Parametric design is a paradigm for the more effective use of computers in architectural design and practice. Rather than focus on design as a holistic process of formal synthesis, the more localised issue of design development will be discussed, especially with regard to the resolution of complex geometry. The triforium of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia is taken as a case study. Parametric variation is used to define surface geometry consistent with the surviving fragments of plaster models, and what we know of Gaudí's technique.

For many years, architects in the United Kingdom have looked enviously at the competition system in the German speaking countries and Scandinavia. Now, with the introduction of a major public buildings programme partially funded by the new National Lottery, competitions are becoming more common in Britain. This paper opens with some reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of competitions. It then describes the conduct and outcome of a single Lottery-funded competition for the design of a building for which there were no precedents and in which issues of content and image were major preoccupations for both designers and assessors.

This paper describes the results of measurements taken in a number of step wells, well houses, and bath houses in northern India, between March and April 1995. There is a discussion of the combination of thermally massive structures and evaporative cooling effects which characterise the buildings (some of which are over 500 years old). All of the structures examined continue to provide comfortably cool interiors in the heat of summer.

The history of the relationship of studio teaching to research since the Oxford Conference has been one of babies thrown out with bathwater. Nearly 40 years on the need for research to underpin and invigorate the acts of designing is ever more keenly felt. This paper starts from a belief that the fruitful linkage of the two requires new approaches to both – that the past 40 years shows that it does not happen automatically. Designing is considered as a series of tangible acts where the nature of each operation affects not just the outcome of the project but also the intention of the designer. This puts a renewed emphasis on the means and tools of designing, on the need for operative theories which avoid reductivism and to explore the difficulty of transforming an intention into an architectural hypothesis.

At a time when the architectural profession in the United Kingdom and elsewhere is undergoing considerable change, a clear understanding of the relationship between the services that architects can, and want to, provide and those desired and valued by our clients is vital. The architect's unique skill has been described as that of design. What does that mean today? We may all believe in the value of design but we must be sure that we can afford to offer such services at a realistic cost if we are to stay in business. This paper seeks to discover the linkages between the cost of design and its value.

The first part of this essay analyses in detail key aspects of The Hill House, in order to reveal the organising aesthetic principle that governs it. It would seem that a simple yet infinitely complex system of proportional measure binds a few natural and geometric symbols into a complex whole of profound poetic significance. The second part outlines the possible implications of this discovery for the interpretation and history of the house as an individual work of art, as well as of Mackintosh's oeuvre as a whole. These will be the subject of future research.

Architects rely on conceptual models of users during the design process, but if these models are inadequate the buildings may fail to meet user needs. User research, carried out by architects themselves or by specialist researchers, can improve architects' understanding of user needs. The dissemination of specialists' research findings to practising architects is crucial. Examples of user research on five topics are summarised.

This paper considers the relationship between atrium design and different climatic conditions in Europe. The analyses may be used to inform design proposals for buildings which seek to optimise the thermal buffering characteristics of atria. Particular attention is given to certain parameters witl a potential to form climatic responsive and energy efficient atrium buildings.

This paper describes the structural principles of cantilevered staircases. A brief history is given of stone staircases built in England, and a number of particularly interesting examples are discussed in detail. Four new staircases, built during the last decade, are described, demonstrating the relevance of these long established principles to contemporary construction.

This paper reviews the relationship between architectural intent and constructional realisation in the work of the Edinburgh practice Richard Murphy Architects. It focuses on a small built project in Edinburgh, the conversion of a building in Royal Terrace Mews.