Architectural Office Research Articles

Medical practices in places of culture and intense architecture: how the visit experience changes.

Cultura di Base is an experimental project realised in Torino between May and October 2022. Some General Practitioners' offices were moved to cultural places of the city, such as museums, libraries, cultural centers, with recognised quality in terms of space design and architecture. The assumption to be tested is that "intense architecture offices" can improve the experience of the visit and possibly strengthen the relationship between patient and doctor. Our counterfactual impact evaluation, based on a quasi-experimental control group design, evidences a significant positive impact both on the perceptions of waiting time and on the post-visit psychological well-being.

Exploring the Link between Job Satisfaction and Productivity in Architectural Offices

Job satisfaction is an important factor that directly affects an employee's productivity. The relationship between job satisfaction and productivity is a critical factor in many professions, including architecture. Therefore, it is important that they are satisfied with their jobs in terms of productivity. The aim of this study is to examine demographic features, job satisfactions and productivity levels of architects working in architectural offices in Bursa and to determine whether there is a relationship with each other. In this study, a questionnaire was used as a data collection method. A survey was conducted with 203 architects working in Bursa. The survey consists of 3 parts. In the first part demographic features, in the second part job satisfactions and in the third part, there are questions about productivity. According to the findings, the correlation coefficient value between the productivity of job satisfactions in the working environment is between 0 and 0.50, revealing the importance of job satisfaction and productivity for the companies and the employees. As a result of the research, it was concluded from the correlation analysis that the parameters of architects' job satisfactions were effective on productivity. It has been observed that the productivity of the employees who are satisfied with their job, organization of the working environment has also increased. In terms of architects, it is thought that this study will contribute to the scientific field in terms of the absence of a study examining the three issues together and reflecting the perspectives of architects on their profession. In the context of architectural offices, studies examining job satisfactions or productivity are very limited.

Out of Office

In order to challenge the non-inclusive aspects of Belgian architectural culture, the article explores inspiring practices. It gathers insights from two pairs of individuals: Ivan and Valentine from the non-profit organization Convivence-Samenleven, and Bernardo and Marianita from the collective Mama (Maintenance Matters). Each of them has consciously chosen to depart from traditional architectural offices and their usual working conditions to directly engage with local communities. Their narratives extend an invitation to reconsider our work frameworks, time commitments, relationships with users, and redefine project evaluation criteria. On a broader scale, they encourage us to reflect on the social significance of an architect's work.

Review of The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models: From Translating to Archiving, Collecting and Displaying

A recent book edited by architectural historian Federica Goffi considers how architectural drawings and models can take new life by virtue of their inclusion within archives. The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models: From Translating to Archiving, Collecting and Displaying explores what Goffi calls the “afterlives” of architectural media, adopting a concept from art historian Aby Warburg. The volume gathers 35 essays that examine the many ways drawings and models survive their use for building to become “instruments of imagination, communication, and historical continuity” (i) in new contexts. If the architectural office or construction site is where the productive lives of drawings and models originally unfold, the archive is the primary site of their afterlives. Contributions from architects, artists, historians, collectors, curators, and archivists recount how archives, as structures and sites, allow for interpretive, creative, and ultimately “constructive” modes of engagement with drawings and models to produce new architectural knowledge.

An Example of an Application Project on Contemporary Office Design

This study aims to define the concept of office spaces and their requirements, as well as the contemporary interior design approaches. It will also cover the interior design and application process for an architecture office in Konya. The company, originally named Çınar Architecture and active in Konya between 1985 and 1990, has been operating as Kerimler Planning Construction Consultancy Company in Konya since 1995. The company requested an interior architecture project for their new location. In the current environment, the office is starting to become outdated and is unable to offer users enough physical amenities. The main goal of the new office’s interior design was to create areas where employers and employees could collaborate in a welcoming and adaptable setting without facing any kind of discrimination. In Konya Meram Pirebi District, the Menekşe Apartment’s ground floor, which is currently a street-level store, is the site of the project, which occupies a total of 280 m2 and consists of a ground + basement. The office occupies 145 square meters on the ground floor of a recently constructed building, with glass extending to the open floor on the south, north, and west facades. The room has a very large opening because the columns are concealed by the walls, making the two stories easily visible from the entrance. The office, which occupies a 135 m2 basement floor, is connected to the elevator and staircase at the back. Natural light enters the basement through the gallery area that is attached to the staircase. Within the parameters of the study, two- and three-dimensional architectural design tools, including phases of the interior design process, were employed in conjunction with a qualitative research method based on inspection and observation. The architectural office put it into practice about half a year after the design stage. The outcome was the creation of a dynamic, modern office analysis that values teamwork and permits the emergence of unique and creative ideas throughout the project.

Design and the Polysemy of Value: On a problem within the language of valuation studies

Value and valuation are notoriously difficult terms, because they mean very different things in different contexts for different scholars. This problem can be described in linguistic terms as “polysemy”. In this article, I propose to reformulate the problem of value through the lens of polysemy as a problem within language. I offer an alternative to approaches that either narrow down value to one particular definition or disregard it altogether, turning value into a container concept for a variety of concerns. I seek thereby to avoid the twin risks of fragmentation or smothering. Following the lead of ordinary language philosophy, I distinguish between three different “grammars of value”. Scholars address value differently depending on their grammar. This shows best in the ways they present value as an intuitively intelligible phenomenon, and in the ways in which they challenge such intuitive understandings of value in their studies. To illustrate these grammatical distinctions, I refer to ethnographic studies of design practices, including excerpts from my own research in a German architecture office.

Assessing views from office buildings in virtual reality

In office architecture, the importance of windows providing daylight and views has been identified to make the physical environment of the workplace comfortable and healthy. This study aims to develop a window view quality index for application at the design stage of office buildings. In this paper, satisfaction with the views from window was evaluated using VR images, and it was shown that there is a high correlation between the trend in view satisfaction using VR and the trend in view satisfaction of the actual building. This suggests that VR can be used in the future to evaluate the view quality from the window.

КОМПОЗИЦІЙНО-МИСТЕЦЬКІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ЕВОЛЮЦІЇ СУЧАСНИХ ІНДИВІДУАЛЬНИХ ЖИТЛОВИХ БУДИНКІВ

The article is devoted to the study of artistic features and specifics of the functioning of individual residential buildings. Examples of well-known, iconic objects designed and built at the beginning of the 20-21 centuries are considered. Research directions are conditionally divided into artistic-aesthetic, cultural-semiotic and functional. The main attention is paid to the composition and stylistic features of individual residential buildings, the description of conceptual-artistic, functional and constructive approaches used in the design and construction of these buildings. Examples of well-known architectural objects with analysis of various compositional techniques and stylistic directions are provided as illustrations. The first most famous object is the villa "Savoy", architect Le Corbusier. The villa is designed taking into account the 5 main principles developed by Corbusier for modern buildings, the main structural scheme of which is a reinforced concrete frame. The second object that defined an entire direction in the architecture of the last third of the 20th century is the "Vanna House", architect Robert Venturi. It is with this building that the emergence and development of a new architectural style - "postmodernism" - is connected. The third building is Villa "Soravia" by the well-known Coop Himmelb(l)au architectural office. Two more objects are examples of economy-class housing using the latest achievements in the field of new technologies. These are residential buildings designed by architects Tadao Ando and Renzo Piano. The continuous and purposeful improvement of building technologies and building structures, as well as the constant change and development of aesthetic views, stimulate the emergence of new stylistic concepts and artistic generalizations in modern architecture.

Automatic generation of virtual architecture using user activities in metaverse

Recently, architectural offices and IT companies have undertaken projects to build and sell cities in metaverses. However, it is considered inefficient to undertake such construction individually, building-by-building, using 3D modeling techniques. Fortunately, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) offers a breakthrough solution. This paper proposes a method of automatic generation of architectural spaces that is based on user activities in a metaverse and that can analyze users' perceptions of such spaces. To this end, in the present study, by referencing the theory of environmental psychology, we constructed a theoretical framework that can quantitatively analyze activities, based on which, we developed a metaverse space. Architectural space images were produced based on grammatical rules, which converted the analysis results into text, as well as a deep-learning-based text-to-image generator. Twenty participants responded to two questionnaires on their perceptions and opinions after participating in the metaverse experience and after receiving the architectural space image. Consequently, we analyzed the users' opinions on the architectural space created using the data they provided. Further, we reviewed the validity of the architectural design of the virtual space created using the proposed approach and explored the possibilities of its future utilization.

Factors Affecting Workspace Satisfaction and Productivity of Employees in Interior Design and Architecture Offices

Bu araştırmanın amacı, iç mimarlık ve tasarım ofislerindeki işgörenlerin çalışma alanı memnuniyetini etkileyen verimlilik faktörlerini, ergonomik faktörleri de dahil ederek incelemektir. Fiziksel faktörlerin yanı sıra davranışsal faktörlerin de etkisi araştırılmıştır. Ayrıca, çalışma alanı memnuniyetinin demografik ve tanımlayıcı değişkenlere göre farklılık gösterip göstermediği de belirlenmiştir. Araştırma, iç mimarlık ve tasarım ofislerine bilgisayar ortamında anket ifadeleri sorularak, elde edilen veriler IBM SPSS 22.0 programında analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmanın ilk bölümünde, iç mimarlık ve tasarımcıların demografik ve verimlilik ile ilgili tanımlayıcı değişkenleri ele alınmıştır. Sonraki aşamada, çalışma alanı memnuniyetinin çeşitli değişkenlere göre farklılaşıp farklılaşmadığı belirlenmiştir. Çalışmanın son kısmında, çalışma alanı memnuniyeti ile bağ oluşturabilecek değişkenlerin neler olduğu Ki kare testi sonuçları ile belirlenmiştir. Bu çalışma, ofis ortamında verimliliği artırmak için ergonominin esnek çalışma koşulları ve teknolojik gelişmelerle nasıl evrimleştiğini ortaya koyması, çalışma alanından memnuniyetle bağlantılı faktörlerin belirlenmesi ve verimliliği etkileyen faktörlerin kapsamlı bir şekilde incelenmesi açısından önemlidir.

Drivers and barriers on implementing XR technologies in the construction industry in Turkey

This study presents drivers and barriers on construction industry extended reality (XR) implementations in Turkey. It aims to investigate the current state and future directions of XR opportunities for architecture offices and construction companies in a developing country. A quantitative approach was employed which involves conducting a survey, performing statistical analyses, and verification of the hypotheses. The data were analyzed by SPSS and Excel using the frequency, mean score, standard deviation (SD), and one sample t-test. Thirty-three different companies participated in the survey with a return rate of 56.89%. The results were considered statistically significant since all the p-values were below 0.05. The findings revealed that even though 60% of the companies are not using XR, 60% companies have near future plans on implementing them. According to the results, XR was considered as beneficial and highly motivating for the near future, yet it needs to be widespread for companies to keep themselves abreast of information and communication technology trends. Finally, by considering the findings obtained from the results this study reaches a classification of drivers as ‘increased efficiency: time-cost-quality’ and ‘increased communication and coordination’ while barriers as ‘technical limitations’, ‘high costs’, and ‘unqualified professional’.

Exploring the Spatial Dimensions of Social Sustainability in the Workplace through the Lens of Interior Architects in Jordan

In both industry and academia, sustainability has become a priority in the interior design and architecture industry, having a significant impact on society. However, most recent studies on building sustainability focus mainly on environmental and economic issues, with social sustainability often being complicated and overlooked in relevant research. This paper argues that there is a need for workplace design guidance that prioritizes parameters at the intersection of twenty-first-century workforce–corporate interests, embodying the notion of social sustainability within the built environment. Through this perspective, the physical environment is considered the container of its social content, and its features and characteristics have a direct impact on the quality of life and work for office workers. Although international currents in the age of globalization have stimulated tangible progress in the context of sustainability, the interior design of most design and architecture offices in Jordan suffers from an underrepresentation of the distinctive features of socially sustainable, user-welcoming interior spaces and environments. The current study explores the experiences of interior design professionals in Jordan through four windows of “Physiological Health and Comfort”, “Efficiency and Ergonomics”, “Privacy and Social Interaction”, and “Spatial Organization (Design)” from a quantitative perspective. A survey was developed to investigate these criteria and was administered among 145 full-time design professionals working in offices in Amman, Jordan. The study aimed to investigate the experiences of these practitioners in relation to their office work environment, with a focus on exploring Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), Quality of Work Life (QWL), and Quality of Life (QoL) from the perspective of social sustainability. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and regression models were employed to analyze the survey data and evaluate the findings. Overall, the study highlights the need for theoretical and practical incentives to promote the adoption of socially sustainable development in workplace design, particularly in the context of interior design in Jordan. By focusing on the experiences of interior design professionals with their workplace environment, this study provides valuable insights for the development of workplace design guidelines that prioritize social sustainability parameters within the built environment.

Intensity as the Perceivable Dimension of Density in the Urban Environment: The Case of Housing Blocks by MBM Arquitectes in Barcelona, Spain

The concept of intensity is a concentration of spatial, social, and environmental experiences in the urban environment. It is an extension of density, beyond the quantitative measure of the urban environment toward its qualitative and perceivable aspects. Drawing on urban studies with a human-centered approach by Michael Sorkin, Jane Jacobs, Jan Gehl and William T. Whyte, and proxemics studies by Edward T. Hall, this paper explores the spatial implications of intensity to identify the qualities of the built environment that positively influence the relationship between people and space. With this purpose, case studies were selected from the housing complexes designed, from the 1960s to the 1990s, by the architectural office MBM Arquitectes in Barcelona (Spain). The observational, spatial and visual analysis focused on the public spaces of those housing complexes as well as on the use and appropriation of them by inhabitants. Public spaces are the ground for studying urban intensity: they are the set where urban life can be performed and the main vehicle for promoting intentional relationships between people and space. A series of five spatial qualities were identified as categories of perceived urban intensity and are discussed in detail: Connection, Articulation, Differentiation, Extension and Concentration. Such categories can help orient the analysis and interpretation of the physical and perceptual materials of urban intensity, to better understand the design of our public space, our cities and their futures.

A flat of one’s own: The Elisabeth Brugsmaflat in The Hague (1945–1958)

In the 1950s, married women in the Netherlands were assimilated into the fixed ideal of heteronormative family and traditional family housing standards which were the norm; single women were not. Single women represented not only a separate category in post-Second World War society but also a stigmatised one. What was a woman without a man? Women were simply not expected to live alone. In the mid-twentieth century, however, high-rise residential projects were designed to enable women to live independently. Over a period of more than thirty years, Dutch women’s organisations and pioneering women architects made a key contribution to collaboratively develop emancipatory and innovative residential projects in the country’s biggest cities. In 1948, the Elisabeth Brugsma Foundation commissioned the architectural office Pot & Pot-Keegstra to build the Elisabeth Brugsmaflat in The Hague. The process was difficult, and took a long time, before the Elisabeth Brugsmaflat finally opened its doors in 1958. It was an important step to the progressive normalisation of women living independently, and also contributed to the improvement of housing standards for all.

Encountering drawing

This project report outlines the research-led exhibition, Drawing Room – part of an ongoing collaborative design research project focusing on drawing – exhibited at Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art Christchurch (CoCA), New Zealand. The research interrogates drawings that move – made by light, shadow and animation – and our encounters with drawings through the manipulations of scale and virtual reality (VR). The research investigates the relationship between scale, moveable drawings and bodily engagement in architectural drawing and the speculative nature of VR in architectural drawing. The research places architectural drawing within an expanded practice – shifting its generation from the architectural office – by way of critiquing the normative ways of representing the discipline of architecture. This project demonstrates that the making of architectural drawings and their encounter engages the entire body; in encountering these, we occupy and inhabit the spaces of these drawings. The project investigates the influence of speculative drawing practices on the conceiving and developing of developing architectural built work through the use of exhibition.

Przestrzenie coworkingowe w środowisku mieszkaniowym – studium przypadku

In the face of successive waves of the pandemic caused by the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the boundaries between work and home are blurred. Innovative workspaces seem to be a new direction, both in office architecture and in residential architecture. The article concerns the issue of coworking spaces in the residential environment of newly built housing estates. Nowa Letnica in Gdansk and 33 Bond St. at 300 Livingston Street in Brooklyn. As a research method, a comparative method was used using survey tools in the form of diagrams and bar and pie charts. The research results are a response to the needs of employees who work remotely and are a hint for modern construction when designing co-working zones in housing estates in the post-pandemic period. The aim of this article is to fill the research gap in the field of arranging coworking spaces that do not meet the needs of users.

Exploring and Thinking about the Digital Transformation of Enterprises under the Middle Office Architecture Strategy

Purpose - This paper provides a detailed analysis of the connotation of the middle office architecture. It explains the middle office’s role, operation mechanism, and development status. Design/Methodology/Approach - This paper focuses on the theoretical description of the enterprise portrait suitable for implementing the middle office architecture, the core value of the middle office output, the typical architecture of the central office construction, and the strategic adjustment of the organizational structure, and the strategy of maximizing the effectiveness of the middle office strategy. The typical areas of the current implementation of middle office architecture strategy are also listed, and further outlook on the development trend of middle office architecture is given. Findings - As a necessary tool for data-enabled businesses, data middle office applications have entered a period of development. This paper provides ideas and references for enterprises to build and implement a middle office architecture and thus drive their digital transformation. Research Implications - Digital transformation is gradually becoming necessary for enterprises to achieve sustainable operations. We need to digitize product development, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, and service, but most importantly, we need to digitize the user interface. Therefore, building a connection platform between “virtual” and “real” is necessary, and the middle platform architecture is one of the best solutions.

Eugen Habermann (1884–1944) and Herbert Johanson (1884–1964) – from Studies at Riga Polytechnic Institute to the Top of Estonian Architecture

Graduates of Riga Polytechnic Institute Eugen Habermann (1884–1944) and Herbert Johanson (1884–1964) became the most active architects in Estonia in the 1920s and 1930s. E. Habermann was the City Planning Architect of Tallinn (1914–1923), at the same time, he headed the Construction Board of the Ministry of the Interior (1919–1923). H. Johanson led the project bureau of the City Architect of Tallinn (1924–1944). From 1935, he also ran the Tallinn Municipal Architecture Office. Both architects were the founders of the Estonian Association of Architects (1921) and its chairmen, E. Habermann – from 1921 to 1936 and H. Johanson – in the 1930s. The extensive list of projects of E. Habermann and H. Johanson consists of around 200 projects, including buildings of nearly all types. The article aims to characterize E. Habermann and H. Johanson as personalities based on the memories of their fellows, it also reflects on the main features and stylistic development of their architecture.

Eižens Habermanis (1884–1944) un Herberts Johansons (1884–1964) – no studijām Rīgas Politehniskajā institūtā līdz Igaunijas arhitektūras virsotnēm

Graduates from Riga Polytechnic Institute Eugen Habermann (1884–1944) and Herbert Johanson (1884–1964) became the most active architects in Estonia of the 1920s and 1930s. E. Habermann was the city planning architect of Tallinn (1914–1923), the same time he headed the Construction Board of the Ministry of the Interior (1919–1923). H. Johanson lead the Tallinn city architect’s project bureau (1924–1944). From 1935, he also run the Tallinn municipal architecture office. Both architects were the founders of the Estonian Association of Archi­tects (1921) and its chairmen, E. Habermann from 1921 to 1936, H. Johanson in the 1930s. The extensive list of E. Habermann’s and H. Johanson’s works consists around 200 projects, covering nearly all typologies of buildings. The article, using quo­tes from their fellows’ memories, characterises E. Habermann and H. Johanson as persons, and brings out the main features and stylistic development of their architecture.

Perspectives on Accessibility and Its Users Amongst Practicing Danish Landscape Architects.

This paper presents findings from 15 interviews of randomly selected Danish landscape architectural offices focusing on how these work with and understand accessibility. The paper finds that Danish landscape architects mostly understand accessibility and its users in relation to existing building regulations. Moreover, in finding that the informants possessed a limited professional vocabulary for understanding accessibility, the paper discusses the type of knowledge requested and by, and necessary for, Danish landscape architects to gain a more reflective understanding of accessibility and its users. Towards such ends, universal design can help the profession. However, with only a few informants mentioning ideas related to universal design, this indicates that more education is needed for universal design to provide a different perspective on accessibility and its users amongst Danish landscape architects.