Free plan

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In architecture, a free plan is an open plan with non-load-bearing walls dividing interior space.[ jargon explanation needed ] In this structural system, the building structure is separate of the interior partitions. This is made possible by replacing interior load-bearing walls with moving the structure of the building to the exterior, or by having columns that are free from space dividing partitions.

Contents

Definition

Free plan, in the architecture world, refers to the ability to have a floor plan with non-load bearing walls and floors by creating a structural system that holds the weight of the building by ways of an interior skeleton of load bearing columns. The building system carries only its columns, or skeleton, and each corresponding ceiling. Free plan allows for the ability to create buildings without being limited by the placement of walls for structural support, and enables an architect to have the freedom to design the outside and inside façade without compromise. [1]

Influences

Le Corbusier became the pioneer of free plan during the 1914 through 1930s with his "Five Points of New Architecture" [2] and his adoption of the Dom-ino System. [3] This heavily influenced the importance of free plan and its role in the "modern era" of architecture.

Dom-ino Structural System

The Dom-ino system refers to the structural system that allows a free floor and wall plan, due to the load bearing columns within the skeleton of the structure. Originally conceived as a two story building, six vertical columns held the two concrete, steel reinforced floors in space. This allowed for exterior walls that accommodate to the aesthetic and compositional features of the building. This also created a free floor plan, moving from the previous ideology of load bearing walls. This new technology allowed for long strips of windows that could wrap corners and stretch greater lengths, something that was never seen before in architecture. This building system became a staple for high production buildings because of its cheap and fast production rate. Ways could be fashioned in any way, restrained only by technological advancements of the time. [3]

Le Corbusier and the Five Points of a New Architecture

Le Corbusier adopted what he considered to be the most important five architectural points in his architecture: pilotis, free plan, horizontal windows, a free façade and roof top gardens. The ideas all surface around the main point of free plan and the use of the Dom-ino system. The piloti system carries all the weight allowing for a free plan as well as a free façade. The free exterior façade allowed for vast openings and horizontal strips of windows creating aesthetic value. All of the five points work together, being based on the premises of the Dom-ino system, varied to a degree for aesthetic purposes. [2]

Examples

Plan of the Barcelona Pavilion. The columns (red) support the roof, while the walls are freely positioned. Planta libre-pabellon de barcelona.png
Plan of the Barcelona Pavilion. The columns (red) support the roof, while the walls are freely positioned.

Although Corbusier had become the pioneer of free plan in his own architecture, some other notable architects continued to follow in his footsteps, using free plan in their architecture as well. Two notable architects include Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eduardo Catalano. Three of Van Der Rohe's most notable buildings that portray the use of free plan are the Barcelona Pavilion [4] and the New National Gallery in Berlin [5] and the Crown Hall building at the Illinois Institute of Technology. [6] All three of these buildings show great expanses in floor plan due to the freedom from use of free plan. Notably, the Barcelona Pavilion expresses free plan by having glass walls and large expanses and openings in the outside façade of the building. It also has a completely open free floor plan in the interior with sections divided by walls lower than ceiling height to distinguish rooms and areas, something that can be done in any fashion through the use of free plan. [4]

Of Corbusier's architecture, the Villa Savoye demonstrates his five points in the most successful way, including free plan. By using free plan, the exterior façade of the building has large horizontal window bands to help achieve greater amounts of light reach the inside of the building. The interior also demonstrates free plan by not being limited by load bearing walls, but instead having large, openings and rooms in the inside façade of the building. [7]

Eduardo Catalano achieves the ultimate free plan in his Catalano residence in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1955 by using thin shield concrete to achieve a completely free floor plan. By using the concrete in his roof, he designs a hyperbolic parabolic roof that is self-supporting with only two points touching the ground. No other points of contact support the roof. In doing this he achieves a floor plan that is completely independent of its roof structure. The roof stands by itself, and creates its own structure. This achieves, by definition, a completely independent free plan. [8]

Related Research Articles

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe German-American modernist architect

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.

Le Corbusier Swiss-French architect (1887–1965)

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, and he designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America.

Villa Savoye 1931 building by Le Corbusier in Poissy, France

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Functionalism (architecture) Principle that defines a type of architecture

In architecture, functionalism is the principle that buildings should be designed based solely on their purpose and function.

Curtain wall (architecture) Outer non-structural walls of a building

A curtain wall is an outer covering of a building in which the outer walls are non-structural, utilized only to keep the weather out and the occupants in. Since the curtain wall is non-structural, it can be made of lightweight materials, such as glass, thereby potentially reducing construction costs. An additional advantage of glass is that natural light can penetrate deeper within the building. The curtain wall façade does not carry any structural load from the building other than its own dead load weight. The wall transfers lateral wind loads that are incident upon it to the main building structure through connections at floors or columns of the building. A curtain wall is designed to resist air and water infiltration, absorb sway induced by wind and seismic forces acting on the building, withstand wind loads, and support its own weight.

Notre-Dame du Haut

Notre-Dame du Haut is a Roman Catholic chapel in Ronchamp, France. Built in 1955, it is one of the finest examples of the architecture of Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier. The chapel is a working religious building and is under the guardianship of the private foundation Association de l’Œuvre de Notre-Dame du Haut. It attracts 80,000 visitors each year. In 2016, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in along with sixteen other works by Le Corbusier, because of its importance to the development of modernist architecture.

Piloti Functional architectural component of some buildings

Pilotis, or piers, are supports such as columns, pillars, or stilts that lift a building above ground or water. They are traditionally found in stilt and pole dwellings such as fishermen's huts in Asia and Scandinavia using wood, and in elevated houses such as Old Queenslanders in Australia's tropical Northern state, where they are called "stumps".

Steel frame Building technique using skeleton frames of vertical steel columns

Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The development of this technique made the construction of the skyscraper possible.

Tsentrosoyuz building Building of Myasnitskaya Street, Russia

The Tsentrosoyuz Building or Centrosoyuz Building is a government structure in Moscow, Russia, constructed in 1933 by Le Corbusier and Nikolai Kolli. Centrosoyuz refers to a Soviet bureaucracy, the Central Union of Consumer Cooperatives. The building included office space for 3,500 personnel, as well as a restaurant, lecture halls, a theater, and other facilities. The address of the building is 39 Myasnitskaya Street, and the eastern side of the building faces Myasnitskaya Street. The western side, which was supposed to be the main entrance, faces Academician Sakharov Avenue. Currently it is the home of Rosstat, Russian Federal State Statistics Service and Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

S. R. Crown Hall United States historic place

S. R. Crown Hall, designed by the German-American Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is the home of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois.

Rookery Building Building in Chicago

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Sanskar Kendra Local museum, history museum, art Museum, kite museum in Paldi, Ahmedabad

Sanskar Kendra is a museum at Ahmedabad, India, designed by the architect Le Corbusier. It is a city museum depicting history, art, culture and architecture of Ahmedabad. Another Patang Kite Museum is there which includes a collection of kites, photographs, and other artifacts. The campus is located at the west end of Sardar Bridge near Paldi.

Tube (structure)

In structural engineering, the tube is a system where, to resist lateral loads, a building is designed to act like a hollow cylinder, cantilevered perpendicular to the ground. This system was introduced by Fazlur Rahman Khan while at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), in their Chicago office. The first example of the tube's use is the 43-story Khan-designed DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building, since renamed Plaza on DeWitt, in Chicago, Illinois, finished in 1966.

Ed Edmondson United States Courthouse United States historic place

The Ed Edmondson United States Courthouse, previously called the Muskogee Federal Building- United States Courthouse, is a historic government building in Muskogee, Oklahoma. It was built in 1915 as a post office and federal courthouse. Although it is no longer used as a post office, it is currently in use by several government offices, including the U.S. Marshals and U.S. Probation Office as well as the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

Sendai Mediatheque

Sendai Mediatheque is a library in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It was designed by Toyo Ito in 1995 and completed in 2001.

Villa Shodhan House by Le Corbusier in Ahmedabad, India

Villa Shodhan is a modernist villa located in Ahmedabad, India. Designed by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, it was built between 1951 and 1956. Building on his previous projects whilst integrating the traditional features of Ahmedabad design, the villa symbolizes Le Corbusier's domestic architecture. The building is currently used as a private residence.

Dom-Ino House

Dom-Ino House is an open floor plan modular structure designed by the pioneering architect Le Corbusier in 1914–1915. This design became the foundation for most of his architecture for the next ten years.

Le Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture is an architecture manifesto by architect Le Corbusier. It was first published in the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau and subsequently in his 1923 book Vers une architecture.

Richard King Mellon Hall Academic facility on Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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Rosita De Hornedo

The Hotel Rosita De Hornedo, located in the Puntilla area of Miramar, was one of the first major buildings to be built by a private developer in the 1950s in Havana.

References

  1. ↑ Conrads, lrich (1970). Programs and Manifestos on 20th century Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT. p. 99.
  2. 1 2 Curtis, William JR (1986). LeCorbusier: Ideas and Forms. New York: Rizzoli. p. 69.
  3. 1 2 "Dom-ino Houses". Arch World. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  4. 1 2 "Barcelona Pavilion – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe". Achiplanet. Archived from the original on 17 November 2011. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  5. ↑ Glynn, Simon. "Neue Nationalgalerie by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe'" . Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  6. ↑ "IITArchitecture | Crown Hall" . Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  7. ↑ Glynn, Simon. "Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanerette" . Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  8. ↑ "Designs for Modern Living: Catalano House". designs for Modern living and PNC. Archived from the original on 6 January 2012. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
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