Nexus Network Journal – serie

Through time, thought has reflected on the visible processes and products of material craft to explain and train the invisible workings of the mind. Mythic parables, geometric proofs, memory arts, poems, algorithms, buildings and cities emerge from the intercourse of measure and explication.

The Spring 2011 (vol. 13 no. 1) issue of the Nexus Network Journal features eight papers that resulted from the 2010 Nexus conference section on Shape and Shape Grammars. Guest editor Lionel March provides an introduction for the entire group. The papers were selected to spread themes as widely and representatively as possible. George Stiny provides a keynote paper with theoretical insights, while other papers range from pedagogical applications in the architectural studio to shape language and style in classical Chinese architecture; from shape grammars and descriptions used to ‘decode Alberti’, to their use as an aid to the rehabilitation of housing stock in Lisbon; from the creation of a design system involving a parametric shape grammar with descriptions to generate urban block layouts within a defined spatial region, to a novel example of a kinetic shape grammar simulating human body movements. Among the authors are George Stiny, Mine Özkar, Andrew Li, José Duarte, Rudi Stouffs,Mario Krüger, Filipe Coutinho, José Beirão Alexandra Paio, Benamy Turkienicz, Sara Eloy, Maria da Piedade Ferriera, Duarte Cabral de Mello, and others.

2) issue of the Nexus Network Journal features eight papers that resulted from the eighth international, interdisciplinary conference entitled “Nexus 2010: Relationships between Architecture and Mathematics, held in Porto, Portugal, in June 2010.

This is an outgrowth of the session by the same name which took place during the eighth international, interdisciplinary conference “Nexus 2010: Relationships between Architecture and Mathematics, held in Porto, Portugal, in June 2010.

The Winter 2012 (vol. 14 no. 1) issue of the Nexus Network Journal is dedicated to the theme “Architecture, Systems Research and Computational Sciences”. This is an outgrowth of the session by the same name which took place during the eighth international, interdisciplinary conference “Nexus 2010: Relationships between Architecture and Mathematics, held in Porto, Portugal, in June 2010. Today computer science is an integral part of even strictly historical investigations, such as those concerning the construction of vaults, where the computer is used to survey the existing building, analyse the data and draw the ideal solution. What the papers in this issue make especially evident is that information technology has had an impact at a much deeper level as well: architecture itself can now be considered as a manifestation of information and as a complex system. The issue is completed with other research papers, conference reports and book reviews.

This book explores Persian architecture and mathematics, including domed structures and two-dimensional patterns, elaborate geometry and complex three-dimensional structures of historic monuments, from mathematical ideas to architectonic structures.

This title features papers that examine issues in digital fabrication as well as different mathematical instruments applied to architecture, including geometric tracing systems, proportional systems, descriptive geometry and correspondence analysis.

From ancient to modern, architects have looked for fundamental underlying principles of geometry and proportion on which to found their designs. Such principles not only provide an order for the formal elements, they ground the architecture in timeless values and provide an order for the formal elements, they ground the architecture in timeless values and provide a source of cultural meaning. This book illustrates the use of fundamental principles of geometry and proportion in two ancient cultures, the Bronze Age and the Roman Age, as well as in twentieth-century North America.

This book presents an exploration of the arch from the points of view of architecture, mathematics, engineering, construction history, and cultural symbolism. Leonardo da Vinci described the arch as "two weaknesses which, leaning on each other, become a strength," a metaphor for the way that science and art lean on each other to strengthen our lives.

This issue is dedicated to various kinds of patterns in architecture. Buthayna Eilouti and Amer Al-Jokhadar address patterns in shape grammars in the ground plans of Mamluk madrasas, religious schools. Giulio Magli goes back further in history, to the age of Greek colonies in Italy before they were conquered by the Romans, to examine patterns in urban design. In Traditional Patterns in Pyrgi of Chios: Mathematics and Community Charoula Stathopoulou examines the geometric patterns that decorate the buildings of the town of Pyrgi, on the Greek island of Chios. Curve Fitting is a study of ways to construct a function so that its graph most closely approximates the pattern given by a set of points. Dirk Huylebrouck’s paper examines how a pattern of points extracted from an arch might be associated to a precise mathematical curve. James Harris looks at the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and Piet Mondrian to extract the rules of their pattern generation and propose possible applications.

This volume is dedicated to "Mechanics in Architecture", that is, the science of structural mechanics, including the behaviour of structures, internal forces, and deformation, as well as the development of new structural systems to resist thrusts as a result of new architectural forms. It is a field of enquiry that examines a particular aspect of the relationships between architecture and the mathematical sciences. Some of the papers in this issue were presented at the Nexus 2006 conference during a special session dedicated to mechanics. Other research papers focus on an eighteenth-century Belgian pyramid, aspects of "fractal" architecture, and properties of a family of irrational values. The issue also includes a description and evaluation of a university-level course in architecture and mathematics, Rachel Fletcher's Geometer's Angle column, and book reviews.

The quintessential Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci was well aware of the fundamental importance of mathematics for architecture. This issue of the Nexus Network Journal examines Leonardo’s knowledge of theoretical mathematics, explores how he used concepts of geometry in his designs for architectural projects, and reports on a real-life construction project using Leonardo’s principles. Authors include Sylvie Duvernoy, Kim Williams, Rinus Roelofs, Biagio Di Carlo, Mark Reynolds, João Pedro Xavier, Vesna Petresin, Christopher Glass, and Jane Burry. To complete the issue Rachel Fletcher writes her Geometer’s Angle column on "Dynamic Symmetry", Michael Ostwald reviews A Theory of General Ethics by Warwick Fox, Sarah Clough Edwards reviews Inigo Jones and the Classical Tradition by Christy Anderson, and Sylvie Duvernoy reviews Architecture and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt by Corinna Rossi.

This volume features a collection of papers dedicated to "Canons of Form-Making", in honor of the 500th anniversary of the birth of architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). Theorist as well as practitioner, Palladio's architecture was based on well-defined canons that he had gleaned from studying the treatises as well as the remains of architecture from antiquity. Palladio himself left to posterity not only his large corpus of built works, but his Quattro libri d'architettura. Three of the papers in this issue are specifically about Palladio and his work. The other papers deal with canons of form-making, ancient and contemporary.

In celebration of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, this issue of the Nexus Network Journal is devoted to relationships between astronomy, mathematics and architecture. Ancient cultures looked to the heavens in order to identify timeless principles for their own creations. Knowledge gained in astronomy was transformed into culture through architecture and design. Papers in this issue look at how astronomy influenced architecture and urban design.

The title of this issue of the Nexus Network Journal, "Architecture, Mathematics and Structure," is deliberately ambiguous. But on a deeper level, the fundamental concept of structure is what connects architecture to mathematics. Both architecture and mathematics are highly structured formal systems expressed through a symbolic language.