R-3 Repository :: Browsing by Author "Balfour, Alan"

Browsing by Author "Balfour, Alan"

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Aleatory architecture: The ethics of chance as design discipline
(1992) Robinson, Bobby Neal; Balfour, Alan
Upon acceptance that what is perceived to be "true" is related specifically to a given circumstance under given conditions in which all variables cannot be known, sustaining a "conviction" in the design process is no longer ethical. Precedent concept as a working goal must be abandoned in a relativistic critique. It is only possible to resign oneself to the methods and discipline of chance as a design directive. Therefore, all information, regardless of perceived significance becomes equally (ir) relevant to subsequent impositions of design decisions. Appropriate versus inappropriate is merely academic and moot. An application of non-methodological chance design is presented herein.
Environmental complement to Rice and its School of Architecture
(1991) da Silva, Miguel Alexander; Balfour, Alan
Since the first Architecture schools were established in the U.S. over a century ago there have been instances when the country has questioned its own methods, values and identity. The perceptions of a university and, in some cases, of the school of architecture, as microcosms of the world gives economic, social and political issues an immediacy invaluable to a clear study of methods and values.(UNFORMATTED TABLE OR EQUATION FOLLOWS)$$\vbox{\halign{#\hfil&&\enspace#\hfil\cr e.g.,\quad&The Cooper Union&---Admission policies\cr&Harvard&---Architect and democratic ideals\cr&Taliesen&---Transcendence of agendas\cr}}$$(TABLE/EQUATION ENDS) Section (3) of this work lists and isolates what I think are the most pressing contemporary issues about which relevant questions and skepticisms should be raised. I propose that facets of these pressing global, national, and local problems and the skepticisms they bring to life, are present at Rice University and explain the development of its master planning, the activities encouraged, or sometimes discouraged, by its central quadrangle, and the prevailing methodology of its School of Architecture.
Feng shui, Chinese geomancy
(1990) Ho, Belinda Oi-Yee; Parsons, Spencer; Waldman, Peter; Balfour, Alan
Chinese geomancy (feng shui) has been an important underlying concept behind ancient and modem Chinese architecture. As a parallel to Le Corbusier's Golden Section, principles of Chinese geomancy assist in the determination of various design decisions; such as the location of a site, the geometry of a building or room, and even the arrangement of furniture. Through the means of feng shui, Chinese architecture is able to establish a harmony between heaven, earth and man. I would like to extend this set of principles to design a Chinese embassy in the western setting of Washington D.C. The embassy not only symbolizes the political relationship between the eastern and the western cultures, but it also offers the potential for a harmonic juxtaposition of the eastern concept with a set of western criteria such as zoning and building ordinances. The design would serve as a demonstration of the interaction between eastern and western values; or, more specifically, the interplay between the ideal and spiritual and the realistic and functional. Through complimentary and conflicting dualities, a harmony will be sought through design.
HindCite: Houston R/UDAT Redux
(Rice Design Alliance, 1990) Balfour, Alan
Housing form in the dissipated city
(1990) Warren, Linda C.; Pope, Albert; Sherman, William H.; Balfour, Alan; Kennon, Paul
This thesis proposes the creation of a greater sense of community in today's city through housing form. The lost vitality of the traditional mixed-use city is considered retrievable through the planning of the collective realm, accommodating the pedestrian as well as the automobile. The study involves the means by which housing form allows the traditional interdependence of housing, as the private realm, and the public spaces of the city. The scope of the research work includes an overview of today's urbanism within an historical perspective and analyses of housing examples. The latter includes previous American public housing, Houston public housing and elderly housing, and recent noteworthy urban housing. The intention behind the research is for determination of means for linking the fragments of today's city. The design project suggests a method for establishing housing in Houston which promotes a sense of an urban community. The method includes a mixed-use basis; low-income seniors, single-parent households, singles, and other families; and common outdoor spaces and private areas. Overall, the relationship to the street grid substantiates the gridded nature of the city while the forms reference the existing nature of the surrounding development.
Museum for the American Indian
(1990) Naumann, Kristin R.; Sherman, William H.; Waldman, Peter; Balfour, Alan
The dialectic of indigenous tradition and modern innovation is neither a new phenomenon, nor is it one which can easily be resolved. American democracy depends on the integration o-f the local and individualist with the general and the common. Shared values and tastes fortify the American status quo while the idiosyncratic is modified or gentrified for common consumption. In America where freedom of expression is celebrated, the issue of cultural expression in architecture has been met with ambivalence or has produced kitsch. Regional work is either too individualistic or too homogenized to constitute a genuine contribution to American architecture. A balance must be struck between the cultural richness of the country’s regional architectural expression and that of the perceived ideal. The U.S. has a very real, living indigenous architecture, that of the Native American. A rich opportunity exists for assimilation and reinterpretation to occur as regional work confronts that of a universal or modern nature. Such interaction will result in renewed expression for America’s indigenous people while providing others with a basis for critical exploration. A critical framework would allow all to examine themselves and their relationship to the dominant society. The proposal to design a museum for the American Indian is intended to provide a hypothetical situation where these concerns may be pursued. Washington D.C. as the proposed site provides ample opportunity for such exploration. The city is a study in paradox, scale and ideology. The Mall has become a national symbol, a sacrosanct region where public institutions celebrate America’s achievements and unified diversity. The siting of the Museum of the American Indian on The Mall provides the appropriate context for this investigation. As The Mall’s institutions have additional significance in their celebration of American achievements and shared heritage the museum proposal must participate and contribute to the area’s national and ideological role.
Myth and collage, continuity and zeitgeist : strategies for the reoccupation of ruins
(1990) Condon, Patrick; Waldman, Peter; Shennan, William; Balfour, Alan
The task of finding a meaningful architecture for urban America is difficult. The American city constantly reinvents itself, destroying that which preceded it. Populist architecture has turned to preservation and reconstruction as a means to provide an architecture linked to place and past, but this effort distances us from our history, perhaps more so than the architecture to which it IS a reaction. An architecture of collage, which incorporates fragments of memory, would be true to both the nature of the American city and the need to locate oneself in place and history. Our obsession with erasing our past derives from an inability to perceive the positivistic bias in architectural theory. This bias results not only in excessive ground-clearing but denies the possibility of a meaningful architecture which speaks through dream and myth. An architecture of collage, incorporating fragments of memory, has great potential for the creation of mythic images. Such an architecture links not only to the past, but also the present; it can be read much like the grafting in works by contemporary authors and artists. Architecture as a practice between bricolage and science allows the creation of works which: require the clearing of the ground yet reveal history; deconstruct and existing order while creating another, operate in both the worlds of science and myth; and provide for cultural continuity and the expression of the zeitgeist.
The aberration of the inappropriate: Inhabiting Police Headquarters, Houston, Texas
(1991) Carpenter, Mary Heath; Balfour, Alan
This thesis was based on the belief that architecture can comment on social and institutional structures. As a vehicle for this investigation, an event was chosen which informed the making of the architecture. The event was the death of a woman at the hands of off-duty Policemen. The proposed structure makes a mark on Police Headquarters in downtown Houston and provides a space for the community and the police to interact. The project explored architecture as a metaphor of society and this institution specifically, using such words as stable, static, heavy and opaque to define both the image of the institution, and the appearance of the headquarters building. To affect this building, such words as fragmented, light, unstable and warped were used to develop the architecture of the additions. The additions, as aberrations, use the true structure of the building to reveal the inappropriateness of the image of Police Headquarters.
The pyramid and the labyrinth :a casino in Atlantic City
(1990) Bachman, Cathleen; Waldman, Peter; Sherman, William H.; Balfour, Alan

Browsing by Author "Balfour, Alan"

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