almabach de l’Achitecture moderne, Paris 1926
!
Redrawn from Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complete, Willy Boesiger
Photo credit: Great Buildings

5. The Horizontal Window!
The whole history of architecture revolves
exclusively around the wall apertures. Through
the use of the horizontal window, reinforced
concrete suddenly provides the possibility of
maximum illumination.”!
- Le Corbusier Originally published in Almabach de lʼAchitecture !
moderne, Paris 1926!
Redrawn from Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complete, Willy Boesiger
Photo credit: Great Buildings

Villa Savoye
Poissy, France!
Photo credit: Valueyou, Wikiepedia

Villa Savoye
Poissy, France!
“It was Le Corbusierʼs Villa Savoye (1929–1931) that most succinctly summed up
his five points of architecture that he had elucidated in the journal L'Esprit
Nouveau and his book Vers un Architecture which he had been developing
throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the
ground, supporting it by pilotis – reinforced concrete stilts. These pilotis, in
providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next
two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as
the architect wished, and an open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free
to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second
floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow
unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and which constitute the
fourth point of his system. The fifth point was the roof garden to compensate for
the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp rising
from ground level to the third floor roof terrace allows for an architectural
promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial
"ocean-liner" aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. As if to put an
exclamation mark after Le Corbusier's homage to modern industry, the driveway
around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning
radius of a 1927 Citroen automobile.”!
-­‐ Villa Savoye and the Five Points of Architecture – Wikipedia
!

Villa Savoye
Poissy, France!
Ground Floor! First Floor! Second Floor!

The Swiss Pavilion
Paris, France
!
Ministry of Education!
Kingston, Jamaica

ARCHITECTURE
• “Architecture is a thing of art, a phenomenon of the emotions,
lying outside questions of construction and beyond them. The
purpose of construction is to make things hold together; of
architecture TO MOVE US.”
• “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of
masses brought together in light; Our eyes are made to see
forms in light; Light and shade reveal these forms.”
- Le Corbusier

Recommendations for Reducing the Problems!
Use a design with the ideal configuration when:!
• The best seismic performance for the lowest cost is needed!
!
• The maximum predictability of seismic performance is desired!
!
• The most economical structural design and construction is needed, including
design and analysis for code conformance, simplicity of seismic detailing, and
repetition of structural component sizes and placement conditions!
!
- Christopher Arnold, “Seismic Issues in Architectural Design, Designing for Earthquakes, A Manual for Architects”!
!
!

Recommendations for Reducing the Problems!
With an irregular design configuration:!
• A skilled seismic engineer, who is sympathetic to the architectʼs design
intentions, should be used from the outset !
• The architect should be prepared to accept structural forms or assemblies
that may modify the design character, and should be prepared to exploit
these as part of the aesthetic language of the design rather than resisting
them!
• The architect and engineer should both employ ingenuity and imagination of
their respective disciplines to reduce the effect of irregularities, or to achieve
desired aesthetic qualities without compromising structural integrity!
• Extreme irregularities may require extreme engineering solutions; these
may be costly, but it is likely that a building with these conditions will be
unusual and important enough to justify additional costs in materials,
finishes, and systems.!
• A soft or weak story should never be used; this does not mean that high
stories or varied story heights cannot be used, but rather that appropriate
structural measures be taken to ensure balanced resistance.!
!
- Christopher Arnold, “Seismic Issues in Architectural Design, Designing for Earthquakes, A Manual for Architects”!
!

The Engineer and the Architect
• “The Engineer, inspired by the law of economy and
governed by mathematical calculation, puts us in accord
with universal law.
• The Architect, by his arrangement of forms, realizes an
order which is a pure creation of his spirit; by forms and
shapes he affects our senses to an acute degree and
provokes plastic emotions; by the relationships which he
creates he wakes profound echoes in us, he gives us the
measure of an order which we feel to be in accordance
with that of our world, he determines the various
movements of our heart and of our understanding; it is
then that we experience the sense of beauty.”a
• N- Le Corbusier
THE END