Subject: CCL:Summary, Chemistry & Architecture

From: Miquel Solà <miquel.sola..at..udg.es>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 09:10:32 +0200

Dear CCLers,

Thanks to Carlos Silva, Anselm Horn, Doug Henry, Luigi Cavallo, Egon W., 
David Shobe,
David Reichert, Brian K. Peterson, Ralph Puchta, Bartolomeo Civalleri, 
Kieran F Lim,
Francis T. Marchese, Pete Gannett, Charles Woodbury, Richard Gililan and 
E. Lewars
who responded to my question on the relationship between Chemistry and 
Architecture.
It turns out that there a lot of relations between the two disciplines, 
most of them will be
useful for my introduction to the subject. Thank you very much!!
I give a summary of the responses below.

Best regards,

Miquel

*************

I highly recommend you to browse the literarure authored by Leo Paquette,
he is an organic chemist who has built some "structuraly fair" molecules.
Look Figure 4 in his website:
http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/cgi/brochure?Faculty=Paquette
More complicated simmetrical structures within his publications.
Hope it helps

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

   Carlos Silva Lspez
 Dept. Qummica Organica
  Universidade de Vigo
  Phone:0034 986812226
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

*************
Hello,

the names "pagodane" and "housane" come into my mind.

Regards,

Anselm

--
_______________________________________________________________________
Anselm Horn, Dipl. Chem. Univ.       Anselm.Horn..at..chemie.uni-erlangen.de
  ___
 / __|        ___                               Computer Chemie Centrum
| /     ___  / __|
| |    / __|| /                                   Naegelsbachstrasse 25
\ \__ | /   | |                                          91052 Erlangen
 \___|| |   \ \__                                 Deutschland / Germany
      \ \__  \___|    Tel: +49 9131/85-2-6583 * Fax: +49 9131/85-2-6565
       \___|                 http://www.ccc.uni-erlangen.de/clark/horn/
__

*************

>From Doug Henry:

Google search "nanotubes" and "mile high": (space elevator, mile-high 
skyscrapers)
 
http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/pdf_files/usrp.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nsu/021007/021007-13.html
popularmechanics.com/science/space/ 2002/7/going_up/print.phtml
www.discover.com/feb_01/feattech.html 
<http://www.discover.com/feb_01/feattech.html>
www.manufacturing.net/esec/Article_108499.htm 
<http://www.manufacturing.net/esec/Article_108499.htm>

*************

E.g. the double helix of DNA... Also a number of organic ring systems like
for example benzene (6 ring) can be found in architecture too...

kind regards,

Egon

*************

There should be sort of a review
that was published recently on Chemistry - A European Journal. The author
should be Vincenzo Balzani.

luigi

*************

You might want to look at "supramolecular" chemistry, where molecules 
are used as "building blocks" to make more complicated structures.  
Typically these are held together by hydrogen bonds or similar interactions.
 
There are also articles on molecular versions of the construction 
toys, "Tinkertoys" and "Meccano", perhaps others.  (These are analogies 
used by the authors of the papers, but do are not meant to imply any 
connection to the companies that manufacture these toys or own the 
trademarks thereto).  These are typically rigid molecules which react, 
forming covalently bonded structures.
 
Hope this helps,

--David Shobe
S|d-Chemie Inc.
phone (502) 634-7409
fax     (502) 634-7724
email  dshobe..at..sud-chemieinc.com

Don't bother flaming me: I'm behind a firewall.

*************

I don't know if this is entirely applicable but Jerry Atwood at University
of Missouri - Columbia has been publishing on large self-assembled
molecules that represent the Platonic and Aristolean solids which might
interest Architecture students. Can't recall the references off the top of
my head though.
-david
David Reichert, Ph.D.
Washington University School of Medicine
510 S. Kingshighway, Campus Box 8225
St Louis, MO 63110

e-mail: reichertd..at..mir.wustl.edu
voice: (314) 362-8461
fax: (314) 362-9940

*************

>From Brian K. Peterson

Random thoughts:
 
If your intended use of a relationship between chemistry and 
architecture includes higher levels of abstraction, chemistry and 
architecture are related via their use of a hierarchy of structures.  
Molecules are built out of atoms and functional groups.  Buildings are 
built out of struts, beams, bricks, floors, exteriors, interiors, etc.  
Molecules exhibit function and form.  They have symmetry.  They must be 
somehow compatible or commensurate with nearby molecules.
 
A dense layer of single chain surfactant molecules on a liquid surface 
looks something like the high-rise region of a large city.  An ion 
channel in a cell wall is somewhat like a door or a hallway.  Carbon 
nanotubes are cylindrical columns. Some zeolites include extended 
frameworks with interior regions that could function as a buidling with 
rooms. 

*************

Dear Miquel, 

what about C20H20 isomer Pagodane and the coresponding japanese houses?

Greetings

Ralph

*************
Dear Miquel Sola',
you can have a look at the zeolite frameworks
which are very similar to Romanesque and Islamic decorations.

You can find more information on zeolite topochemistry
in a review by J.V. Smith published on Chem. Rev. in 1988:

J.V. Smith
Topochemistry of zeolites and related materials. 1. Topology and
geometry
Chem. Rev. 1988, 88, 149-182

I hope this could be useful to your talk.
All the best

Mimmo

Dr. Bartolomeo Civalleri
Dipartimento di Chimica IFM - Universita' di Torino
Via P. Giuria 7, 10125 Torino (Italy)
Phone: +39-011-6707564; Fax: +39-011-6707855
E-mail: bartolomeo.civalleri..at..unito.it
*************

Another example is cubane -- a (multi)cyclic alkane molecule

consisting of 8 carbon atoms in the form of a cube.

Another example are the zeolytes

Another example is from the lab of Dainis Dakternieks (Australia)

and his collaborators in Germany. They synthesize "ladders" of tin-containing

compounds ... something like

    R - Sn - O - Cl - Sn - R

        |    |   |    |

    R - O - Cl - Sn - O

if the R groups are chosen carefully, then each "ladder" can form a "floor"

and the R groups can form "columns" joining and holding the ladders/floors

at fixed distances ...

I have also heard of two "Lego" examples.

The first is from the lab of Ilo Hansen (Spelling?) in Denmark where actual

Lego blocks are used to construct robotic modular automated sampling

handling instruments for analytical chemistry.

The second is the construction of larger rigid molecules

> from smaller ones by Richard Russell and Ron Warrener (both Australia)

using the term molecular "Lego"

-- along the lines of Dave Shobe's e-mail --

without implying any connection to real Lego blocks.

Kieran

------------------------------------------------------------

 Dr Kieran F Lim              Biol. and Chemical Sciences

   (Lim Pak Kwan)             Deakin University

 ph:  + [61] (3) 5227-2146    Geelong          VIC   3217

 fax: + [61] (3) 5227-1040    AUSTRALIA

 mobile phone: 0438 350 259 (within Australia)

 mailto:lim..at..deakin.edu.au     http://www.deakin.edu.au/~lim

------------------------------------------------------------

************
Hi Miquel,

Some things you may want to talk about:

1. Architecture defines space. 
So do molecules. For example, cage compounds, zeolites, many 
proteins define spaces for other molecules to inhabit. 
(keywords: host-guest compounds, cages, cryptands, protein active site) 

2. Form follows function. 
For example, the "shapes" of proteins have evoled to perform a specific
function.

3. Architectural orders. 
There is a systematic way in which atoms are combined to create spatial
structure. Models such as VSEPR are easy heuristic models to look at this. 
Correlations could be made with Palladian motifs. Mitchell's book "The Logic
of Architecture" talks about "a Palladian grammar." The periodic
table and rules of chemical combination are a more complex 3D grammar.

Another example... Proteins are built from a set of architectural "motifs" 
(e.g. "greek key"). A good place to look is "Introduction to Protein Structure" 
by Carl Branden and John Tooze.

Finally, molecules crystallize in regular patterns, very much like 
"wall paper" patterns. 

4. Inorganic vs organic architecture. 
Inorganic substances have highly regular structures (e.g. salt (NaCl)). But 
most organic molecules are less-so. There is a whole class of molecules
called "dendritic molecules" that have branching patterns much like 
trees or bushes.

5. Positive vs Negative space. 
The Seagram building in NYC is my favorite example of this. Mies van der Rohe's 
monolithic structure defines a complmentary rectangular volume.  Many atomic
arrangements create these types of  spatial relationships. For example, the packing
arrangement of Cl- ions in the NaCl lattice defines spaces for the smaller Na+ ions
to occupy.

Enough for now. Hope this is useful.

Regards
Frank

Dr. Francis T. Marchese
Professor
Dept. of Computer Science
Pace University
163 William Street, 2nd Floor
NY, NY 10038

and

Director
Center for Advanced Media
http://csis.pace.edu/~cam

and 

Director
Pace Digital Gallery
http://www.pace.edu/DigitalGallery

*************
Miquel:

Sounds like a tough audience.  Here are a few that come to mind and might help. 

Hydrocarbons:  Tetrahedran, housane, basketane, cubane (just search on the names to get structures for but you can get a good idea of what they look like from their names).  There are also the catenanes (two rings, one passing through the other).  

Others come to mind but need a bit of imagination, for example, DNA looks like a spiral staircase.

Hope this helps.

Pete Gannett

*************
Dear Miquel:

Here at the University of Illinois at Chicago, we have a new building (the 
Molecular Biology Research Building or MBRB) in which the main staircase is 
a double helix.  This was of course designed deliberately for this 
building.  Take a look at it:

http://www.uic.edu/orgs/mbrb/staircas.htm

Hope this helps.

Chuck Woodbury

*************
I once gave an invited lecture on molecular graphics at a conference on  
oil and

gas discovery. They invited a variety of speakers from different fields  
to get

a perspective on visualization methods and technology. One of the  
things molecular

graphics has to offer is the ways in which various simplified  
representations are

used to bring out different aspects of a more complex data set. Ribbon  
representation

for example, removes the complexity of sidechains and focuses on the  
underlying architectural structure of the protein. Molecular surface  
focuses on the shape and

surface form without regard to interior. Biochemists may have some of  
the most complex

geometric data to deal with in any field. Architects are only recently  
getting into

3D (stereo and VR) display technology, while chemists have used it for  
decades.

Although architects are quite good at photorealism now (more so than  
chemists I think),

it always surprises me that so little use is made of depth-cuing (fade  
to black with

distance) and stereo in geometric modeling programs (geometric modelers  
in

film/animation fall in this category too). Could be that man-made  
structures are

(have been) easier to visualize with simple orthographic  
(front/back/side)

projections than natural 3D objects. Molecular building programs in  
chemistry & crystallography contain integrated physical simulations  
(structure

minimization for example).  The analogy would be designing a building  
using

real-time load-bearing simulations or something of that type.

If you are interested, I could probably

dig up some old slides.

Richard Gillilan

MacCHESS, Cornell

*************

2003 April 24

Hello,

Don't forget pyramidane (the pyramids are the only architectural wonder of the ancient world still standing; may the molecule be as stable!

THEOCHEM, 1998, _423_, 173
THEOCHEM, 2000, _507_, 165

E. Lewars
====

*****

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 Miquel Sol`                           
 Institut de Qummica Computacional         
 Universitat de Girona                   
 Campus Montilivi
 17071 Girona, CATALONIA (Spain)          
 Phone +34.972.41.89.12
 Cellular-Phone:  +34.626.163.580
 FAX   +34.972.41.83.56                               
 World Wide Web: http://iqc.udg.es/~miquel/mike.html   
 e-mail: miquel.sola..at..udg.es                         
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