architecture

The patterns of place

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:00:51 +0000

(This article originally appeared in Get Ahead Magazine, for the Get Ahead Festival of independent short films in Brooklyn.)

Leon Krier's lesson in architecture

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:36:02 +0000

Review of The Architecture of Commun

Principles published

Mathieu Helie — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:57:37 +0000

The full article conceptualizing the principles of emergent urbanism has been published by the International Journal of Architectural Research volume 3 issue 2. You can download the complete article or read the whole issue.

Design, configuration and natural form

Mathieu Helie — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:37:52 +0000

When did human creations stop being natural? We look at a tower block, a subdivision or a shopping mall parking lot and see the worst of industrial civilization translated into form. We tolerate them as necessary to achieve the material wealth of our civilization. Those human settlements that are still natural we grant special protections through UNESCO and historical preservation laws. We do not have a law that promotes the creation of new historic settlements because we are not quite sure how they are made.

Complex geometry and structured chaos part II

Mathieu Helie — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:29:52 +0000

Complexity, to employ the definition proposed by Jane Jacobs in the final chapter of Death and Life of Great American Cities, is a juxtaposition of problems. This implies that a complex solution is a juxtaposition of solutions: fractal geometry.

How does the way we build arrive at complex solutions to complex problems without driving the builders to madness? How can we solve problems which exist at every scale in space, but also exist at every scale in time? Let's take a look at St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London.

Fake Complexity - CCTV Headquarters

Mathieu Helie — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:06:56 +0000

From time to time I happen upon an attempt to "do" complexity that completely misses the point. In this first installment of many "Fake Complexity" topics, the culprit is Rem Koolhaas and his CCTV Headquarters for Beijing.

Architecture without design

Mathieu Helie — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:37:46 +0000

Just eccentric ordinary people making it up as they go along.

Architecture should be abolished

Mathieu Helie — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:24:36 +0000

Just what exactly does this have to do with constructing buildings and cities? When you can just as easily make jewelry as boats, you are not an architect. You are someone who draws shapes.

Complex geometry and structured chaos

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:08:42 +0000

Fractal geometry has infiltrated popular culture since it was formalized in the early 80's from the works of Benoit Mandelbrot. While it has been used to study the form of cities by researchers such as Pierre Frankhauser and Michael Batty, the insights to be drawn from this field of mathematics have not yet penetrated the field of urbanism, defined as the construction of cities.