Giving new Functions to old Forms: the Aesthetics of Reassigned Architecture
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In modern cities, many old or abandoned buildings occupy valuable land without providing a comparably valuable service. In the past they have often met with the fate of being demolished and replaced, but modern day sentiment, be it foolhardy nostalgia or legitimate concern for architectural heritage, often leads to a building’s refurbishment. As a result, buildings save themselves from the wrecking ball by providing a service that satiates modern day demand. This process, however, has been challenged on aesthetic grounds, specifically the sometimes heartbreaking “trendy boutique-izing ” and subsequent lack of fit between function and form that occurs to many proud landmarks and mundane buildings alike. In terms of utility, we are tempted to save historic buildings in any way in which we are able, but the aesthetic consequences of doing so have not been thoroughly examined. This paper will survey both the negative and positive consequences of reassignment and suggest that, in order to avoid the former and accentuate the latter, we need to make sure that old form and new function “fit ” together as well as possible. I. THICK, THIN, AND GETTING FIT To view architecture exclusively in classically artistic terms is, according to contemporary theory, to miss vital aspects of the work. More recently the distinction has been made between “thin-type ” and “thick-type ” aesthetics in architecture: thin-type involves the recognition and contemplation of superficial features, while thick-type considers context and meaning, taking into account the function of a building, its role in
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.038 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.011 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".