Climate in Architecture: Revision of Early Origins Ursula Anna Freire Castro Univerity of New Mexico
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Latin American Studies ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 4-8-2019 Climate in architecture: revision of early origins Ursula Anna Freire Castro Univerity of New Mexico Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ltam_etds Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons, Climate Commons, and the Other Architecture Commons Recommended Citation Freire Castro, Ursula Anna. "Climate in architecture: revision of early origins." (2019). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ltam_etds/ 49 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Latin American Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i URSULA ANNA FREIRE CASTRO Candidate LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: ELENI BASTÉA, Chairperson MARIA LANE CHRIS DUVALL DAVID SCHNEIDER ii CLIMATE IN ARCHITECTURE: REVISION OF EARLY ORIGINS by URSULA ANNA FREIRE CASTRO Architect, Universidad Central del Ecuador, 2008 Master Architectural Design, Universidad Central del Ecuador, 2012 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Latin American Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May, 2019 iii DEDICATION With all my love, to Kati, Max, and Mina. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I heartily and warmly acknowledge the support of my Committee of Studies, Eleni Bastéa, Maria Lane, David Schneider and Chris Duvall, who always were generous with their knowledge and time. All of them guided and motivated me, while letting me free to interpret our discussions about climate and architecture, a topic towards which they were always open with their scientific mind and poetical spirit. I am deeply thankful to Eleni for laying the bridge with Budapest and for being the most wonderful Committee Chair; to Maria for introducing me to Humboldt and accompanying me all the way up to Chimborazo; to David for our discussions about beauty from Albuquerque to New York; and to Chris for his keen and essential insights about simulations, nature, climate, and weather. The University of New Mexico was an open and kind place to study; the Latin American & Iberian Institute, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies became my temporal home during this process. Robyn Cote was a constant support since my arrival. Mark Childs was an insightful advisor, suggesting to me the right classes and teachers. Matias Fontenla and Nelmy Jerez not only established this dual program but continuously and tirelessly worked to solve every possible issue with Universidad Central del Ecuador, a task followed by Amanda Wolfe and Krista Savoca. Zimmerman Library and the Interlibrary Loan office provided me with every imaginable book or article that I needed. I am very thankful to the School of Architecture, the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies and El Centro de la Raza for giving me financial support to do research travel in 2016. v I acknowledge the help and access to archives and additional information of: Mary Stiffler, Douglas Holland and the Peter H. Raven Library at the Missouri Botanical Garden; Harold Housley and the Design Library at Arizona State University; Forrest Meggers, the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of the Firestone Library, the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, and the School of Architecture at Princeton University; and the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. I acknowledge the permission to use images given by MIT Press, Princeton University Press, Magnum Photography, Museo Nacional de Colombia, and Ken Kawamoto. Thank you to Nora Stoecker for editing my dissertation. I acknowledge Universidad Central del Ecuador for enabling my doctoral studies at University of New Mexico. I lovingly acknowledge my family for enduring my physical and mental absences during this long process. I am deeply thankful to my mom Kati for convincing me to go to the desert, for her beautiful drawings, and for all her love, patience and optimism; to Max for all those hugs, talks and hikes in the mountains in which he helped me unravel my thoughts; to my father Ramiro for building for me Olgyay’s Climatron inside the digital universe; to Mina for waiting for me, and to Elena and Chifu who left before I could finish this project. vi CLIMATE IN ARCHITECTURE: REVISITING EARLY ORIGINS by Ursula Anna Freire Castro Architect, Universidad Central del Ecuador, 2008 Master in Architectural Design, Universidad Central del Ecuador, 2012 Doctor of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, 2019 ABSTRACT This dissertation expands the comprehension of the history of climate in architecture by examining the evolution of the architectural meanings, uses, representations, and simulations of climate between 1800 and the present by means of a historical critical analysis of two scientific artifacts that attempted to model climate for the first time in the fields of geography and architecture. The Naturgemälde (1799 – Alexander von Humboldt) was a type of infographic image that simulated conceptually climate as a global system. The Climatron (1954 – Victor Olgyay) was a laboratory machine that physically simulated climate to test building scaled-models. Primary data was collected in the places where both artifacts were created, and where related archival materials are currently held. The method of analysis compared the models against each other, against contemporary computer simulations of climate for architects, and against their early theoretical foundations. The dissertation reflected on the universality of science in architecture and the role of the places and the technology involved to produce knowledge about climate, while challenged the concept of climate in vii architecture. It endeavored to find more holistic scientific approaches to design-with- climate that consider hard data alongside art. The tangible outcomes are four articles advised by one of the committee members according to their expertise: MODELS OF CLIMATE AND WEATHER explains the attempts to simulate conceptually and materially climate and weather in order to reduce their complexity to a human scale; ARCHITECTURAL INSIGHTS FROM EARLY DRAWINGS OF CLIMATE AND WEATHER: NATURGEMÄLDE, ISOTHERMS, CLIMATE PORTRAITS, AND THE BIOCLIMATIC CHART, reflects about the paradox of drawing climate and weather; PACKAGING NATURE FOR ARCHITECTS: EARLY ORIGINS OF DESIGNING WITH NATURAL MORPHOLOGY AND CLIMATE, focuses on how ideas travel from environmental sciences into architecture; and UNDERSTANDING THE CHARACTER OF PLACE: HUMBOLDT’S PHYSIOGNOMY OF NATURE, VICTOR OLGYAY’S BIOCLIMATIC REGIONALISM AND THE OUTLINE OF A PHYSIOGNOMY OF CLIMATE examines, from an architectural standpoint, the role of the beauty of climate in the understanding of the character of a place. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 References ......................................................................................................................15 MODELS OF CLIMATE AND WEATHER ............................................................... 16 Introduction ....................................................................................................................17 Review of the Nature of Models ....................................................................................21 The nature of models ................................................................................................. 21 Models’ value to produce knowledge ........................................................................ 24 Typologies of models ................................................................................................ 25 Subjects to be modelled ............................................................................................. 27 Models of Climate ..........................................................................................................29 First generation: Naturgemälde. A drawing to imagine climate ............................... 32 Second generation: Physical models of climate ........................................................ 46 Third generation: Numerical models of climate ........................................................ 67 Fourth generation: Interactive models of climate ...................................................... 75 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................87 The role of models in the study of climate ................................................................ 87 The value of models of climate for architectural design ........................................... 88 The ways in which models of climate could be improved in the future to become truly useful for architecture ....................................................................................... 89 ix References ......................................................................................................................95 ARCHITECTURAL INSIGHTS FROM EARLY DRAWINGS OF CLIMATE AND WEATHER: NATURGEMÄLDE,