In 1930 the French government celebrated the French Algerian Centennial, marking 100 years of colonial occupation. As part of the event, architect Leon Claro designed the Indigenous House of the Centennial based on a standardized version of the courtyard house found in the Casbah of Algiers. This description is from Dr. Zeynep Celik from her... Continue Reading →
This is the last of three posts of a review of the book After Amnesia: Learning from the Islamic Mediterranean Urban Fabric Colonial interventions receive surprisingly abbreviated attention in After Amnesia's analysis. This is not to say that the role of colonization had been marginalized, nor is it to say the costs of such... Continue Reading →
Petruccioli outlines a number of definitions in an effort to further frame his argument. He differentiates between the linguistic terms langue and parole (the former being all the collective rules of language codified, while the latter is one individual's use of language) to explain the evolution of building types. “A [building] type may be a... Continue Reading →
Part one of a book review of Attilio Petruccioli's book After Amnesia: Learning from the Islamic Mediterranean Urban Fabric. After Amnesia: Learning from the Islamic Mediterranean Urban Fabric (2007) is the culmination of decades of research, interest and teaching of Islamic Mediterranean cities. The author, Attilio Petruccioli, serves as Dean at the School of Architecture... Continue Reading →
Today I graduated from PennDesign with a Masters of Architecture. My sister was kind enough to give me a copy of The Architecture of Happiness as a graduation gift. I hope to enjoy a bit more balanced life and get a chance to read the book soon. A few weeks ago, while reading The Bully... Continue Reading →
The following essay is an abstract for my final studio. The research studio was led by Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake, Jacob Mans and assisted by Billie Faircloth, all of the architecture firm KieranTimberlake. The final review will be tomorrow, May 8th in their offices. Computers and cell phones provide massive improvements in connectivity and productivity, but also... Continue Reading →
The Case Studies in Contemporary Urbansim, Landscape Architecture and Design had an exit essay of sorts, which I wrote this time last year. A portion is represented here: One of the most important lessons offered in this course is that urbanism is a study of four dimensions, not simply three. We covered a few examples of... Continue Reading →
This post is part of a few others on mapping and neighborhood identity. Another look at Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City, today focusing on the research methodology and the maps derived from this research. Lynch and his team sought out 30 people (admittedly mostly professional and definitely not a random sample of citizens)... Continue Reading →
One of the first reading assignments I had in architecture was Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (PDF link to the intro and chapter 4). A few quotes from his introduction explain the focus of his studies. "This book will assert that legibility is crucial in the city setting." How does the general public, or a... Continue Reading →
In West Philadelphia the Belmont neighborhood is defined by Lancaster Ave to the south, 40th St to the east, Belmont Ave to the west and the Septa tracks to the north. These four borders give definition to a place and a neighborhood. Depending on who you ask, this area could be considered part of Mantua, and... Continue Reading →
Adam Achrati 