Login
Confronting the high density of town planning, architects and towr1 planners are led to design mall outdoor places which are inserted into the city but offer specified properties: serenity, calmness, unusual surrounding ... Within the framework of the CERMA laboratory, we are looking for reference architectural examples likely to meet such needs and transposable into a contemporary architectural project. A research work in progress is dealing with Cistercian abbeys cloisters, archetypes of a space sheltered from outer nuisances which was originally dedicated to meditation and self-communion. Our work consists of checking whether the tranquillity of this place lies on physical data which are easily controllable by the designer.
In regard to our research, Cistercian cloisters present the following interests:
- it is a typical architectural figure from which several developments can derive: patios, squares, ...
- it is present in the whole of European countries and therefore has to suit to very different climatic and topographic compulsions;
- it was designed in a rational way and found upon a pattern which is easy to modelise.
A preliminary work has already been carried out which was focused on daylighting, acoustics, and air flow. The study of daylighting was based upon the modelisation of a sample of Cistcrcian abbey and its simulation with the software designed by the CERMA: Selene. The study of the soundscape rested on in situ measures made in the cloister of the Cistercian abbey of Noirlac (France) and theoretical estimations. We also undertook a preliminary approach of the cloister capacity for sheltering from the wind by setting up a 20 simulation with the finite element CFO code N3S. Our presentation will show this last point which supplied us quite interesting results and now form the subject of further research work.