Qualitative and Quantitative Evaluation Techniques of New Infill Designs in Historic Context

Abstract

With the continuing advancement in material technology and construction techniques, architects face a greater set of options and challenges when it comes to designing in historic settings. In the meantime after the ICOMOS agreement, every country adapted the policy according to their own culture and settings, therefore every architect in their respective country started interpreting the charters, and the design review processes in their own way. Working on the new addition to historic context gave rise to familiar characteristics in design, especially in the infill designs, which is “Replication and Contrast”, which in turn sparked the question, how to evaluate whether a building is properly fitting in its context with whatever approach employed. This paper aims to answer this question by conducting a literature review covering First, the qualitative evaluation approach which compromises of surveys and pre-visualization in order to identify the main visual properties that improve the contextual compatibility of the new designs in the historical context, and quantitative techniques focused more on the mathematical scientific cognitive results of all aspects of the architectural elements within historic settings. A comparison has been made on each result achieved and an assessment of their reliance or authenticity has been tested in order to find and bridge the gap between tangible and intangible values when judging “fit” in a historic setting. The results showed that the qualitative evaluation if followed properly it could be very promising, but it always leaves room for skepticism as the result is expected to change based on the size and the characteristics of the participants. The quantitative evaluation provided a more tangible evidence of the contextual fit in terms of architectural elements like size, proportion, and scale. Finally, a suggestion was made in order to provide a better, and a more comprehensive technique merging both methods together and trying to incorporate more of three-dimensional aspects of the building instead of the two dimensionality of the current assessment techniques.

The Contextual Design Criteria of Infill Building Façade in Malaysian Urban Historic Districts: A Systematic Review

“…Alfirević & Simonović [24], Historic Scotland [27], Riza & Doratli [31], Brolin [32], Gaber & Akcay [34], The Preservation Alliance [38], Davies [44], Nagavi & Mazaherian [46] Infill building faç ade design approaches in urban historic districts…”

“…Ujang [2], Shamsuddin [4], Semes [11], Soosani [15], Demiri [17], Alfirević & Simonović [24], Brolin [32], Semes [33], Gaber & Akcay [34], Sotoudeh & Abdullah [37], The Preservation Alliance [38], Zamri & Abdullah [40], Byard [45], Lambe & Dongre [47], Ujang & Zakariya [48], Abdel-Kader [49], Al-hasany [50], Sotoudeh & Abdullah [51], Ismail [52], Bentley et al [53] The contextual infill building faç ade design criteria in urban historic districts…”

“…Then, the trend of aggressive modern infill building design movement continues to rapidly be developed and followed by modernist architects in many urban historic districts, especially among Starchitects including Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid and Peter Eisenman. This movement advocates for "no fake architecture" and "true to its time" [32,34]. Following that, modernist architects emphasize 3 main principles in their design including function, technology and rejecting ornamentations [35].…”

“…Following that, the international heritage conservation guidelines are then justified and adopted in many countries heritage conservation policies according to their needs as well as the condition of culture and setting [34]. In the Malaysian context, the international level guidelines are adopted in the National Heritage Act 2005 and Historic Building Conservation Guidelines of Malaysia and local authorities' guidelines [25,26,42].…”

Infill Architecture: Contextualizing Design in An Urban Setting

“…This is a reality every building needs to encounter when it occurs as a physical material, with the existing environment being considered a mediator of new designs (Ostanevics, 2017). Contextuality also emphasizes the ability of a building to seamlessly blend with its environment, as infill architecture is observed as one of the design strategies (Gaber and Akçay, 2020). Several previous studies have reportedly been carried out on this strategy, based on the application of infill at the building scale (Noorifard, Reza, and Mehdizadeh, 2020;Wang, Yang, Nyunn, and Azim, 2020).…”