Atrium (architecture)

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Information about Atrium (architecture)

Looking up inside the 32-story atrium of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, part of the Jin Mao Building

Atrium of the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center

The Grand Piazza atrium inside the SuperStar Virgo

In architecture, an atrium (plural atria) is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within an office building and usually located immediately beyond the main entrance doors. Atria are popular with companies because they give their buildings "a feeling of space and light", but have been criticised by fire inspectors as they could allow fire to spread to a building's upper stories more quickly.

History

The Latin word atrium referred to the open central court, from which the enclosed rooms led off, in the type of large ancient Roman house known as a domus.

The impluvium was the shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch the rainwater. Some surviving examples are beautifully decorated. The opening in the ceiling above the pool called for some means of support for the roof. And it is here where one differentiates between five different styles of atrium.

Types of atria

The Tucson High Galleria and reflexive library (pictured) feature a modern atrium tetrastylum with four support columns and open roof.

atrium tuscanium: This type had no columns. The weight of the ceiling was carried by the rafters. Though expensive to build, it seems to have been the most widespread type of atrium in the Roman house.
atrium tetrastylum: This type had one column at each corner of the impluvium.
atrium corinthium: This type was similar to the atrium tetrastylum but had a greater opening in the roof and a greater number of columns.
atrium displuviatum: The roof actually sloped towards the side walls, so a large amount of rainwater ran off into other outlets than the impluvium.
atrium testudinatum: This atrium had no opening in the roof at all and was only seen in small, unimportant houses.

As the centrepiece of the house the atrium was the most lavishly furnished room. Also it contained the little chapel to the ancestral spirits (lararium), the household safe (arca) and sometimes a bust of the master of the house.

Tallest Atrium

As of 2007, Dubai's Burj Al Arab, the world's tallest hotel, has the tallest atrium as well. The Burj Al Arab was built to impress and to iconize the urban development in the city of Dubai, and currently it is considered to be the most significant landmark of the city.

Glazed Atrium

One of the main public spaces at Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia is called The Atrium and is a street-like space, 5-stories high with glazed walls and roof. The structure and glazing pattern follow the system of fractals used to arrange the panels on the rest of the facades at Federation Square.

Gallery

Four floor atrium of Gould Hall, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, at the University of Washington.

References

Roth, Leland M (1993). Understanding Architecture: Its Elements History and Meaning. Oxford, UK: Westview Press. ISBN 0-06-430158-3. pp. 520

External links

buildings (pictures, plans, constructions, planning instructions)

Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment: from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of construction details and,
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An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organisation with specific duties attached to it (see hi officer, office-holder, official); the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the
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Latin}}}
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
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domus was the form of house that wealthy families owned in ancient Rome and almost all the major cities of the Empire. (The middle classes and the poor were housed in crowded apartment blocks, known as insulae, while the country houses of the rich were known as villas).
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The impluvium is the sunken part of the atrium in a Greek or Roman house. Designed to carry away the rainwater coming through the compluvium of the roof, it is usually made of marble and placed about 30 cm below the floor of the atrium.
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Emirate of Dubai
إمارة دبيّ
Dubai's nightime skyline

Flag

Coordinates:
Emirate Dubai
Government
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Burj Al Arab

The Burj Al Arab is the world's tallest hotel.
Hotel facts and statistics

Location Dubai, United Arab Emirates
No of stars 5 stars*
No. of rooms 202^[]
Website burj-al-arab.
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A public space or a public place is a place where anyone has a right to come without being excluded because of economic or social conditions, although this may not always be the case in practice. One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons.
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Federation Square

Type Public space
Location Melbourne, Australia
Coordinates Coordinates:

Opened 26 October 2002
Operated by Federation Square Pty Ltd

Status
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Melbourne
Victoria

Location of Melbourne in Australia

Population:
• Density: 3,744,373 (2006 estimate) (2nd)
479.
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fractal.]]

A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,"^[1] a property called self-similarity.
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The College of Architecture and Urban Planning or CAUP at the University of Washington is made up of four Departments, Architecture, Construction Management, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design & Planning, as well as several interdisciplinary centers and institutes.
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University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Also known as Washington and locally as The U or UW (usually pronounced "U-Dub"), it is the largest university in the Northwestern United States and the oldest
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court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court.
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quadrangle is a space or courtyard, usually square or rectangular in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building. The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in
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