Cost-effectiveness of mass residential high-rise buildings, even in relatively expensive areas of development is still of great importance, since the same typical structures are also applicable to houses of economy class. In Cartesian coordinates, the most economical construction is a box structure. Most cities are a combination of different types of box systems. To avoid the complete monotony of structures in the Cartesian coordinate system, the buildings are saturated with different elements, allowing to change the appearance of the box system. This applies to both high-rise residential and public buildings.
The main techniques that allow to get away from the boxed structure are the mutual displacement of boxed volumes, the creation of protruding elements such as balconies and loggias, the use of bay windows of various shapes. On the first floors, mullion-beam structures are sometimes installed. In many cases, in order not to lose the attractiveness of structures, apply high-quality not cheap finish of the flat facade edges of rectangular structure, such as tile materials. Naturally, all the additional elements lead to an increase in the cost of a simple box system. When building on expensive development sites, these costs are not crucial and are covered by the high market value of the housing.
The experience of construction in Cartesian coordinates of panel houses with the complete elimination of all excesses was at the beginning of the development of this method of house-building. It showed how inexpressive the architecture of such buildings is, that is, the Cartesian coordinates in the most economical case – it is monotonous houses, which can be changed by complicating and increasing the cost. Nevertheless, there were successful solutions, for example, the Lazdynai district in Vilnius. But here, too, without some additions and to the box structure, therefore, additional costs did not do.
Thus the Cartesian coordinate system creates inseparable living spaces easily divisible, but requiring special treatment of flat building envelopes and additional costs for the decoration of the box structure of buildings. Nevertheless, the simplicity of the mullion-beam system based on woodworking technology and, subsequently, on rolling metal technology, which often serves as a form for concrete products, has helped and helps to develop such construction.
In all multistory buildings, it is practically impossible to change the planar solution of the slab tops, but the axes of the vertical wall planes need not be constructed in plan in Cartesian coordinates. Their direction can be changed. They can be located in the polar coordinates rays, can be combined with rectilinear axes having modified non-rectangular angles between themselves and theoretically any, therefore, the walls themselves in the plan can have a variety of shapes. This allows the rooms they enclose to have differently shaped areas.
If there is a surplus of area and large spans, then the functions flowing in these areas may well be incorporated into the nonlinear nonlinear envelopes. In this connection, we can assume that the functions flowing on the floors do not depend on the shape of enclosing structures and, consequently, on the coordinate system to which they are attached. Thus, there exists the principle of independence of functions from the system of coordinates and envelope structures attached to them in construction.
These provisions are not particularly objectionable in the case of public buildings with sufficiently excessive space, and this opens up great opportunities for architects all over the world. In elite residential buildings and many business-class residences, a large surplus of space makes human functions just as much less dependent on building envelopes. However, the principle of independence seems unacceptable for mass high-rise housing, where practically everything is built in a Cartesian coordinate system.
Since for houses designed for the majority of the population the construction cost is a fundamental factor, mass housing is built in Cartesian coordinates in the form of box structures, modified to avoid uniformity of form in one or another costly way.
The Cartesian coordinate system prevails in mass construction, but is it possible to change this position and how feasible is it? It turns out that it is possible to create a different method of housing construction in a different system of coordinates.
In all branches of science, it is known that linear laws are a particular case of general non-linear laws. Therefore, replacing the coordinate system in construction has a deeper philosophical meaning. The question arises as to how rational it is and how complex functions of human activity, family can fit into a non-Cartesian coordinate system and how the principle of independence is applicable in housing construction.
2.2 The principle of independence in housing
Functional human activity is so complex that its study and systematization can be done very conventionally. It is limited and defined for modern apartments in multistory buildings in a very simple way by the number of rooms, spaces and areas. In all cases there are functionally necessary kitchens and sanitary units. The basic principle of systematization – a larger family has more rooms and more space.
For apartments, however, you can define a maximum, when increasing the number of rooms and space becomes unnecessary, especially when considering the growing operating costs. The lower limit of the maximum number of rooms can be defined as the number of rooms corresponding to the number of family members plus one room, i.e. the number of bedrooms is taken into account. This principle is applicable in many countries. If this is commensurate with the area of living space per person in developed countries, it is other areas of apartments, i.e. the apartment must be significantly larger. A one-room apartment is two rooms and a kitchen for a total of about sixty meters, a two-room apartment is three rooms for a total of one hundred and twenty meters, a three-room apartment is four rooms for one hundred and eighty meters, etc. To achieve such a goal, the amount of existing living space in many countries must be greatly increased.
Further expansion of the maximum space and number of rooms depends on the specific preferences of the occupants, such as the need for an office to work at home, the placement of libraries or collections, etc. Thus, the required apartments for a family in terms of the number of rooms and space can in some cases be even larger. If these requirements are further expanded, then for mass construction we can go beyond such housing as apartments in a high-rise building and turn into individual construction of cottages, individual houses, mansions, which are not considered here because they require other infrastructure, individual transport, other expenses for construction and exploitation. Individual elite housing in high-rise, high-rise buildings in the central parts of cities, which on the expensive land is justified, is also not considered, and only mass construction is considered.
The functional activity of the occupants depends to a lesser extent on the system of coordinates in which the enclosing walls in the apartments are built. To a greater extent, the arrangement of equipment and furniture depends on it and the smaller the apartment, the greater this dependence. Indeed, the whole industry of household appliances, furniture, built-in equipment is oriented on the Cartesian coordinate system, so the simplest way to equip apartments is their placement with reference to the rooms which are also made in Cartesian coordinates. This is especially important for apartments with a small area. But the situation changes for large areas. The larger the apartment, the less this dependence is.
If possible, everyone strives to get apartments with a free layout and take the division of apartments into rooms into their own hands. But not everyone can afford it, and most often the choice is determined by the number of rooms and rooms and their total area. Such apartments already have a stable and invariable floor plan. Mostly these are apartments in large-panel buildings – the main most common low-cost housing.
As the composition of the family changes or increases without increasing the area of the apartments, their furnishing becomes more complicated. Availability of stable principles of equipment installation becomes important and Cartesian coordinates contribute to this. This is especially noticeable when the total housing area per person is not large. If this problem is difficult to solve, then in such a situation simply change the smaller apartment to a larger