Rectilinear Forms Research Articles

The perceptual effect of forms used on walls and furnishings in cafés

PurposeThis study researched the effects on the perceptual evaluations of participants for the physical environmental factors of cafés using curvilinear, rectilinear, and mixed forms to provide for the spatial states of belonging, to increase the pleasures, and to extend the periods of remaining in the space.Design/methodology/approachThis study used virtual reality (VR) technology to model the cafés designed by using curvilinear, rectilinear and mixed forms as an experimental environment. After experiencing the virtual images of the experimental spaces, participants filled out a “spatial perception” questionnaire. Perceptual evaluations of 415 participants regarding the environmental factors of cafés designed using curvilinear, linear and mixed forms were analyzed in a computer environment.FindingsAccording to the analysis of the questionnaire data, the cafés using mixed forms were perceived as more positive for the factors of appeal (inviting, restful, warm and sincere), planning (well-planned) and space freedom (roomy, uncluttered, uncrowded, large, wide and free space) compared with the cafés using curvilinear and rectilinear forms. Furthermore, the cafés using curvilinear forms were perceived as more positive for all elements compared with the cafés using rectilinear forms. However, there was a more negative approach in the perceptual evaluations of participants connected to increases in level of education.Originality/valueThe research results clearly demonstrated that the different interior and furniture forms frequently encountered in cafés cause significant effects on users’ perceptual evaluations.

Rigid-foldable tubular arches

Several types of tubular, origami-inspired plate mechanisms have been proposed for use as meta-materials and deployable structures. However, research into mechanical properties of these mechanisms is limited to rectilinear forms. This paper investigates the structural feasibility of non-rectilinear rigid-foldable cellular materials for application as deployable arch structures. An experimental and numerical investigation is first conducted on a new type of folded tubular arch, with failure contributions identified from hinge rotation and plate buckling failure mechanisms. A common geometric description is then developed between three different types of origami-inspired tubular arches, which are numerically investigated under three-point loading. The double-kite arch developed in this paper is seen to have the highest failure load.

Разработка концепции озеленения в современных тенденциях с внедрением элементов естественной природной среды в урбанизированную структуру на примере коттеджного поселка «Березка» Рамонского района Воронежской области.

The modern concept of gardening involves the use of large amounts of inert materials, different designs, and modern forms. Widespread urbanization of territories entails almost complete exclusion of green spaces, landscapes mediocrity and aggressive environments. All this has a negative effect not only on the environment but also has a negative impact on human. Reduced Stress resistance reduces and the working population decreases, the percentage of various diseases increases. In this paper we consider the question of proposing how to tie urbanized area with the surrounding environment. Along with urbanized areas a suburban town, so-called "second home" play a major role in people´s lives. Accomplishment of such areas should include elements that allow a person to relax as much as possible by working days. Since the cottage villages are composed of model homes, it suggests the monotony plan of surrounding territory. The best decoration of such areas is the use of tree and shrub vegetation, as well as decorative flower crops. Flower decoration of adjoining areas refreshes dull monotony of typical households. Given the impact of current trends in landscape design, we note the following aspects of the areas design. Rectilinear forms of trees and bushes are disappearing as the most fashionable style decision is a landscape of the site. Manor house in the Russian style looks particularly attractive, as historically Russian style was associated with the natural environment. Cottage village is ideally located surrounded by forest on the banks of a natural lake. The objective of our work was to unify the territory of cottage settlement with the surrounding ecosystem. For small areas "small" gardens are ideal decision. We also offer to create more comfortable living environment to emphasize the conditional zoning with green hedges. The paper presents a range of plants that will accentuate central Russian landscape and create coherent whole perception of the village and the environment.

A shape grammar interpreter for rectilinear forms

Shape grammars play an important role in a new generation of tools for the analysis and design of products. Up until now there has been numerous attempts to create a general shape grammar interpreter, but most of the existing tools are either very specific in their purpose, have only limited functionality or were programmed for one operating system. In this work, we present a tool named Shape Grammar Interpreter (SGI) for the automatic generation of designs. The developed shape grammar framework allows designers to automatically synthetize designs and to actively participate in the generation process. Great effort has been devoted to provide an interactive way of defining shapes and later using them in shape grammar rules and designs’ generation process. The tool implements two different types of algorithms for the generation of designs. First, Tree-search algorithms which store the state of the generation process in a tree structure and uses traditional tree-search algorithms to find the next rule to apply. Second, and most importantly, an optimized subshape detection algorithm. Hence, subshapes of the existing shapes can be detected and used in the generation process obtaining not only a wider set of designs but potentially more appealing ones. In this paper, we also describe the architecture of the framework and provide a performance evaluation of proposed algorithms, showing a significant gain in performance. Potential applications of our research can be found in the educational field (i.e. architecture and arts) and in the automatic generation of architectural, mechanical and product designs.

Furniture Forms and Their Influence on Our Emotional Responses Toward Interior Environments

The existing body of literature suggests that evoking emotions through design provides rich interactions. The authors tested Pleasure and Approach reactions of 111 participants toward two curvilinear and two rectilinear simulated interior settings. The curvilinear forms resulted in significantly stronger Pleasure ratings than the rectilinear forms. The circumplexes of emotions indicated that the curvilinear settings elicited higher amounts of pleasant-unarousing emotions (such as feeling relaxed, peaceful, and calm) than the rectilinear settings. The respondents desired to approach those settings more compared with the settings with only rectilinear lines. This research extends the empirical findings for study of emotions and forms by focusing specifically on furniture forms in the interior environment.

Cool Schools for Hot Suburbs

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 13 No. 1 (2003) ISSN: 1546-2250 Cool Schools for Hot Suburbs Dierkx, René (2002). Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Bouwstenen Publicatieburo; 269 pages. $NPL. ISBN 190-6814567-3. In the most ambitious doctoral dissertationeither reviewer has ever seen, René Dierkx undertakes an extremelydetailed and comprehensive study of the current problems facing primaryeducation in Nairobi and develops alternative models for economicallyviable, sustainable and environmentally sensitive schools. Though written as a dissertation for critique by anacademic architectural design doctoral committee in the Netherlands,architects and educators interested in African education and schoolfacility design in general will find this exhaustive dissertationhelpful. Those interested in the process of translating cultural values(including sustainability) into architectural design determinants foreducation will find the section on school development models mostuseful and thoroughly articulated for African values. The method ofcultural value extrapolation is useful for any stakeholder seeking totranslate cultural context into the design of learning environments. René Johny Dierkx first studied mechanical engineering beforedeveloping an interest in alternative energy systems as well as graphicand spatial design. This combination of interests led him into thefield of architecture at Delft University where he received an MSc. inArchitecture, Urban Design and Housing of Developing Countries. Dierkxhas spent time in Africa, where he worked on community developmentprojects and collected data on school conditions in Nairobi whilewriting articles for the Eindhoven University Peace Center. Currentlyhe is carrying out research on educational facilities in conflict andpost-conflict situations in the Great Lakes region of Africa. 260 Dierkx undertakes an extremely detailed and comprehensivestudy of the current problems facing primary education in Nairobi anddevelops alternative models for economically viable, environmentallyand culturally sensitive, and sustainable schools. This sounds ratherstraightforward until one considers the present deplorable conditionsfor school children in Nairobi, the city’s escalating populationgrowth, its economic forecast, and the politically-driven,culturally-based intransigence of Nairobi school development inNairobi. Using detailed data to support his assumptions and assertions,the author skillfully lays the groundwork for his study, describes hismethodology, discusses his findings and presents an inclusive modelthat is both economically sound and environmentally responsive. Perhaps the most important contribution of the thesis is the suggestionthat much of the work in improving the schools and even in building newones can be done inexpensively by communities using models devised byDierkx. He offers a thorough review of the literature on sustainabledevelopment, education, technology, and architecture. For the empiricalwork on Nairobi schools, Dierkx uses several methods of data collectionand analysis, including a survey, a design workshop with children, sitevisits, interviews, observation, video, and direct work with communitygroups, relying on qualitative and multivariate analyses. He made adocumentary on the state of Nairobi’s schools, and carefully examinedUNESCO, (UNESCO-Dakar World Education forum) UNICEF, World Bank andlocal political and economic reports in Kenya and elsewhere to build afoundation for his study. This is not the kind of document one wants to skim. Some words, grammarand punctuation are lost in translation and keep the reader alert.Often the reader finds himself longing for anchoring- as in jazzimprovisation that wanders too far afield. Nevertheless, each chapterrecaptures its course and steadily assembles a sturdy foundation. Coupled with the chapter on children’s developmental rightsand the 261 reiteration of Norbeerg-Schulz existentialistic philosophy,Gestalt’s laws of visual perception, the psychology of Piaget, Lynch’sspirit of place and Alexander’s pattern language, his best contributionis a set of original models that are formed from his literature searchand the translation of his cultural data into architecture. Heillustrates and describes the symbolic meaning of several modelsappropriate for Africa. These models reflect tribal values of harmony between man and nature,and describe materials that are indigenous to Africa. Most of theproposed school models are not rectilinear forms, but rather providecircular configurations and axes reminiscent of school and buildingplans of Native Americans. Could it be all school planners need to lookat more primitive or indigenous cultures’ “at-one-ment” with nature inmaster planning for a more healthful way to live and accommodate theeducational process for children, on every continent? There are no other works like this dissertation. Neither theCouncil for Educational Facilities International nor UNICEF hasproduced anything as inclusive as this report. The extensive datacollection in this dissertation will be a valuable source for...

The Imperial Fora of Rome: Some Design Considerations

Research in ancient Roman architectural design has come increasingly to the view that geometry was often as important as metrication and proportion. The present paper examines the contribution of both geometry and arithmetic to the design of the four imperial fora in Rome, as well as the closely related Temple of Peace. An analysis of the Forum of Augustus-the best-known of the imperial fora-shows that it was designed according to a geometric model with a particular size utilizing a "base dimension" of 146 Roman feet. Analyses of the other fora show that the same geometric model-but with a base dimension of 150 feet-can be used to generate their basic spatial divisions and dimensions. The model accounts not only for straightforward and integral dimensions or proportions, but also for irrational and nonintegral proportions hitherto unexplained. The article argues that the mixture of integral, nonintegral, and irrational metrication was a deliberate aspect of the design process, in line with the Early Imperial propensity to combine rectilinear and curvilinear architectural forms. The article concludes with a suggestion that the model originated in the Etruscan ritual division of space, which was adopted by the Romans and later applied to an increasingly broad range of building types. The model may thus have served as a kind of template or cosmogram whereby each building designed on it could embody essential features of cosmic order. It gave to each Roman building its uniquely "Italic" flavor quite separate from Greek "cosmetics." If the model's application proves to be sufficiently broad, then the possibility is raised of developing a "unified design theory" for Etruscan and Roman architecture. These issues will be broached in future articles.

Cubes are difficult things to draw

The effects of general or specific verbal instructions on the production of a visual realistic drawing were investigated. Children aged 7 and 12 years and adults were asked to draw a cube placed in front of them on a table so that the front and top faces only could be seen. The two groups of children produced more two‐segment drawings with the specific than with the general instruction. The adults drew more two‐segment forms in both conditions. Most of the 7‐year‐olds' drawings were rectilinear. Most of the 12‐year‐olds' drawings contained obliques, and the parallel oblique form was particularly dominant. Although the adults, in contrast to the children, converged the ‘depth’ lines into the distance, only a minority of them did this; a sizable proportion of adults produced rectilinear forms. The data suggest that young children are more capable of visual realism and adults are less capable than the traditional theory of pictorial representation predicts.

Official Landscapes in Traditional China

AbstractThis article is arranged in seven sections. In the first section, attention is drawn to the remarkable and extremely extensive rectilinear land layouts which can be deduced from large-scale topographical maps of northern China, to the likelihood of their having been constructed in periods of official land allocation schemes, and to various problems of procedure which arise in the attempt to study them systematically. The second section surveys the chün-t'ien land management systems, as they are known from the traditional historic sources, and a number of special features of these systems, especially the relations between changes in land allocations and changes in the official units in which they were measured. It is argued that the rectilinear forms indicated by the maps could not easily have been set up in chün-t'ien times, because the land was then already closely settled, and that the prominent strip systems which can be found on most of the maps, not always clearly an outcome of the chun-t'ien systems, suggest an earlier origin for these basic rectilinear forms. This reasoning, and even more the study of the dimensions used in the strip systems, leads back to the tradition of ching-t'ien. In the third section, examples are given of military farm layouts, which are a special and local feature of some of the maps. In the fourth section, two examples of contrasting rectilinear layouts are described and analysed as types-one from Anhwei, the other from Shensi. Both appear to be T'ang reconstructions of much older formal layouts, and both are thought to lead back to ching-t'ien through detectable steps in Ch'in or Han time. The fifth section gives three examples of layouts from Shantung, all apparently rebuilt under Northern Ch'i, but all based upon ching-t'ien foundations. The sixth section illustrates and analyses a layout from Honan, apparently reconstructed in Sui times but also apparently built upon ching-t'ien foundations. In the seventh and last section, the salient features of the argument and the interpretations are summarised.

Practical estimation of dilute solution parameters

AbstractThe concentration dependence of viscosities of dilute solutions of nonpolar polymers can be expressed generally as power series in concentration. Intrinsic viscosity is often estimated from zero concentration extrapolations of the Huggins and Kraemer equations, which are truncated versions of virial expressions in concentration. Neither form is strictly valid at most practical concentrations since real curvilinear relationships are forced into rectilinear forms. Prior methods of overcoming this deficiency by basing extrapolation methods for [η] on more extended power series have attempted to provide graphically useful solutions. This requires reduction of the power series to a two‐parameter (slope and intercept) form and the assumption of certain relations between the various factors in the initial multiparameter expression. In this work, power series expressions in concentration are solved directly by nonlinear regression analysis. It is shown that no two‐parameter solution is generally valid, although each may be of value in a particular context. Three‐parameter power series extensions of the basic Huggins and Kraemer equations represent dilute solution viscosities up to concentrations of 1% or 2% (w/v) very well. The computer‐assisted nonlinear regression analysis is easily extended to higher powers of concentration, and the use of four‐parameter forms is illustrated to represent viscosities of polystyrene solutions with concentrations as high as 9%.

On a stability criterion for creep

Stability in the presence of creep has been studied by different authors; some of these investigations were made as much as ten years ago. The majority of the published papers are concerned with problems of the stability of longitudinally compressed rods, since this represents the simplest formulation of the problem by which many of the particular characteristics of stability can be elucidated. It has to be noted that there exists a series of principally different formulations of the problems of stability in the presence of creep. In this paper, consideration will be restricted to stability of rectilinear forms of equilibrium.