Manuel de Miguel Sánchez

Wayfinding Systems and Color to Increase Well-Being in Healthcare Facilities Spaces

The aim of the analysis about the suitability and functionality of the signaling system and the application of color in Spanish public healthcare facilities is to detect anomalies and, consequently, to propose improvements in the comfort and state of mind of its visitors. We often forget that a good architectural design, beyond its ability to properly organize spaces, can provide well-being to its users taking into account a series of measures related to sensory perceptions. Light, color, visual relationship between exterior and interior spaces, orientation and comfort in the inside movements, or adequacy and spatial proportionality depending on the uses, are some of the factors that affect the tranquility of the users.

Drawings of the Guastavino Company: Innovation and Promotion

John Ochsendorf, in his book, Guastavino Vaulting, says that the patents of this valencian builder, settled in the United States during the last decades of the XIX century, are not original contributions. Although some builders may have been using such a system in Spain at the time, “Guastavino appears to have been the first to treat it as a modern, standardized system, using new materials and rigorously detailing the construction methods” (Ochsendorf 2010, 155). The father and son devoted significant time to develop technical and technological innovations. They achieved an advantageous position in the market due to their exclusivity in the construction of vaults in the late nineteenth century. And they achieved a great prestige among the leading architects, belonging to the American Renaissance, in the early twentieth century. The timbrel vault, first seemed to be just a light constructive solution, economic, and fire resistant. Then it became a hallmark, appreciated for its aesthetic qualities and its image of consistency and durability. There is a large bibliography about the achievements of Guastavino’s Company, that analyzes them in constructive, structural and even commercial terms. However it is important not to forget that many of the buildings, in which Guastavino’s vaults were included, have been characterized by the configuration of the space that they provide (Collins 2001). It is a combination of efficient construction, structural challenge and a spectacular image. Drawings of calculation, layout and detail of these vaults show clearly their rules of construction and include graphics that explain the performance of its structure. They try to show an image of transparency and honesty in construction. Both, drawings of patents and promotional posters fulfill that task, conveying sincerity. The commercial skills of Rafael Guastavino Jr. complement his father’s manner of working, implementing structural and acoustic improvements, without losing his technical rigor. The aim of this paper is to study several drawings published by the Guastavino Company, analyzing them from the graphic and architectural point of view. For this we turn to the sources of the original publications. We will study the graphic context, so we can understand the visual impact that the images sought to produce, both to potential customers as well as the general public.

Drawing and Mathematics. An Integrated Teaching

In 2011 it was started, at the School of Architecture of Alcala, a new course called: Taller de Dibujo II. Its main goal was to convey the importance of studying an architectural object from different points of view. The link would be the geometry, the coordinated subjects: design and mathematics. Teachers from both departments began an integrating task. They had two different ways of understanding teaching. It would be a subject in constant evolution. So we started an educational innovation project, which is ongoing (UAH/EV519). In the last ten years the importance of the parameterization has grown significantly in fields like design, engineering and architecture. Our School of architecture implemented an interdisciplinary group that was able to introduce these new skills. “The rigorous parameterization requires the assimilation of concepts much closer to mathematic geometry and software programming” (Coloma and Mesa in Revista EGA 19:200, 2012). But some experiences around the subject have put their emphasis on tools, neglecting, in our opinion, the methodological basis. Although traditional teaching materials are not fully useful to this new subject, accumulated experiences are very valuable. Grassa-Miranda and Gimenez (Revista EGA 15:156, 2010) regarding the traditional teaching of geometry states that “The grammar or guiding principles of the Spanish sistema diedrico uses the projective schema of a model to build the student’s spatial thinking, while the Anglo-Saxon direct method relies on the reconstruction of a mental image of the geometric configuration” In a similar way, we considered the importance of the object opposite to the system, or the process. Therefore, the starting points of our methodology are the works of architecture and engineering. Objects with a complex geometry, especially those which curves and surfaces are able to be parameterized. The curve and surface become that way, protagonists of the experience. The next step is to thoroughly analyze through operations of modification and intersection. A good analysis of a work with a complex geometry, involves the preliminary study of the project and the knowledge of the difficulties and intentions of the author. Often the most interesting geometric designs arise from the need of finding creative solutions for complex problems with the most simple and balance response, as a whole. Many of the works built by Torroja, Candela, Dieste, Maillart, Isler, Freyssinet, Frei Otto, Fisac and many others, show that the study of the object cannot be limited to the representation of form. In this article we will show our experience and several possibilities to develop about the subject. We will describe the overall strategy and present some concrete exercises defining our scope. Finally we will propose several alternatives for further applications in future editions of the course.

La arquitectura española reciente a través de las bienales españolas de arquitectura y urbanismo

The 11th edition of the Spanish Architecture and Urbanism Biennial was held last April 2011; this is an architecture award promoted by the Spanish Ministerio de Fomento, (Ministry of Public Works). For more than twenty years, out of nearly four thousand works that were submitted to the contest, barely three hundred were selected as finalist works. This present study is part of a doctoral thesis titled “Twenty years of Spanish Architecture and Urbanism Biennials”, written by one of the authors, and it aims at utilizing this award as a selection filter and tool to comprehend the evolution of the architectural works in Spain in the recent past, for the last twenty years. Our intention is to extract cases whose graphic expression reveals the cultural moment of its contemporary time, in Spain and abroad, as well as its communication abilities, which were designed by the architects that created these works.