The Problem of Lighting in Underground Domes, Vaults, and Tunnel-Like Structures of Antiquity; An Application to the Sustainability of Prominent Asian Heritage (India, Korea, China)

HBIM Methodology to Achieve a Balance between Protection and Habitability: The Case Study of the Monastery of Santa Clara in Belalcazar, Spain

The different technical and legal tools intended for heritage protection have augmented the possibilities to acknowledge important monumental complexes. However, a contrast lies in the artistic contexts in which, due to the consolidation of their programmatic typology, such monuments require habitation, unlike more conventional monuments. This article collects the results of an accurate investigation conducted by the authors, whose main objective was to obtain a tool that allows consistent measurement of different indicators in which both the protection of the elements, and the capacity for habitation, are safeguarded. To this aim, we contextualized the research at the Monastery of Santa Clara de la Columna in Belalcázar (Córdoba), a monastery with the highest heritage protection in Spain, and which, in turn, accommodates a religious community. The results have allowed us, for the first time in Andalucia, to define objective habitability parameters, within protected heritage contexts.

Unknown Suns: László Hudec, Antonin Raymond and the Rising of a Modern Architecture for Eastern Asia

The purpose of this article is to disclose the strenuous efforts of László Hudec in China and Antonin Raymond in Japan and India to create a modern architectural stance by heralding an incipient space syntax. At the turn of the 19th century, for dynastic, political and economic reasons, Eastern Asia had very little modern architecture. It is a surprising fact that, out of happenstance, two European architects, Antonin Raymond and László Hudec, had to intervene to remedy this situation, to the point of becoming 20th century icons in Japan and China. Their fruitful careers spanned over thirty years and included locations like Tamil Nadu and the Philippines. The oriental territories were not an easy ground for the bold architectural achievements that they produced. Despite faraway strangeness and uncountable personal losses, in revolutions and wars, which eventually forced them both to leave for the United States of America and never to return, they were successful in the manner of establishing a broad avenue for modern Asian architecture which is still recognizable today thanks to their systematic approach. However, theirs is an endangered heritage and the intention of this article is to offer a just remembrance of the way in which such actions could be performed, how they predated by many years a syntactic approach to architectural composition and why their legacy should be preserved.

Architectural Characteristics of Different Configurations Based on New Geometric Determinations for the Conoid

The aim of this article is to orient the evolution of new architectural forms offering up-to-date scientific support. Unlike the volume, the expression for the lateral area of a regular conoid has not yet been obtained by means of direct integration or a differential geometry procedure. In this type of ruled surface, the fundamental expressions I and II, for other curved figures have proved not solvable thus far. As this form is frequently used in architectural engineering, the inability to determine its surface area represents a serious hindrance to solving several problems that arise in radiative transfer, lighting and construction, to cite just a few. To address such drawback, we conceived a new approach that, in principle, consists in dividing the surface into infinitesimal elliptic strips of which the area can be obtained in an approximate fashion. The length of the ellipse is expressed with certain accuracy by means of Ramanujan’s second formula. By integrating the so-found perimeter of the differential strips for the whole span of the conoid, an unexpected solution emerges through a newly found number that we call psi (ψ). In this complex process, projected shapes have been derived from an original closed form composed of two conoids and called Antisphera for its significant parallels with the sphere. The authors try to demonstrate that the properties of the new surfaces have relevant implications for technology, especially in building science and sustainability, under domains such as structures, radiation and acoustics. Fragments of the conoid have occasionally appeared in modern and contemporary architecture but this article discusses how its use had been discontinued, mainly due to the uncertainties that its construction posed. The new knowledge provided by the authors, including their own proposals, may help to revitalize and expand such interesting configurations in the search for a revolution of forms.

Architectural Significance of the Seokguram Buddhist Grotto in Gyeongju (Korea)

The purpose of this article is to disclose the hidden architectural proportions and true nature of the Korean national treasure in Seokguram Grotto, Gyeongju. The authors compare its features with those of other ancient hypogeal or ashlar constructions with the intention of rediscovering its relevant configuration and latent structural properties in order to demonstrate its uniqueness. The methods employed in the research belong initially to architectural design and composition to advance in the later stages to the nuances of stone masonry, lighting effects and especially cohesive construction. In this discussion and thorough analysis diverse philosophical and scientific subtleties are brought to the surface. The results demonstrate significant potential thanks to recent architectural developments, such as Tadao Ando’s Buddha Hill in Hokkaido (2017) and the authors’ own proposal for a Buddhist monument.

Sustainability in Early Modern China through the Evolution of the Jesuit Accommodation Method

This article clarifies the often overlooked facts attributed to European missionaries in Asia, especially Jesuits, who acted as catalysts of a kind of nuanced acculturation named Accommodatio (adaptation). To a great extent, they became harbingers of culture and science more than faith itself to the dismay of many, including the Roman Church. Such cultural and scientific transference was actually two-pronged, for simultaneously they presented in Europe unique findings related to language, e.g., the Chinese characters (considered to be the sole natural language), geography, cosmology and even governance. Here we try to prove that such procedure contributed positively to the modern scientific notions of sustainability and to provide the kind of accoutrements that model the modern world as we know it. However, in the process, many Jesuits clearly became sinified and eventually acculturated.

New Computational Geometry Methods Applied to Solve Complex Problems of Radiative Transfer

Diverse problems of radiative transfer remain as yet unsolved due to the difficulties of the calculations involved, especially if the intervening shapes are geometrically complex. The main goal of our investigation in this domain is to convert the equations that were previously derived into a graphical interface based on the projected solid-angle principle. Such a procedure is now feasible by virtue of several widely diffused programs for Algorithms Aided Design (AAD). Accuracy and reliability of the process is controlled in the basic examples by means of subroutines from the analytical software DianaX, developed at an earlier stage by the authors, though mainly oriented to closed cuboidal or curved volumes. With this innovative approach, the often cumbersome calculation procedure of lighting, thermal or even acoustic energy exchange can be simplified and made available for the neophyte, with the undeniable advantage of reduced computer time.

The Perspective of Total Lighting as a Key Factor to Increase the Sustainability of Strategic Activities

In the last decades, lighting has evolved from a branch of engineering ensuring safety and performance in indoor and outdoor installations, to a key discipline interacting with a wide spectrum of fields and having a deep impact on our daily lives. Although this evolution also applies to other areas of knowledge, the special features of lighting make its potential and also its limitations different. It is not the typical field where a well-established mathematical framework allows a departure from well-defined input and identifying clear effects and conclusions. The reason is that lighting is a field dealing with the interaction between a physical phenomenon and a physiological and psychological system, the human being. In addition to the complexity of its basis, the relationship between lighting and sustainability has become stronger in recent years. This relationship is bi-directional in some cases: on one hand, advanced societies require more and more complex lighting installations, which means high energy consumption, use of raw materials, financial costs, manufacturing and maintenance processes, waste and emissions to the atmosphere. On the other hand, good lighting has an impact on issues like productivity, well-being, happiness, disease avoidance, safety, and many other qualitative aspects whose direct or indirect impact on sustainability is remarkable. This work will analyze how lighting can give answers to questions related to sustainability, not only from the classic topics of energy consumption and waste management, but from a wider and global perspective. The results of these works are analyzed, and the basis of the new framework of total lighting, discussed.