#Nikos Salingaros

[davidbrussat]

How modernism got square

Editor’s note: Here is a post from December 2013, almost a decade ago, shortly after the Providence Journal booted my Journal blog from its roster of staff-written web logs, which is where the word “blog” comes from. I used to write two or three of these per day, even while I was also writing editorials and my weekly column. Maybe that is why the Journal put a stop to it. *** The title of this…

[geometrymatters]

Nikos Salingaros is a mathematician and architectural theorist who has developed a theory of architecture that emphasizes the importance of socially-organized housing and the geometry of control. Salingaros argues that traditional architecture, which is based on symmetrical and hierarchical designs, is inherently oppressive and creates a sense of alienation among residents. In contrast, he promotes the use of complex and adaptive designs that are based on the principles of self-organization and emergent behavior found in natural systems.

One of the key concepts in Salingaros’ theory of architecture is the idea of socially-organized housing, which refers to the use of architecture to create a sense of community and social cohesion among residents. This is achieved by designing housing units that are connected to one another through a network of shared spaces, such as courtyards, gardens, and walkways. These shared spaces serve as the “social glue” that binds residents together and creates a sense of belonging.

These shared spaces would also counter-act the psychological process of control that, according to the author, the geometry of buildings and the design of cities can exert on the human mind. Individual buildings and urban areas are shaped by a hard, mechanical geometry, but the interaction between individual structures and the layout’s geometry influence the shape of the street network. In urban and architectural terms, there are various ways to demonstrate authority, and we find them all in government-built social housing.

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[gettothestabbing]

New design rules developed from science combine Biophilia, Coherent Structure, Design Patterns, Healing Environments, and Neuroarchitecture. Implemented together, these tools can guarantee that any new building will feel just as comfortable as the best historic examples. A science-based theory of architecture reveals that those properties are responsible in part for our sense of physiological and psychological wellbeing.

Healing environments have particular features, such as hierarchical subdivisions. To illustrate this concept, let’s imagine a 19th-century room. Structural subdivisions of the interior, for example, include window frames, window mullions, wide doorframes, paneled doors, floor baseboards, generous trim and cornice moldings, etc. Divisions are all coherently balanced with each other, defining symmetries that our brain recognizes.

Nothing is misaligned, and care is taken that we see continuity and mirror symmetries. This is important, otherwise asymmetry alarms our brain and creates stress. Divisions of large-scale forms make tectonic sense and are neither arbitrary nor superficial.

Moreover, the material divisions continue into the smaller scales, going down to the complex, organized texture. At this smallest scale, ornament and natural texture invite our touch, which is an essential component of soothing architecture.

Contrast this welcoming aspect of traditional (and new adaptive) architecture with the willful Modernist substitution of either cold, smooth glass panes, polished metal, or harsh brutalist concrete that scrapes your skin if you inadvertently rub against it. This sadistic treatment of users is part of architecture school indoctrination as the “honest treatment of materials” — just one of the fallacious slogans that turned architecture into such an inhuman experience.

[veredes]

La Arquitectura de Información de las Ciudades | Nikos A. Salíngaros

Las ciudades son sistemas de arquitectura de información. Aquí, se utiliza el término “arquitectura” en el sentido de la arquitectura de los ordenadores y no se refiere al diseño de los edificios, sino a la manera como los componentes interactúan en un sistema complejo. Los intercambios de información incluyen el movimiento de personas y de mercancías, el contacto personal y las interacciones, las telecomunicaciones, y también las entradas o inputs visuales del entorno. Las redes de información suministran una base para comprender las ciudades vivas y para diagnosticar problemas urbanos. En este capítulo se argumenta que una ciudad funciona menos como un ordenador electrónico y más como un cerebro humano. Al igual que un sistema funcionalmente complejo, la ciudad define heurísticamente su propia funcionalidad cambiando conexiones, y así optimiza la interacción de los componentes. Una ciudad efectiva será la que tenga una arquitectura de sistema que pueda responder a las condiciones variables. Para mejor comprender las ciudades, este análisis traslada el foco de atención de la estructura física y lo dirige al flujo de información.

[...] 

[delhi-architect2]

ArchDaily - Examples of Patterns and Generative Codes on Socially-Organized Housing in Latin America

Imagen editada por Fabian Dejtiar. Image Cortesía de Mi Parque

The series of articles developed by Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy and Ernesto Philibert-Petit researches the peculiarities of social housing in Latin America. This time, examples of strategies and planning in their construction are reviewed, such as the importance of collaborative social processes and the specific sequences of stages.

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from ArchDaily https://www.archdaily.com/944295/examples-of-patterns-and-generative-codes-on-socially-organized-housing-in-latin-america Originally published on ARCHDAILY RSS Feed: https://www.archdaily.com/

[carlamillerfab03]

Plants and mental health

1. Stress reduction. Spending time in natural settings helps speed up recovery from mental fatigue, slow down heart rate, reduce high blood pressure, and lower anxiety.

2. Reduced symptoms of depression. Researchers repeatedly report increases in subjects' mood, fewer incidents of depressive symptoms, as well as increased memory span and decreased symptoms of anxiety after a walk in nature, as compared to a walk through an urban environment. One Korean study of patients diagnosed with moderate to severe depression compared the effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) performed in a hospital to CBT performed in an arboretum with a forest-like setting. Symptoms of depression were most significantly reduced in the arboretum group, who also experienced 20% to 30% higher rates of complete remission when compared to a typically medicated group.

3. Stronger memory retention. Compared to those who walked through a well-trafficked urban area, participants in several studies who walked through a green space or a natural environment, such as an arboretum, were better able to focus and concentrate on a test of their working memory.

4. Fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Studies of both veterans and victims of natural disasters who participated in horticultural therapies or nature-based rehabilitation programs found that both groups were better able to control symptoms of PTSD and developed more positive states of mind.

5. Improved symptoms of attention-deficient disorders (ADD/ADHD). In one study, school children diagnosed with ADHD were better able to concentrate after a walk in a park than their peers who went for a walk in a downtown neighborhood. Similar studies found that even short nature breaks are restorative and can improve attention span, working memory and cognitive functioning in children with ADD/ADHD.

6. Higher productivity and improved concentration in schools and workplaces. Students and employees with a view of nature, either indoors or right outside their windows, were not only found to be more productive but also more alert, more attentive, more relaxed, in better moods, and less irritated by physical symptoms of allergies and asthma than their counterparts who had no views of plant life or other natural settings.

7. Higher levels of creativity. Nature walks, and even short visits to parks and woodlands within urban areas, have been found to boost creativity, mood, and sense of vitality.

8. Fewer symptoms of dementia. When dementia patients in an adult day care facility became actively involved in gardening and landscaping activities, their cognitive abilities improved and there were fewer incidents of aggressive behavior.

9. Higher intellect. Other studies suggest that deep experiences that connect us to nature are due to the geometry and architecture of both natural environments and the environments we build to replicate nature that regularly enhance our quality of life. These not only have a healing effect, researchers say, but studies in animals have found that such complex environments also increase brain size and the ability to perform well on tests of intelligence; Dr. Nikos Salingaros of the University of Texas at San Antonio believes the same is true for growing human minds, which are best nourished by exposure to complexity and details.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/cravings/201909/11-ways-plants-enhance-your-mental-and-emotional-health

[eksperiential-blog]

NS: The industrial-modernist takeover was indeed based first upon substituting intellect for instinct. That cut us off from our visceral and evolved reactions to what is good or bad in our environment. But the second step is the most important: the intellectual brainwashing that then conditions human beings to accept unhealthy situations and products. This is the great breakthrough of both the left and the right (mass indoctrination to support “Great Leaders”), to abandon one’s heritage and culture so as to work for global finance and advertising firms. All of this started in the 1920s, and its fruits were the Bolshevik movement, the Nazi party, and the triumph of product advertising and consumerism. To come back to your statement, it was and still remains essential for such projects to de-condition our bodily instinct. Once detached from our neural system, we can be manipulated to commit atrocities.

Nikos Salingros, https://www.clarionreview.org/2017/09/building-with-biophilia-an-interview-with-nikos-salingaros/

[archinewspaper]

Socially-Organized Housing: the Geometry of Control Program Minha Casa Minha Vida - Luís Correia/PI. Foto: Otávio Nogueira, via Flickr. Licencia CC BY 2.0 Having explored the design that establishes 'emotional ownership' and the antipatrons of social housing, Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy and Ernesto Philibert-Petit continue their series of articles… — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/332W0ES

[atuancedecore]

"Espaços públicos contemporâneos são projetados sem vida, gênero ou desejo sexual". Entrevista com Nikos Salingaros

“Espaços públicos contemporâneos são projetados sem vida, gênero ou desejo sexual”. Entrevista com Nikos Salingaros

© Diego Hernández

No âmbito do projeto de pesquisa Espacios Oscuros, focado em observar e analisar a experiência da diversidade sexual nos espaços públicos da cidade de Santiago do Chile, os arquitetos María González e José Tomás Franco conversaram com Nikos Salingaros, matemático e pensador conhecido por seu foco teórico alternativo para a arquitetura e o urbanismo, que promove o desenho…

[enroutetofindmyself]

Wednesday 17th June’2020

https://www.archdaily.com/911803/lina-bo-bardis-relationship-with-drawing-explored-by-the-fundacio-joan-miros-exhibition

https://www.archdaily.com/914267/nikos-salingaros-contemporary-public-spaces-are-designed-for-lifeless-beings-without-any-sex-or-sexual-desire

https://www.archdaily.com/872418/the-best-architecture-portfolio-designs?ad_medium=widget&ad_name=recommendation

https://www.archdaily.com/874474/10-exemplary-ways-to-represent-architectonic-construction-details

https://www.archdaily.com/788987/craft-sameep-padora-and-associates

https://www.archdaily.com/941485/ventilation-and-shade-permeable-walls-in-colombian-architecture?ad_medium=widget&ad_name=articles-article-show

[agencyofarchitecture-blog]

Empatía y Arquitectura

Lo que más me interesó de la conferencia de Rafi Segal fué el principio. Nos mostró un vídeo de un robot haciendo tareas y siento molestado, incluso tirado al suelo. Mi reacción fue de lástima hacia el robot, y Rafi nos hizo reflexionar que aunque se tratara de una máquina, nosotros estábamos empatizando con ella.

Añadió que esta respuesta tenía que ver con la forma. Puesto que la máquina se parecía una persona, nosotros éramos capaces de dotarla imaginariamente con emociones y sentirlas.

Esto me parece interesante dicho por un arquitecto ya que en nuestra profesión trabajamos con el espacio y la forma. ¿Podemos diseñar formas arquitectónicas que generen empatía?

La verdad es que sí. El motivo por el que las curvas son placenteras a la vista es porque gracias a nuestras neuronas espejo -las que nos permiten empatizar con lo que vemos- llegamos a sentir o recordar el bienestar que nos produce un movimiento fluido en nuestro cuerpo. Es el mismo efecto placentero de ver unos bailarines moviéndose.

En arquitectura, podemos usar muchos recursos que generan empatía emocional, no sólo la curva, sino también las estructuras naturales. Os dejo aquí una pequeña entrevista a Nikos Salingaros, de la Universidad de Tejas, acerca de la Biophilia. Al final se puede encontrar un enlace a un libro descargable.

http://archiimpact.com/micro-interview-nikos-salingaros-and-biophilia/

—Marta Delgado

[davidbrussat]

Providence lost, regained II

Postcard of Waterman Building (1893), RISD’s first permanent edifice. (RISD VR blog) The Rhode Island School of Design offered its services [a decade ago] to assist the I-195 commissioners in producing a successful design template for the 195 land. To shape its guidance, RISD should touch base with its origins. The school was formed in 1877 to soften and sweeten the local manufacturing process.…

[veredes]

La estructura de los Lenguajes de Patrones | Nikos A. Salíngaros

Los lenguajes de patrones nos ayudan a manejar la complejidad de una amplia variedad de sistemas que van desde software hasta edificios y ciudades. Cada “patrón” representa una regla para una pieza de un sistema complejo y la aplicación de los lenguajes de patrones puede hacerse sistemáticamente. El diseño que desea conectar a los seres humanos necesita la información contenida en un lenguaje de patrones. Este Capítulo describe cómo validar patrones existentes, cómo desarrollarlos y cómo éstos evolucionan. La geometría conectiva de las interfaces urbanas se deriva de los patrones arquitectónicos de Christopher Alexander.

[...] 

[delhi-architect2]

ArchDaily - A Construction Strategy for Socially-Organized Housing in Latin America

Casa Meche / ENSUSITIO Arquitectura. Image Cortesía de ENSUSITIO Arquitectura

The series of articles developed by Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy and Ernesto Philibert-Petit researches the peculiarities of social housing in Latin America. This time the authors explain a construction strategy through iterative design and the emergence of form.

Read more »

from ArchDaily https://www.archdaily.com/944293/a-construction-strategy-for-socially-organized-housing-in-latin-america Originally published on ARCHDAILY RSS Feed: https://www.archdaily.com/

[deliriuminvacuo]

UNIFIED ARCHITECTURAL THEORY: An Introduction, by Nikos Salingaros

“People react according to their biological intuition, judging their environment for its positive…

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[nickkahler]

Architectural theory, in the sense understood in this course, is a framework that studies architectural phenomena using scientific logic and methods of experimentation. Many experiments have been done by others, and we are going to apply them to architecture. Theory provides a model that explains investigations and observations about form and structure. A successful theory will help us interpret what an architect does, even though each architect will likely have his/her own motivation and explanation. Nevertheless, the theory will allow us to compare among different types of buildings, and to evaluate how well those connect to users and with nature. We can understand how a building came about, and how it connects and interacts with its surroundings.

Nikos Salingaros, Unified Architectural Theory, 2013 (via archdaily)