The mind of architecture: April 2018

What is Grid ?

Ubiquitous Urbanism, Studio Hadid/ Schumacher, Columbia University, 1993, layering process: inflection/ interarticulation

Grid Definition :

Structural grid, modular grid; a regular framework of reference lines to which the dimensions of major structural components of the plan of a building are fixed.
in town planning, a checkerboard network of intersecting streets and avenues forming the basic layout of a city or town.

Grid Line Definition :
One of the lines marking a structural, modular or layout grid of a building, to which dimensions are coordinated.

Grid Plan Definition :
An urban plan type in which streets are laid out in an orthogonal network, forming a pattern of approximately rectangular blocks; also called a checkerboard plan, checkerboard plan, chessboard plan or gridiron plan.

Grids in Graphic design :
The most flexible foundation to support the designer working in two and three dimensions is that of the grid. The grid divides a two-dimensional or three-dimensional space into smaller compartments. The fields or compartments may be the same or different in size.

Space caught in the net of order.

The Greeks

The Greek city of (Miletus):
It's plan was to first articulate the value of the grid as an expression of social order and rationality.

Hippodamus of Miletus
Hippodamus of Miletus is the leader and most famous city planner. Aristoteles is the best resource for us to learn about him. Aristoteles says these about him "long haired, extraordinary personality and has ideas about the ideal city". He had specially planed Athens (Piraeus).

Athens (Piraeus), the most famous cities of the time was completely rebuilt by Hippodamus in symmetric. Streets intersecting each other in parallel and straight. Hippodamus rebuilt Miletus where he was born according to this plan. Then the plan was applied in Thurio and Rhodes in southern Italy.

According to Hippodamus, Agora was the first and the most important building in a city. As Agora was the life center of a city a few perpendicular blocks are left for it. After that gymnasium, stadium, theater and official buildings were located. Then the settled areas were located. There is no information about the separate settlements for aristocrats, soldiers and poor people. But the poor people were out of the city and far from these places. Underground sewage system was applied the entire city and there were drainpipes. They were built separately then the roads, streets and city walls. Main doors of City walls were open to an important street.

The Romans :

The grid of the Roman towns were derived from miltary camps and was organized around two principal streets, set at right angles to each other and called the Cardo Maximus (north-south) and Decumanus Maximus (east west).

At their intersection was the Forum or marketplace, the Basilica or law court, the Curia or meeting hall, and a Capitolium for official state worship, dating from Hadrian's reign (AD 117-138).

This system was expanded across Europe to impose order om occupied territory.

The Beaux-Arts :

The first concreted attempt to promote the use of an abstract grid of dimensions to coordinate the plans, sections and elevations of buildings in France by Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand.
He was an important figure in Neoclassicism, and his system of design using simple modular elements anticipated modern industrialized building components.

He used the basic architectural meter as the module, this was measured as the center to center distance between columns, rather than as a column diameter, which had been proportionally related to the human body.

Germany :
The method of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand was popular in Germany by Neoclassicist architects such as Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and Leo von Klenze, and it inspired the attempt to create a comprehensive dimensional guidance for architects by Ernst Neufert a German architect who is known as an assistant of Walter Gropius, as a teacher and member of various standardization organizations, and especially for his essential handbook Architects' data.

The International style and the Machine age :

This idea was very appealing universally where grids are used as means of coordinating the dimensions of a building and the elements which are built and assembled in a factory leaving little room for adjustment on site.

The modernist free plan :
The grid became means of allowing freedom in the organization in space.
Open plan :
Schematic plans. Projects by L. Mies van der Rohe, Brick Country House