tailieunhanh - THE MATHEMATICS OF THE IDEAL VILLA

Many Roman villas had under-floor heating which would have been especially useful in the British winter! The Roman name, hypocaust, is Ancient Greek meaning ‘fire beneath’. The floor was supported on short columns made of stacked tiles. A fire would be kept burning (very hard work for the slaves!) in the furnace room, and the hot air would move through the under-floor area, heating the rooms above. The hot air and smoke escaped through channels in the walls. To make your hypocaust system, you will need to raise up your whole villa by around 6cm. Create two piles of three or four books underneath buildings 1 and 3 and. | The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa First published in the Architectural Review 1947. 2 The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa There are two causes of beauty natural and customary. Natural is from geometry consisting in uniformity that is equality and proportion. Customary beauty is begotten by the use as familiarity breeds a love for things not in themselves lovely. Here lies the great occasion of errors but always the true test is natural or geometrical beauty. Geometrical figures are naturally more beautiful than irregular ones the square the circle are the most beautiful next the parallelogram and the oval. There are only two beautiful positions of straight lines perpendicular and horizontal this is from Nature and consequently necessity no other than upright being firm. Sir Christopher Wren Parentalia As the ideal type of centralized building Palladio s Villa Capra-Rotonda Plate 1 has perhaps more than any other house imposed itself upon the imagination. Mathematical abstract four square without apparent function and totally memorable its derivatives have enjoyed universal distribution and when he writes of it Palladio is lyrical. The site is as pleasant and delightful as can be found because it is on a small hill of very easy access and is watered on one side by the Bacchiglione a navigable river and on the other it is encompassed about with most pleasant risings which look like a very great theatre and are all cultivated about with most excellent fruits and most exquisite vines and therefore as it enjoys from every part most beautiful views some of which are limited some more extended and others which terminate with the horizon there are loggias made in all four When the mind is prepared for the one by the other a passage from Le Corbusier s Precisions may be unavoidably reminiscent of this. No less lyrical but rather more explosive Le Corbusier is describing the site of his Savoye House at Poissy Plate 2 . Le site une vaste pelouse bombée en dome .