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Frank Lloyd Wright : before and after 1905 : Exploration of formal design analysis in the interactive multimedia environment

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this thesis is to integrate computer use in architectural design analysis and to verify the computer's usefulness in this category of research. The vehicle of this project is the study of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses: particularly their design differences after 1905, when Wright made his first trip to Japan. The research corpus consists of the Prairie Houses designed between 1901 and 1910. The original drawings were scanned into the computer and organized as a database, "The Reference Library." With the CAD ystem, the drawings of ten selected houses were traced and studied. The difference recognized in these examples was examined against other houses using "The Reference Library." 0he CAD system was also utilized to acquire measurements in the design. This data was organized in a spreadsheet file. In addition, 3-D modeling and digital animation for two houses were undertaken. As a result of the study described above, it was found that changes in Wright's design occurred in many aspects. A greater sense of connection was observed within the house. The connection between the indoor and outdoor space was increased both visually and physically. The exterior expression was transformed from stable to dynamic. These design changes provide greater spatial fluidity, than his earlier designs afforded, and have something in common with the characteristics of traditional Japanese architecture. As the final stage of this thesis, its publication was undertaken in an interactive multimedia environment. Various aspects of this new publication format were experimented with, while still retaining some conventional publication methods. A characteristic of the computer publication is the flexibility in arranging and linking individual components. In addition, Video clips and sound clips allowed dynamic presentation. Thus, multimedia publication changes the publication tradition for all — writers, publishers and readers. Throughout this thesis, the computer showed its usefulness and potential in architectural design formal analysis. In many cases, the computer increased the efficiency of research and offered me new choices apart from conventional research methods. Each aspect of computer use examined in this thesis was found very useful and can be utilized individually in future research.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-02-15

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4610

Architecture

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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