APPALA TYPOLO
: ACHIA OGY
Typology is the taxonomic classification of characteristics commonly found in buildings and urban places. When considering the vast range of information that can fall into researching typology in Appalachia we realized that we needed to define criteria to guide our research. We hypothesized that people use buildings and places for three distinct purposes: “to live”, “to work”, and “to play”. Establishing these conditions allowed us to think about buildings in their most general sense and study people’s relationship to them.
where people live
house of god pocahontas
house for a bird and their human blacksburg
“less is a bore� blacksburg
level house lexington
gucci by kroger blacksburg
house + garden lexington
millionaire’s row bramwell
side street chapel blacksburg
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S
Sunrise
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Sunset
45
On a larger scale, urban planning impacts the relationship of a town’s buildings and the path of the sun throughout a day. Many towns and cities are planned along the cardinal axis, with each individual building dealing with the sun in its own way. Typical orientation and design maximizes directlight in the winter and minimizes direct light in the winter which means exposing the southern face. In the case of Lexington and Blacksburg, Virginia the grid of the town is rotated 45 degrees so that two faces of the building receive southern light instead of just one. This provides opportunities to better daylight and naturally heat buildings within the town.
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where people work
decorated shed unknown
$ lexington
out of place lexington
“home” office blacksburg
To track the progression of the reinvention of building types, we look to explore the conditions architecture is produced under. Capitalism- that incessantly revolutionizes the economic struture from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism This leaves us to analyze the ideology of obsolescence, focusing on the obsolete neighborhood of Pocahontas. This ferocious entity rips out the backbone of a settlement and leaves the carcass to decompose. This driving force behind the mutation of architecture and urban planning is versatile and swift. An increase in desire for access to a center for business and amusement is tied to the subsequent increase in concentration of where people reside the implementation of a rail system whereby goods could be transported much further and quicker introduced a livelihood to be sustained the destruction of the coal industry left no reason for Pocahontas’ existence. Today we look at the roads that connect the carcass of Pocahontas to feed off of the relative business center in Bluefield to support itself
where people play
“the cricket” pocahontas
thrift shop lexington
the lawn lexington
“lynn’s” bluewell
The Lyric The Black Hen
Idego Coffee Shop The Farmers
Friday 9 PM
Wednesday 3 PM
This is a case study of eight different buildings, each with a slightly different use and demographic. In a l “main� street where all of the local business is aggregated into a small area. Looking at a the public spac articulate the movement of the residents of Blacksburg and the types of business they favor.
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The Cellar Sharkeys Bar
Blacksburg United Methodist Church
Brownstone Barbershop
Saturday 11 AM
larger Appalachian town such as Blacksburg, the town center is defined through a central axis on a ces strictly in terms of usage rate and density of people relative to the building footprint begins to