Analogical Thinking In Architecture

This book provides an in-depth exploration of the rich and persistent use of analogical thinking in the built environment. Since the turn of the 21st century, “design thinking” has permeated many fields outside of the design disciplines. It is expected to succeed whenever disciplinary boundaries need to be transcended in order to think “outside the box.” This book argues that these qualities have long been supported by “analogical thinking”-an agile way of reasoning in which think the unknown through the familiar. The book is organized into four case studies: the first reviews analogical models that have been at the heart of design thinking representations from the 1960s to the present day; the second investigates the staying power of biological analogies; the third explores the paradoxical imaginary of "analogous cities" as a means of integrating contemporary architecture with heritage contexts; while the fourth unpacks the critical and theoretical potential of linguistic metaphors and visual comparisons in architectural discourse. Comparing views on the role of analogies and metaphors by prominent voices in architecture and related disciplines from the 17th century to the present, the book shows how the “analogical world of the project” is revealed as a wide-open field of creative and cognitive interactions. These visual and textual operations are explained through 36 analogical plates which can be read as an inter-text demonstrating how analogy has the power to reconcile design and theories.

Analogical thought is fundamental to creativity. The use of analogy can help to solve problems, make connections between disciplines, and use those relations to form original solutions. In Analogy and Design, Andrea Ponsi considers the role of analogical thought in architectural design. Almost all work in design and architecture is the result of analogical thinking, with respect to systems derived from nature, technical and scientific models, artistic experiences, and above all past models of architecture or objects. Ponsi considers the history of architecture through a series of examples that demonstrate the value of analogy as both creative technique and didactic tool. As an architect and product designer, Ponsi himself operates on a set of principles he terms "analogous design"--a theory he developed that involves breaking down images into abstract elements, analyzing them, and then conceptually reassembling them in another form as a sort of parallel composition. In Analogy and Design, he looks at the principal models designers have utilized as their reference from the beginning to our own day: primary analogies, that is to say the human body, nature, and the abstract universe of signs; disciplinary analogies, taken from already existing examples of architecture and design; and analogies from outside the field, such as from music, literature, and the visual arts. The components are very different, but they maintain a similar relationship to each other. This methodology, Ponsi maintains, can be applied to compositions of a wide variety of types, including buildings, landscapes, household products, furniture, music, and literature. Merging scientific and academic research--so often limited to a specialized audience--Analogy and Design lays down the principles of analogous design, enabling a student or practitioner to "see" works and materials in a new way.

"Since the turn of the 21st century, "design thinking" has permeated many fields outside of the design disciplines. It is expected to succeed whenever disciplinary boundaries need to be transcended, and it is imperative when thinking "outside the box." This book argues that these qualities have long been supported by "analogical thinking"-an agile way of reasoning in which symbolic connections allow designers to address the complexities of the design process. An active field in cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy, "analogical thinking" has yet to be theorized within the built environment. Analogical Thinking in Architecture looks at how this approach offers an agile way to respond to the heterogeneous, and often contradictory, value systems prevalent in architectural design. The book is organized into four case studies: the first reviews analogies in current models of design thinking; the second surveys the revivals of biological analogies from the 19th to the 21st century; the third probes cult architect Aldo Rossi's theory of the Città Analoga (Analogous City); while the fourth uncovers the role of analogies in critical and theoretical writing. Offering a reappraisal of theories on the role of "analogical thinking" by prominent architects, including Rossi, Peter Eisenman, and Frederick Kiesler; historians Peter Colins and Philip Steadman; and theoreticians Geoffrey Broadbent, Colin Rowe, Peter G. Rowe, Chris Abel and Donald A. Schön; the book provides both a comprehensive introduction to the concept of "analogical thinking" in architecture and the first theorization of analogy specifically within the field of the built environment"--

Similarity and analogy are fundamental in human cognition. They are crucial for recognition and classification, and have been associated with scientific discovery and creativity. Any adequate understanding of similarity and analogy requires the integration of theory and data from diverse domains. This interdisciplinary volume explores current development in research and theory from psychological, computational, and educational perspectives, and considers their implications for learning and instruction. The distinguished contributors examine the psychological processes involved in reasoning by similarity and analogy, the computational problems encountered in simulating analogical processing in problem solving, and the conditions promoting the application of analogical reasoning in everyday situations.

This book tells the history of the many analogies that have been made between the evolution of organisms and the human production of artefacts, especially buildings. It examines the effects of these analogies on architectural and design theory and considers how recent biological thinking has relevance for design. Architects and designers have looked to biology for inspiration since the early 19th century. They have sought not just to imitate the forms of plants and animals, but to find methods in design analogous to the processes of growth and evolution in nature. This new revised edition of this classic work adds an extended Afterword covering recent developments such as the introduction of computer methods in design in the 1980s and ‘90s, which have made possible a new kind of ‘biomorphic’ architecture through ‘genetic algorithms’ and other programming techniques.

This book is the first scientific study to focus on awards in architecture and the built environment investigating their exponential growth since the 1980s. The celebration of excellence in architecture and related fields remains a phenomenon on which there is strangely little scientific scrutiny. What is to be understood from the plethora of award-winning projects, award-winning buildings and awarded professional practices in the built environment, year after year? Glossy images partake in an intense ballet at every local, regional, national or international award ceremony and they are meant to embody proofs of architectural excellence. However, it is necessary to take a critical distance to question what awards are meant to embody, symbolize, and perhaps measure. Each of the 10 chapters in this volume is centered on one question related to themes as varied as the comparison of Pritzker and Nobel Prizes, the Prix de Rome, the redefinition of quality through awards, green awards and sustainability, the multiplication of sustainable awards, heritage awards, architecture book awards, the awarding of school architecture, awards as mediations and awards as pedagogical devices. Many fields, once consolidated, have featured a sharp increase in related prizes. The original data, compiled and summarized in 4 appendices cover more than 150 award-granting organizations in some 30 countries. Our inventory includes upwards of 24,000 prizes awarded at more than 3,100 events, the earliest of which is the first instance of Western architecture’s seminal Grand Prix de Rome in France in 1720. A history of contemporary architecture is thus written through press releases that praise the merits of the heroes as much as their works and achievements. And while awards can be vehicles that propel architecture forward, they can also be Trojan horses in an era that is constantly on the lookout for event-driven products, small and big news, and brand imaging.

Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of ArchitecturalTheory collects in a single volume the most significant essays on architectural theory of the last thirty years. A dynamic period of reexamination of the discipline, the postmodern eraproduced widely divergent and radical viewpoints on issues of making, meaning, history, and the city. Among the paradigms presented arearchitectural postmodernism, phenomenology, semiotics, poststructuralism, deconstruction, and feminism. By gathering these influential articles from a vast array of books and journals into a comprehensive anthology, Kate Nesbitt has created a resource of great value. Indispensable to professors and students of architecture and architectural theory, Theorizing a New Agenda also serves practitioners and the general public, as Nesbitt provides an overview, a thematic structure, and a critical introduction to each essay. The list of authors in Theorizing a New Agenda reads like a "Who's Who" of contemporary architectural thought: Tadao Ando, Giulio Carlo Argan, Alan Colquhoun, Jacques Derrida, Peter Eisenman, Marco Frascari, Kenneth Frampton, Diane Ghirardo, Vittorio Gregotti, Karsten Harries, Rem Koolhaas, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Aldo Rossi, Colin Rowe, Thomas Schumacher, Ignasi de Sol-Morales Rubi, Bernard Tschumi, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and Anthony Vidler. A bibliography and notes on all the contributors are also included.

The real power for security applications will come from the synergy of academic and commercial research focusing on the specific issue of security. Special constraints apply to this domain, which are not always taken into consideration by academic research, but are critical for successful security applications: large volumes: techniques must be able to handle huge amounts of data and perform 'on-line' computation; scalability: algorithms must have processing times that scale well with ever growing volumes; automation: the analysis process must be automated so that information extraction can 'run on its own'; ease of use: everyday citizens should be able to extract and assess the necessary information; and robustness: systems must be able to cope with data of poor quality (missing or erroneous data). The NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Mining Massive Data Sets for Security, held in Italy, September 2007, brought together around ninety participants to discuss these issues. This publication includes the most important contributions, but can of course not entirely reflect the lively interactions which allowed the participants to exchange their views and share their experience. The bridge between academic methods and industrial constraints is systematically discussed throughout. This volume will thus serve as a reference book for anyone interested in understanding the techniques for handling very large data sets and how to apply them in conjunction for solving security issues.