Architectural Design and visualization techniques.
A case study: Heusden.
1993/1996
By
Patricia Alkhoven
The image and structure of a town are constantly subject to a dynamic process of change and continuity. Visual material, such as photographs, historical maps, town plans, drawings and prints, show us the impact of these changes on the image of a town. The main point of departure of this study stems from the question of how this process of change and continuity is visually detectable in a town or city. The fact that the ideas about the appearance of a city (gradually) change, can be read from the often subtle changes in the townscape. Though in many cases we have a general knowledge of the choices made in urban management, the most difficult problem is to detect the underlying decisions. This raises the question to what extent these changes and also the continuities are the result of deliberate choices in urban management and to what extent they are autonomous developments in the townscape resistant to interventions.
Using different kinds of visual information as a basis, computer visualization techniques are used in the present study to examine some cartographic maps and to reconstruct the urban development in the twentieth century of the town of Heusden three-dimensionally in significant phases. The resulting visualization provides us with a tool for a better understanding of the dynamics of urban transformation processes, typologies and morphological changes and continuities.
Chapter I. Architectural History and Research of the City
Chapter II. Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAD) and the Research of Heusden
Chapter III. Heusden: Urban Development 1560-1900; Town Plans and Maps
Chapter IV. Heusden: Urban Development 1900-1990; Plans and Realizations
Chapter V. A Computer-Assisted Analysis of Heusden's Changing Townscape
Chronological list of selected town plans and maps of Heusden
ISBN 90 6469 684 5
Hardcopies can be purchased via the bookstore or via the publisher: Canaletto, Alphen a/d/ Rijn, The Netherlands.
For more information:
E-mail: patricia.alkhoven@konbib.nl