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Maximizing spatial utilization within tall buildings stands as a paramount planning consideration for ensuring project feasibility, particularly accentuated ins the context of hotel constructions. To date, no comprehensive study has addressed this issue while considering crucial architectural and structural planning factors. This article fills this gap by using a case study method based on data from 31 contemporary tall hotel towers. The findings revealed several key points: (i) central core typology was mostly utilized; (ii) prismatic buildings were the most prevalent forms; (iii) shear-walled frame systems were predominantly employed; (iv) concrete was the preferred choice for hotel construction; (v) the average space efficiency and the ratio of core area to gross floor area (GFA) averaged 81.2% and 16%, respectively; (vi) the range changed from a minimum of 70% to 4% to a maximum of 94% to 28%; and (vii) space efficiency showed an inverse relationship with the height of the building. It is anticipated that this paper will assist architects and structural engineers as well as builders involved in the planning of hotel developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflection and transparency are two valuable properties associated with the use of glass as an architectural material. While proponents of modernism favored transparency over reflection, whether in its physical or conceptual implications, to justify the designs of façades of Modernist buildings and in architectural criticism, contemporary architects are revisiting the neglected trait of 'reflection'. Taking advantage of the technological advances in glass and other materials that have taken reflection to new limits, they are able to design reflective façades, providing new implications and significance. This paper aims to fill the theoretical gap that arises from the different conceptual ideas of using reflective façades. It will also explore the implications intended by architects to be perceived by viewers, thereby facilitating the future use of these façades in a way that satisfies architects and attracts beholders. The research methodology employed thematic analysis of various experiences of the use of reflective façades in different buildings with diverse functions and locations. The vocabulary used by architects and their intended implications were analyzed, coded, and categorized under three main themes: 'Aesthetics of Disappearance', 'Games of Optical Illusions', and 'Mystery and Arousing Curiosity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country with few restrictions on architectural styles. The main aim of this paper was to investigate a group of participants' unconscious emotional responses to images of traditional and modern architectural styles in the UAE. All images were from the city of Dubai, but participants were from elsewhere to avoid the influence of familiarity. A physiological method was used to measure the unconscious emotional responses to the images' visual contexts, specifically the emotions of stress, engagement, interest, focus, excitement, and relaxation. Six architects working in the UAE were then interviewed for their interpretations of both the images themselves and the participants' emotional responses. A sample of 29 male laypeople (aged 18–45) participated in this study, divided into locals from Al Ain city, locals from the northern emirates, and nonlocals. The results showed that the brand image provided observers with better emotional quality than the foreign image for local participants from Al Ain, and that nonlocal participants showed strong emotional responses to the traditional architecture, but the northern Emiratis remained neutral. The findings of this study contribute to emotion studies in the field of meaning in architecture. It also validates the effectiveness of a physiological method of investigating the emotional responses to architectural styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renowned architect Antonin Raymond undertook a large amount of work in Japan for more than fifty years. He arrived to the archipelago as a partner to Frank Lloyd Wright, who had received the commission for the paramount Imperial Hotel. Nevertheless, Raymond became almost revolutionary in that country for his realizations of projects and buildings. Simultaneously, he pioneered the concept of solar houses, a notion that proved to be fundamental for bioclimatic design. Raymond realized that because of the influence of geomancy and Daoism, the buildings of Japan had a sort of cosmic link, especially to the sun and the seasons, and in this way, he took great concern with solar exposure, shading, and daylighting, both in the way in which they were composed and also in the materials that were employed, such as lumber, reed roofs, and paper screens. We have tried to identify these trends in his most significant buildings and establish a sequence of how they evolved towards a contemporary and truly sustainable design. The main result presented is that for the reasons presented, Raymond influenced a number of celebrated architects in Japan, India, and the USA. In fact, instead of pursuing the pure abstract minimalism common in his epoch, he made use of the ideas of naturalism in architecture, which in the case of Asia were related to ritual cosmology. In this article, we have outlined how such a procedure was possible and what it entailed for complex domains such as sun-lighting and daylighting, ventilation, acoustics, and re-interpretation of vernacular architecture. The connection with the main forces of the environment, which effectively interact through architecture, when considered from a philosophical and even spiritual point of view as he did, resulted in a kind of artistic revitalization of traditions belonging to Daoism and Shintoism and inaugurated a new manner of sustainable thinking for the building profession that endures today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, new alternatives have been applied to enhance the architectural design process through comprehensive interaction with all variables. This approach suggests a dynamic scheme to collect all factors comprehensively. This research introduces approaches to better cognition of architectural concepts based on the site context parameter. It investigates the role of site context in generating architectural ideas by formulating a model of analysis to find similarities and differences in senior architects' strategies. This approach aims to adapt context to explore aspects that may create diversity in architectural products. The reality is that creating original architectural concepts has received progressively less attention in the professional practice of architecture in recent decades. The research applied a mixed methodology, checklist factors and graphical analysis. It used a two-level method with several steps to evaluate the twelve international cases related to deconstructive architects (Eisenman, Koolhaas, and Hadid). This study concludes that creating a site context that supports the surrounding context can enrich the design concept and create unexpected results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of human society, more construction and building materials are required to produce sustainable construction. The advancement of polymer materials and their use in building construction has been improved. Compared to inorganic materials, polymer materials offer numerous superior qualities and may also be modified to increase their usefulness. Additionally, although bio-polymeric materials have effectively supplanted many conventional materials in various relevant disciplines, their applications in construction, including building façades and so on, have been quite limited up to now. Nowadays, most architects and engineers find it challenging to choose materials due to the proliferation of new materials and the market availability of various manufacturing techniques. This emphasizes the necessity of adopting a unique scientific strategy for the materials selection process to assist in picking the most suitable materials for the necessary civil application rather than following an obsolete traditional selection path that depends mostly on prior subjective personal experiences. This review article has identified critical concerns, inspired more study, and provided crucial insights into the prospective field of synthetic and natural construction and building polymeric materials towards sustainable construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People spend up to 45% of their time in their living space, which has a major impact on their physical and mental health, behaviour, happiness and overall life satisfaction. In these times of rapid change and new, modern demands on living, it is necessary to understand the needs of residents and current design trends in order to incorporate both into the design of new living spaces. The aim of this study is to use the views of residents and architects collected through surveys to rank apartments and identify differences in the definition of what a high-quality apartment would be based on their spatial characteristics. The previously developed Housing Quality Assessment Model was used to assess the 126 most represented apartment layouts in the city of Osijek, Croatia, built since 1930. Apartment layouts were further divided according to the time of their construction, location, and size for comparison purposes. The research shows that residents rated apartments with higher ratings than architects in all categories and that residents and architects gave different ratings on certain characteristics of the apartment, e.g., the existence of additional storage space, the existence of a bathroom window, the size and orientation of living rooms, the type of spatial organisation, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the design process, architectural layout configuration is subject to complex constraints such as site conditions and design requirements, resulting in limited design efficiency. This research aims to provide architects with an effective design tool that can generate reference-worthy underground parking layout solutions based on the given site information. In this research, we extract spatial modules from underground parking layouts, and transform the design constraints into adjacency rules based on the analysis of the configuration process for underground parking layout, then develop a generation and optimization model of the underground parking layout based on the WaveFunctionCollapse algorithm (WFC) and Multi-objective Optimization (MOO), and verify the effectiveness of the model through experiments. The results show that with given plan contour and entrance/exit locations as inputs, the model can efficiently generate architectural layout solutions that meet the design objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UAE's thriving real estate market has resulted in a highly diversified built environment, attracting architects from around the world. However, this has also led to a misconception within the architectural practice and its regularization, particularly concerning acceptable professional qualifications. Therefore, this study aims to address these issues and provide a blueprint for policymakers and stakeholders. This study provided a comprehensive overview of architectural practice in the UAE by identifying the services offered by professionals in the built environment and categorizing them based on their qualifications and professional titles. The study adopts a classical research method, which includes a literature review, unstructured interviews, a statistical survey, and analysis. The study identifies 13 building designs and allied services commonly provided by professionals in the built environment in the UAE. The professionals providing these services are categorized based on their qualifications and professional titles, which include registered architects, architect engineers, architectural consultants, engineering consultants, and project managers. Furthermore, the study clarifies the definition of an acceptable qualification for a principal architect, which can be used as a reference by young professionals to understand the trends in architectural qualification and practice. The results of the study can also be used by policymakers and stakeholders to address the issues in professional practice and improve the quality of architectural services in the UAE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In current architectural practice projects, the external visual image presented by many buildings ignores the interpretation of the environment and the local context, as well as the emotional feeling of people in visual cognition. At present, some indicators in the field of architectural design can be analyzed quantitatively, but the evaluation criteria related to vision remain in the stage of relying on experience and feeling so that the design result cannot be controlled accurately. This article reports the study of the influence of building distribution form and the ratio of the shorter side to longer side of building blocks (the S/L ratio) on the visual integration relationship between buildings and the natural environment, based on eye-tracker experiments. Six actual completed projects were chosen for evaluation in two experiments. This study uses eye-tracking recorded data to investigate the influence of two elements (the distribution of building blocks and the S/L ratio of building blocks) on the visual integration relationship of buildings and environment. It provides a theoretical approach that helps to improve architects' building-design practices when working in different natural environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of contemporary Lithuanian architecture is influenced by architects from different periods with different attitudes. This is manifested by increasing miscommunication between generations of architects and a crisis of values. Various tensions in the community of architects triggered the idea to look to the past and examine the self-awareness of professional architects in Soviet society. In this study, we delved into their understanding of the architect's mission, role, status, and significance in society through their expectations, powers, impact, and perceived responsibility. This study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 9prominent and influential architects who received their professional education in post-war Lithuania and were actively working in the Soviet period (1955–1990) and later. In general, Lithuanian architects managed to withstand Soviet doctrine and remained loyal to Western cultural values. The study's findings reveal five components of the architect's self-awareness, which define the dual scope of this field, where architects perform their direct professional tasks and where they express themselves as people of culture. The self-awareness crisis becomes prominent in the main axis of the architect's choice of art creator vs. service provider, where Lithuanian modernists position themselves as artist–creator', leading to frustration regarding the current reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]