Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
The Hidden Geometry of the Douglas House
Saleem M. Dahabreh
Department of Architecture, University of Jordan, Jordan
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2014 12:2483-2490
Received: July 22, 2013 | Accepted: August 16, 2013 | Published: March 29, 2014
Abstract
This study aims to uncover the hidden geometry that regulates and orders the design of the Douglas House by Richard Meier. Richard Meier, over a five decade career, has been associated with a recognizable design language that has a clear set of formal characteristics and design themes, including among others: geometrical order exemplified in the use of modules and proportions and visual layering that organizes space in his buildings through the arrangement of successive planes across the visual field. Taking the Douglas house as a case study, the aim of the study is to show how these themes and motifs are employed in a particular building with a particular emphasis upon the geometrical ordering of building plans and elevations and the modular and proportional systems entailed in this ordering. This choice of emphasis is not coincidental: while other aspects of Meier’s language may be equally important from the point of view of the perceptual qualities or the aesthetic judgment of his buildings, geometrical ordering most closely regulates and interacts with the overall arrangement of formal elements of the building. The study concludes that the final form of the house depends on the interaction between a design program and a formal language but is not determined solely by any. Abstract spatial themes such as reversal and twin phenomena also materialize in the physical form of the building through the artful manipulation of design elements.
Keywords:
Formal language, geometry and proportion, motifs and spatial themes,
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Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
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