Slide 1
Architecture
The Art and Science of Building
What do a theater,
Slide 2
State
Theater
Uniontown
an old tavern,
Slide 3
Mt. Washington Tavern
Farmington
Slide 4
Fort Necessity
Farmington
a stockade
an abandoned coke oven
Slide 5
Coke Ovens
Shoaf
a museum
Slide 6
Flat Iron Building
Brownsville
Slide 7
a vacation home
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 8
Your House
Slide 9
and your house—have in
common? They are all part
of the built environment and
are examples of
architecture, the art and
science of building.
Architecture is all around
us—we live, work, play,
shop, and worship in
architecture. It is so much a
part of our lives that we
seldom think about it.
Why are certain buildings so
ideally suited to their
purposes while others are a
constant inconvenience?
What makes a building stand
up or fall down? What makes
one building “beautiful” to
some people and “ugly” to
others?
Slide 10
Slide 11
Three aspects of
architecture
„Building Use
„Building Structure
„Building Appearance
Building Use
„How
a building is designed
to suit the type of work
that it does
Slide 12
Ohler Farm House
Mill Run
We can begin to answer
these questions as we
explore three aspects of
architecture.
Building use: how a building
is designed to the suit the
type of work it does
Building structure: how a
building is designed to stand
up against the forces of
gravity and nature
Building appearance: how a
building is designed to
please the eye
First, we’ll look at how a
building is designed to suit
the type of work that it
does.
Architects use drawings
called plans to show how the
building’s space will be
divided into useful areas. A
floorplan is a view of the
floor and walls from the top,
as if the ceiling and roof
were taken off.
Slide 13
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Floorplans can also be
thought of as a map of the
inside of a building.
Floorplans show just one
floor of a building, so most
buildings have several
floorplans—one for each
level.
A site plan is a view of the
footprint of the building and
the landscape around the
building, seen from above,
as a bird might view it.
Slide 14
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 15
Ben Hayden House
Hopwood
A house is a building for a
person or family to live in.
We instinctively know a
house when we see one
because the way it looks
gives us clues about its
purpose. What clues tell you
that this is a house?
(This house was built in the
1820s. The porch was
enclosed at a later date.)
Slide 16
Some rooms, such as
kitchens and bathrooms, are
used for just one purpose,
so their furnishings are
permanent.
Levi Springer House
Uniontown
Other rooms, such as living
rooms, can be used for
many different family
activities.
Slide 17
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 18
What is the purpose of this
building? What clues tell us
this is a school? A school’s
large boxy shape comes
from the boxy classrooms
contained inside of it. Each
classroom has windows that
appear in groups on the
outside. A large entryway
with columns hints that it is
a public building, requiring
several doors to
accommodate the many
people who go in and out.
Slide 19
Even small one and two
room country school houses
give themselves away by
their boxy shape. What
function did the tower on the
top of the school serve?
One Room School House
Derry
Slide 20
St. Mary's Roman Catholic School
McKees Rocks
Slide 21
What are the two sections
without windows on each
side of this school? The lack
of windows could mean that
controlled lighting is needed
inside or that glass would be
a safety hazard in these
interior spaces. From these
clues and the large volume
of these two areas, we might
guess they are an
auditorium and a gym.
How are churches like
schools?
Like a school, a church is a
large building with an
inviting public entrance with
enough doors to handle
many people at once. It
may have multiple
entrances.
Slide 22
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica
Latrobe
Slide 23
How are churches different
from schools?
Unlike school buildings,
churches are often topped
by a dome to create a sense
of unity or a steeple to
symbolically direct people’s
thoughts upward to God.
Inside, churches contain one
large open space for many
people to gather and
worship.
Saint Vincent
Archabbey
Basilica
Latrobe
Slide 24
Downtown Greensburg
An office building is also tall,
but for a different reason
than churches! Downtown,
where land is scarce,
architects “stack” offices on
tope each other to save
space. The many small
windows on the outside
show that there are many
small offices inside.
Slide 25
Most offices, like classrooms,
are designed as practical
working spaces.
Center for
Bioimage
Informatics
Pittsburgh
An office lobby is designed
with stairs or elevators to
quickly transport workers
and visitors to the offices
above.
Slide 26
WPC Offices
Pittsburgh
Slide 27
Building Structure
„How
a building is designed
to stand up against the
forces of gravity and
nature
The second aspect of
building is structure—how a
building is designed to stand
up against the forces of
gravity and nature. Think
about what is keeping the
ceiling from falling in on
your head, the floor from
collapsing beneath your feet,
and the walls from tumbling
down into a pile of rubble all
around you right now?
(Unfortunately, these things
do happen.)
Slide 28
Structural Failure
Slide 29
Structural Skeleton
Ohler Barn
Mill Run
Slide 30
Nixon Tavern
Fairchance
The forces of gravity, wind,
weight and other things that
push and pull on a building
are called stress. If all of
the structural parts of a
building aren't strong
enough to withstand the
stress applied to them, the
structure will fail by
cracking, crushing, or
deforming (twisting out of
shape).
Physical objects have a
structure. You have one, and
so does everything you can
see or touch. What we
mean by a building’s
structure is the part or
parts of a building that
actually hold it up and give it
its shape. The structure of a
building is similar to the
structure of our own bodies:
the skeleton supports weight
and the skin protects the
internal parts.
Architects use drawings
called sections to show the
structure of a building. A
section is a view from the
front, side, or back of the
building as if the outside
wall were transparent. In
this section of the Nixon
Tavern, you can see the
wood framing of the
skeleton.
Slide 31
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 32
Compression
Slide 33
Compression
Here we can see the
skeleton of Fallingwater
being constructed. The
structure will withstand the
stress of the weight of the
building and everything in it.
Later, cladding, or skin, of
stone and glass will be
attached to the skeleton to
protect the interior from
cold, wind, and rain.
One of the forces that acts
on a building’s skeleton, and
ours, is called compression.
Compression involves
pressing, pushing, and
squeezing. (Find the word
"press" in compression.)
This person is holding the
bricks up by compression.
Make fists and squeeze them
tight; you'll feel compression
in your hands, fingers and
biceps. You can feel
compression in your arm
muscles by pressing the
palms of your hands
together as hard as you can.
Your muscles have
contracted, bunched up,
gotten shorter.
Slide 34
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
Pittsburgh
Slide 35
Tension
Slide 36
Tension
Completed in 1886,
Emmanuel Episcopal Church,
also on the North Side, is a
classic example of the work
of Boston architect Henry
Hobson Richardson and is on
the National Register of
Historic Places. You can see
how the force of
compression has actually
caused the walls to bulge,
something that the architect
did not intend!
Another stress that acts on
buildings is called Tension.
Tension involves pulling and
stretching. Feel tension in
your arm muscles by
stretching your arms out to
the sides as far as you can.
Your muscles have
expanded, stretched out,
gotten longer.
Stretch a rubber band. When
you stretch it (and only
then), it's in tension. Tensile
materials such as cables
have to be stretched taut
before they have any
structural strength; when
they're slack, they can't
support weight.
Slide 37
Tension and Compression
Slide 38
Amphitheater Tent
Pittsburgh
Stand up and bend over to
one side as far as you can.
One side of you is
stretching, getting longer. Is
this side in tension or
compression? The other side
is getting shorter, and
everything is getting
squeezed together. Is this
side in tension or
compression?
Tents are an easy place to
see tension at work. The
poles, ropes, and stakes are
the skeleton, which
withstands the tension
created by the stretching
and weight of the canvas
skin.
Steel cable can withstand
tension so well that the roof
of Pittsburgh’s Convention
Center is actually hung like a
tent from a skeleton of steel
poles and cables.
Slide 39
David L. Lawrence Convention Center
Pittsburgh
Slide 40
Ninth Street Bridge
Pittsburgh
Cables are rare in new
construction of buildings—
they are found more often
holding up suspension
bridges where they do the
same job of withstanding
tensile strength.
Creating small openings like
these ventilation holes in a
masonry wall does not
disturb the compression
holding the wall together.
Slide 41
Horse Barn
West Overton
Slide 42
Lintel
Post
Stonehenge
Creating larger openings in a
masonry wall is more
difficult. One way to create
an opening uses a very
simple technique called
post-and-lintel construction.
Also called "post and beam",
a horizontal member (the
lintel) is supported by two
vertical posts at either end.
This very simple form is
commonly used to support
windows and doors.
Slide 43
Lintel
Post
Isaac Meason House
Dunbar Township
Slide 44
Arch
The lintel acts as a flat
beam. It is simply laid
across the tops of posts or
beams to form openings for
windows or doors. The
beams transfer the weight of
the wall above them to the
posts, which transfers the
load to the ground.
Another way to create
openings in a stone or brick
wall is by building an arch.
The arch transfers the
compressive stress from the
wall above it to the walls
beside it, and then to the
ground.
The arch’s shape allows it to
transfer the weight of the
wall above it, to the walls
beside it, which carry the
load down to the ground.
Slide 45
Magee Mine
Powerhouse
Yukon
Slide 46
Dome
Slide 47
Westmoreland
County
Courthouse
Greensburg
Slide 48
Bending
A dome is a threedimensional application of
the arch, rotated about the
center axis. As such, domes
have a great deal of
structural strength. A small
dome can be constructed of
ordinary masonry, held
together by friction and
compressive forces.
Instead of making an
opening for a door or
window, a dome covers a
large open space by
transferring the stress of its
weight to the walls below it.
Bending is the term we use
to talk about crushing
compression and tearing
tension. Most building
materials have elements of
tension and compression. A
bending beam is under
compression at the top and
tension at the bottom.
Slide 49
A beam, such as the ones
above these windows, is
under crushing compression
at the top and tearing
tension at the bottom.
First National
Bank Building
Connellsville
Slide 50
Truss
A truss acts like a beam—it
is made of one or more
triangular units joined
together. The triangle
shapes make the truss
strong—it’s very hard to
push, pull, or bend. Trusses
are often used to hold up a
roof or a road.
This truss bridge in
Brownsville acts like one
huge beam made out of
many smaller triangles to
make it lighter and stronger.
Slide 51
Old Brownsville Bridge
Slide 52
In a cantilever, a beam is
only supported one side.
Weight on one side of the
beam or building part
balances the other side,
which hangs over open
space.
Cantilever
Slide 53
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 54
The Barn at Fallingwater
Mill Run
The building material in a
cantilever most be very
strong to withstand the
bending stress that could
snap the cantilever in half.
This house, called
Fallingwater, is anchored
into the hillside and
weighted by heavy stone at
the back. It allows the
terraces to cantilever over a
waterfall.
Wood is a favorite material
for constructing the
skeletons of smaller
buildings because it is so
easy to work with and, for
its weight, wood has quite a
bit of strength to resist
tension and compression.
Slide 55
Steel Frame Construction
Slide 56
U.S. Steel Tower
Pittsburgh
Slide 57
Reinforced
Concrete
Steel has the greatest
compressive, tensile, and
bending strength of all the
common building materials.
Before steel, tall buildings
would have collapsed under
their own weigh. With a
steel frame, however, the
stress on each column is
shared by the whole
building.
Just as our own skeletons
are covered with muscles
and skin, the frame or
skeleton of building is
usually hidden on the inside
by a covering of stoner and
glass. The U.S. Steel Tower
in Pittsburgh is unusual
because its displays its
frame on the outside.
Reinforced concrete is
concrete in which
reinforcement bars
("rebars") or fibers have
been incorporated to
strengthen a material that
would otherwise be brittle.
Often cast into slabs,
reinforced concrete is
another building material
that is sometimes used as a
skeleton on a building’s
exterior.
Slide 58
When it is cast into folds, as
it is in this canopy at
Fallingwater, reinforced
concrete is even stronger
than it is as a flat slab.
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 59
W. L. Shaulis House
Rockwood
Slide 60
Most buildings, though, wear
their skin on the outside.
The wood clapboard you see
from the outside simple
protects the inside from
weather and bears no weight
at all. It is attached to a
strong wooden frame that
actually acts as a skeleton to
hold up the house.
Thanks to steel frames, we
can now have buildings clad
entirely in a skin of metal. . .
Alcoa Building
Pittsburgh
Slide 61
. . .or of glass, which has
the advantage of allowing in
light, but keeping out heat,
cold, or wind.
Phipps Conservatory
Tropical Forest
Pittsburgh
Slide 62
Masonic Temple
Altoona
Slide 63
Building Appearance
„How
a building is designed
to please the eye
Brick or stone on a tall
building is usually attached
to a steel frame and actually
bears little weight by itself.
Most of the time, the skin or
cladding of a building is
chosen as much for the
decoration as it is for
protections, just as it was
for this building covered with
terra-cotta ornaments made
from clay.
The third aspect of building
is appearance—how a
building is designed to
please the eye.
Slide 64
To explain the appearance of
their buildings to their
clients, architects draw
elevations—views of the
outside walls.
Christian S. Overholt Store & House
West Overton
They may also draw
renderings, or perspectives,
to give a view of how the
building will look to someone
walking by.
Slide 65
Fallingwater
Mill Run
Slide 66
Fort Necessity
Farmington
When George Washington
built this log fort, he might
have said, “Less is a
Necessity!” The plain
appearance of log
architecture is the result of
its simple purpose and the
practical method of building
with local materials.
Slide 67
Less is a
Bore!
Slide 68
Elements of Design
„Line
„Shape
„Color
Most builders, though, when
given a choice, would agree
with architect Robert Venturi
who said, Less is a Bore!
They probably would not
agree though, on what
makes a building pleasing to
the eye.
Architects, like other artists,
use design elements—line,
shape, color, and texture, as
tools to create a building’s
appearance.
„Texture
Slide 69
Lines
A line is a mark on a surface
that describes a shape or
outline. Lines often define
the edges of a form. They
can communicate
information through their
character and direction.
Lines can be horizontal,
vertical, dotted, zigzag,
curved, straight, diagonal,
bold, or fine. Lines can show
direction, lead the eye,
outline an object, divide a
space, and communicate a
feeling or emotion.
Slide 70
Line also plays an important
part in the look of a building.
You can almost trace these
lines with a pencil.
First National Bank Building
Connellsville
Slide 71
Tracery
Architectural patterns of line
are sometimes even called
tracery, like you see here in
the lined window pattern at
a church in Jeanette.
Grace United Church of Christ
Jeanette
Or lines can be used to give
you directional clues of how
to move through a building
or space.
Slide 72
Visitors Center
Carnegie Mellon University
Slide 73
Shapes are made by
connecting lines and define
objects in space. Circle,
square, triangle, and
freeform are words used to
identify shapes. Look at the
objects around you, and
describe their basic shapes.
Are they one shape, or are
they a combination of many
shapes?
Shapes
Slide 74
Brownsville
Pittsburgh
Every building has a shape,
but the shape of some
buildings is their most
important characteristic. A
triangular piece of land
inspired the shapes of these
buidings.
Flat Iron Buildings
They are called flat iron
buildings because their
shape reminded people of
flat irons.
Slide 75
Flat Iron
Slide 76
Color is light reflected off
objects. Artists use color in
many different ways.
Color
All buildings have color, but
in some buildings, colors are
a very important part of
their design.
Slide 77
Hartzell House
Addison
Colors can be used to attract
attention to a building.
Slide 78
State
Theater
Uniontown
Slide 79
Bright colors sometimes
accent the inside of
buildings.
Children’
Children’s Museum
Pittsburgh
Some buildings are designed
especially to reflect the color
of the sky or surrounding
area.
Slide 80
PPG Place
Pittsburgh
Slide 81
Texture
Texture is the surface
quality of an item-- either
tactile or visual. It’s how
something feels when
touched, or looks like it
would feel if touched.
Texture can be real or
implied by different uses of
material. It is the degree of
roughness or smoothness in
objects.
Slide 82
Kentuck Knob
Chalk Hill
Texture, whether rough,
smooth, or somewhere in
between, is another
important tool for an
architect. You can almost
feel the roughness of the
stone on this building. . .
. . .or the slick smoothness
of this one.
Slide 83
Mifflin School Addition
Slide 84
Principles of Design
„Contrast
„Pattern
„Rhythm
„Balance
„Proportion
Architects use design
principles to organize the
design elements.
Slide 85
Contrast
House in Greensburg
Contrast means showing
differences in at least two
different sections of the
design or building. Contrast
can also be used to show
emphasis to draw attention
to any one part of a building
by changing shapes or
colors, varying a pattern, or
disturbing the balance to
make any one part of a
building different than the
rest of a building.
The architect of this building
contrasted the shiny and
frosty sideways stripes with
the tall, thin shape of the
tower.
Slide 86
One Oxford Center
Pittsburg
Slide 87
Pattern
Eberly Campus Community Center
Uniontown
Patterns are created when
architects repeat design
units of colors, shapes, lines,
or textures, in a regular,
predictable way. Patterns
can be used all over a
building to create an almost
textural effect, or in borders
and edges to add emphasis
and variety. How many
patterns can you see at the
Eberly Campus Community
Center?
Slide 88
Rhythm
Coke Ovens in Shoaf
Slide 89
Nemacolin Castle
Brownsville
Rhythm is created when
one or more elements of
design are used repeatedly
to create a feeling of
organized movement.
Variety is essential to keep
rhythm exciting and active.
Rhythm creates a mood like
music or dancing.
Just as a song has rhythm
that can be heard, works of
art, including architecture,
have a rhythm that can be
seen. The patterns here
create an even rhythm 1 – 2
-3
In this building, the rhythm
skips a beat with the
absence of one awning.
Slide 90
Double House
Jeanette
Slide 91
Balance
Slide 92
Aluminum City Terrace
New Kensington
Balance is the consideration
of visual weight and
importance. Balance can be
symmetrical or evenly
balanced or asymmetrical
and un-evenly balanced.
Objects, values, colors,
textures, shapes, forms,
etc., can be used in creating
a balance in a composition.
Sometimes an architect
balances the parts of
building symmetrically,
which means one half of a
building is almost identical
to the other half, as in this
building.
Other methods may be used
to balance a building where
one side does not match the
other. This building is
balanced asymmetrically
with different shapes.
Slide 93
Waynesburg
Slide 94
Proportion
St. Peter’
Peter’s Episcopal Church
Butler
Slide 95
Proportion is the relation
between elements and a
whole. In architecture the
whole is not just a building
but the set and setting of
the site. Scale comes from
the way the size of the
building compares to the
size of a person. Proportion
and scale may make a
building seem huge and
stately. . .
… or warm and cozy. The
proportions are exaggerated
in this house in Storybook
Forest.
Crooked House
Ligonier
Slide 96
Even the most beautiful
building is worthless if it is
not sturdy and does not
meet the needs of the
people who use it. A work
of architecture must serve
its purpose well, withstand
all the stresses of gravity
and weather, and be
pleasing to the eye.
Slide 97
This is a difficult, but not
impossible, challenge.
People have been meeting
the challenges of
architecture for many years
in the buildings in your own
neighborhood and
throughout the whole world.
Slide 98
This program was supported
by a grant from the
Katherine Mabis
McKenna Foundation.
Foundation.