Finding out about ancient architecture was a enlightening experience. The most generalised book about historical architecture I could find was called 'The World Atlas of Architecture' by Mitchell Beazley. Within the book I found a variety of building illustrations demonstrating the changes and different types of architecture throughout time. From the chapter sizes of this book, the two civilisations that stood out most was Roman and Greek. Both sections of the book are very in depth as I know they had made the most progress in construction though history. We see all different types of architecture in everyday buildings to date, an extract from the book explains: "Roman architecture is all around us: the centres of old towns, baths, ampitheatres, temples, city walls and triumphal arches, together with Roman bridges and aqueducts, often still in use from an integral part of Western scenery" This shows just how successful the Roman empire was, and how advanced they were with their building and architectural techniques. A reason why a lot of Western civilisation still see Roman structures within our own modern day life is also because of how much land was conquered by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD. Below is a map of this from the book.
Although Roman and Greek architecture is impressive for their vast advancements in building techniques, I found myself more interested in Oriental ancient buildings. Chinese, Japanese and Korean architecture captured my imagination a great amount more than the Western designs. One distinct feature that all three cultures have within their buildings is that they use wood as their main material. Although some wood is used within Western construction, it is not their main construction material. Many Western cultures used wood to help them construct their designs, such as with scaffolding and pulleys to lift their main construction material such limestone and rock. Wood within the oriental architecture appears to be abnormal in colour and also carved by hand. The colours of these wood structures varies from brown, red and black. Although many colours are used, the majority of the wood is coloured red, this is especially true in the Chinese culture.
Below are pictures of each individual oriental culture and their corresponding architecture. These were taken from the same book.
Chinese Korean Japanese
From these inspirational designs I decided to produce a proposal brief based around oriental architecture. My personal main goal in my dissertation is to focus mainly on design as this is the job field I plan to go into after education. I was considering to design and model a oriental styled house that would allow the player to customise the internal and externals of the house to match their personal tastes. I would want to design a certain number of objects such at lanterns, curtains, roof colours/styles and gardens. From this I would create a model in unity that has a drop down UI that allows players to select a predetermined area and choose an object from a drop down box.
I feel that many games in the industry use houses within their games but don't let the player actually make it their home. A home is a place where you feel like you 'belong' and feel comfortable. When a game such as Grand Theft Auto just starts you off in a home and expects the player to feel at home it breaks this illusion immediately and I feel that it just feels artificial. This is something I feel strongly about within games and hopefully can research further into.
Links
World Atlas of Architecture: In depth book on architecture through cultures and time.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Atlas-Architecture-Julius-Norwich/dp/0517668750China: The three emperors: Hardback book containg images and references to shape of chinese buildings
http://www.amazon.co.uk/China-Emperors-1662-1795-Evelyn-Rawski/dp/1903973694/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381571803&sr=1-1&keywords=china+the+three+emperors
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