The problem of designing facades within an industrialized building system : a technical analysis for criticising and evaluating contemporary buildings

Abstract

Designing facades is one of the most important and delicate problems in contemporary architecture. The facade is the changing zone par excelience within which the structural elements of technology meld into refined details of art and together constitute Architecture. The facade is also an interface. or link, between two faces 1 and phases: the facade reflects the evolution of the plan for the private interior side. and is also the expression of the plan on the public exterior side. Very strong tensions. defined spatially. temporally, and architecturally are generated and constantly renewed by interior and exterior forces. Resolving these forces architecturally and artistically through building systems design. modern technology. and a vocabulary meaningful to users is tremendously problematic in the evaluation and critic of three case studies. This will be the subject of this thesis. in which the aspect of repetition in facades will be a dominant aspect.