BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN

ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Benjamin Tan Zi Hern ID No.: 0324857
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip Tutorial Time: 10-11
Reader/Text Title: Urbanism as a Way of Synopsis No: 1
Life (1938) Author: Louis Wirth
Louis Wirth argues that to constitute a definition of city, people cannot solely rely
on the quantitative characteristics. He also argues that the shift from a rural society to an
urban society is caused by the shift from agricultural to industrialism. Wirth presents the
sociological propositions comprising the theory of urbanism are the numbers of
population, density of settlement and heterogeneity of inhabitants and group life.

As a result of industrialization, the need to develop specialized task and roles are
created, thus a community can become more heterogeneous. According to Wirth,
superficial relationships are aggravated when the population in a city increases. Wirth
also state density thus reinforces the effect of numbers in diversifying men and their
activities and in increasing the complexity of social structure. The complexity of social
structure often leads to dissolution of organization and solid relationship. Next, Wirth
also stated that due to the increase of density of people in the city, different group of
people in the city are puts to use to yield the greatest economic return. The competition
and mutual exploitation created a segregation in a city, resembling a mosaic of social
worlds. According to Wirth, the heterogeneity in group life plays an important role in the
urban life. The failure of urban population to reproduce itself appears to be caused by
the complex of urban life and decline in birth-rate of urbanities. Wirth also stated when
groups are less homogenous in urban settings, adjustment must be made to the facilities
and institutions to the needs of average person rather than those particular groups.

Louis Wirths Urbanism as A Way of Life take the subject of urbanism on a

perspective to show the way people live in city in comparison to way of life in the rural
town. In my opinion, the focus of social characteristics on urbanism in this text is the
main reason that it is still lifelike in the 21st Century despite the text was written in 1980s.

Word Count: 328 Mark Grade

Assessed by: Date Page No.
 BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN
ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Benjamin Tan Zi Hern ID No.: 0324857
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip Tutorial Time: 10-11
Reader/Text Title: Body, Memory & Synopsis No: 2
Architecture Author: Kent Bloomer & Charles Moore
Kent Bloomer and Charles Moores Body, Memory and Architecture stats that the
inhabited world within boundaries can be ascribed a syntax of place, path, pattern, and
edge. The prime characteristic of a public place is public inhabitability. Paths are straight
lines and curves which can intersect. It has a nature as void ready to receive human
movement, depending on and uniting the surfaces that front on it. A more prevalent kind
of architectural path is the street, edged on one or both sides continuous buildings or
flanked by free-standing structures with spaces in between. Patterns are composed
mostly of paths and places, but it is the system by which they are related that allows us
to make sense of a bounded space. Even though paths and places make up major
variables in determining patterns, the system by which they are associated determines
the logic of a bounded space. Pattern of connections laid upon the earth within those
boundaries producing inner edges which comprehension of the place depends.

The author identified what missing from our dwellings today are the potential
transactions between body, imagination, and environment. Comfort is confused with the
absence of sensation. The collision in which buildings or landscape come against one
another is important in the making of memorable places. This collision in which neither
side loses their identities should be achieved.

According to the author, architectural design thus become a choreography of

collision which does not impair the inner vitality of its parts in expressing a collective
statement through them. To a certain scale, all places can be remembered, partly due to
how the architecture generates complex impressions or ideated sensations in our
senses. In my opinion, a true architectural quality is imbued in the richness of the
experience resulting in a complete interaction happens between space and the user.
Word Count: 303 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.
 BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN
ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Benjamin Tan Zi Hern ID No.: 0324857
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip Tutorial Time: 10-11
Reader/Text Title: Space, Place, Memory Synopsis No: 3
and Imagination Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
In the second half of Juhani Pallasmaas Space, Place, Memory and
Imagination, the author emphasized on human body and memory. Pallasmaa argues
human body are in a constant exchange with our setting. This argument contrast with
the community sentiment when the author further stated that remembering is not only a
mental event, but it involves the act of embodiment and projection which engages our
entire body.

One of the most agreeable point in this article stat that through Pallasmaas view,
architecture is a slow and quiet, emotionally a low-energy art form in comparison with
the dramatic arts. In the text, the author also argues that architecture establish frames of
perception and horizons of understanding which are needed to provide the ground and
projection screen of remembrance and emotion. The next point which also created a
resonance in my mind is Pallasmaas argument on the loss of respectful dialogue with
the past, both distant and immediate in modern architecture which leads to architectural
amnesia. Pallasmaas used the examples that human constructions of technological
age have forgotten verticality altogether, has ring the alarm in me to notice todays
skyscraper are either out of geographical and historical context, or lack of space to
elaborate on the theme of historicity.

Pallasmaa intentionally emphasize on how modernity has suffered from

architectural amnesia and bereft of identity when constructions are designed without the
consideration of the past. In modern metropolitan life, where people are keener to the
future and tend to overlook the past, architecture leans toward the direction to create
structure and no longer the exchange of experience. I believe a balance between
addressing the future and collaborate the past has to be achieve in order to create the
form of art which can survive time and stimulate the future generations.
Word Count: 296 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.
 BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN
ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (August 2017)
Name: Benjamin Tan Zi Hern ID No.: 0324857
Lecturer: Mr. Prince Favis Isip Tutorial Time: 10-11
Reader/Text Title: Towards a Critical Synopsis No: 4
Regionalism Author: Kenneth Frampton
Kenneth Framptons Towards a Critical Regionalism foresee the lack of place in
the contemporary architectures, which is relevant to the current context. Frampton
intends these conceptual guidelines and fundamental features must be considered in
creating an architecture of resistance as well as establishing well-thought designs by
integrating a sense of place within architectural spaces.

Frampton argues that the physical space of region and the place where communication
of people occurs are different. According to the author, the idea of no boundary of
physical space and the characteristics of place cannot be consisted of independent
building should be considered, especially when critical regionalism is applied in the
design. A bounded place-form should be the start point of the place instead of marking
the end of it. Besides that, Critical Regionalism necessarily involves a more directly
dialectic relation with the exterior condition of a place with the spatial configuration of a
building. One of the most agreeable point stated by Frampton is the importance of
incorporating culture and nature while creating architectural structure on the natural
environment. In my opinion, creating a building without taking account of local culture
and nature can result in an out of context structure, or worse make the built environment
unsightly. To achieve a balance between nature and culture which creating the place-
form, the preliminary research on geographical characteristics and cultural legacy must
be done. Frampton also emphasized that the cooperation between visual and other
senses experience in a design can makes architecture even deeper and interesting.

In a nutshell, I find myself in agreement with this statement as all senses play a big role
in deciding how the user feels when they are exchanging with the space. All the points
suggested by Frampton should be captured and further reinforced especially in the
process of architectural place making.
Word Count: 301 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.