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Books > Arts & Architecture > Architecture > Theory of architecture
Cities have historically supported production, commerce, and consumption, all central to urban life. But in the contemporary Western city, production has been hidden or removed, and commerce and consumption have dominated. This book is about the importance of production in the life of the city, and the relationships between production, architecture, and urban form. It answers the question: What will cities be like when they become, once again, places of production and not only of consumption? Through theoretical arguments, historical analysis, and descriptions of new initiatives, Working Cities: Architecture, Place and Production argues that contemporary cities can regain their historic role as places of material production-places where food is processed and things are made. The book looks toward a future that builds on this revival, providing architectural and urban examples and current strategies within the framework of a strong set of historically-based arguments. The book is illustrated in full colour with archival and contemporary photographs, maps, and diagrams especially developed for the book. The diagrams help illustrate the different variables of architectural space, urban location, and production in different historical eras and in different kinds of industries, providing a compelling visual understanding for the reader.
The Theory of Architecture Concepts, Themes & Practices Paul-Alan Johnson Although it has long been thought that theory directs architectural practice, no one has explained precisely how the connection between theory and practice is supposed to work. This guide asserts that architectural theory does not direct practice, but is itself a form of reflective practice. Paul-Alan Johnson cuts through the jargon and mystery of architectural theory to clarify how it relates to actual applications in the field. He also reveals the connections between new and old ideas to enhance the reader’s powers of critical evaluation. Nearly 100 major concepts, themes, and practices of architecture—as well as the rhetoric of architects and designers—are presented in an easily accessible format. Throughout, Johnson attempts to reduce each architectural notion into its essential concept. By doing so, he makes theory accessible for everyday professional discussion. Topics are arranged under ten headings: identification, definition, power, attitudes, ethics, order, authority, governance, relationship, and expression. Areas covered under these headings include:
Increasingly the world around us is becoming 'smart.' From smart meters to smart production, from smart surfaces to smart grids, from smart phones to smart citizens. 'Smart' has become the catch-all term to indicate the advent of a charged technological shift that has been propelled by the promise of safer, more convenient and more efficient forms of living. Most architects, designers, planners and politicians seem to agree that the smart transition of cities and buildings is in full swing and inevitable. However, beyond comfort, safety and efficiency, how can 'smart design and technologies' assist to address current and future challenges of architecture and urbanism? Architecture and the Smart City provides an architectural perspective on the emergence of the smart city and offers a wide collection of resources for developing a better understanding of how smart architecture, smart cities and smart systems in the built environment are discussed, designed and materialized. It brings together a range of international thinkers and practitioners to discuss smart systems through four thematic sections: 'Histories and Futures', 'Agency and Control', 'Materialities and Spaces' and 'Networks and Nodes'. Combined, these four thematic sections provide different perspectives into some of the most pressing issues with smart systems in the built environment. The book tackles questions related to the future of architecture and urbanism, lessons learned from global case studies and challenges related to interdisciplinary research, and critically examines what the future of buildings and cities will look like.
The Multi-Skilled Designer presents and analyzes different approaches to contemporary architectural design and interprets them through the theory of multiple intelligences. The book establishes a systematic framework that uses the lens of cognitive psychology and developments in psychometric and brain research to analyze the unique cognitive thought processes of architectural designers and compiles design projects that could serve as a pedagogical companion for the reader. The book is aimed at design practitioners and students interested in examining their own thinking styles as well as those involved in design cognition research.
The Environmental Imagination explores the relationship between tectonics and poetics in environmental design in architecture. Working thematically and chronologically from the eighteenth century to the present day, this book redefines the historiography of environmental design by looking beyond conventional histories to argue that the environments within buildings are a collaboration between poetic intentions and technical means. In a sequence of essays, the book traces a line through works by leading architects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that illustrate the impact of new technologies on the conception and realisation of environments in buildings. In this, a consideration of the qualitative dimension of environment is added to the primarily technological narratives of other accounts. In this second edition, the book has been substantially rewritten and restructured to include further research conducted in the decade since the first edition. A number of important buildings have been revisited, in order to extend the descriptions of their environments, and studies have been made of a number of newly studied, significant buildings. A completely new essay offers an environmental interpretation of Luis Barragan's magical own house in Mexico City and the earlier studies of buildings by Peter Zumthor have been gathered into a single, extended essay that includes a body of new research. On the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Reyner Banham's, The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment, the book concludes with a critical tribute to that seminal text. The Environmental Imagination will appeal to academics and practitioners with interests in the history, theory and technology of architecture.
Philosophy exercises a massive influence on contemporary architectural culture and the understanding of the built environment. Discussions of architects and architectural academics are heavily loaded with theoretical ideas, concepts and views imported from the works of philosophers. At the same time this architectural employment of philosophy rarely goes beyond the tendency to mine philosophical works for ideas, words and phrases and use them, often without much understanding, in order to promote architectural agendas and embellish theoretical claims made by architects and academics. The book presents the history of this phenomenon for the past 100 years. It describes and analyses numerous, often funny, entertaining as well as embarrassing, examples of false intellectual pretence and pompous but incompetent philosophical posturing by prominent architects and architectural academics of the era and their efforts to bamboozle readers, colleagues and the general public. The book presents a powerful criticism of modernist views on architecture and argues that the rise of obfuscation and philosophical posturing among architects and architectural academics is a defensive strategy intended to draw attention away from the failure of Modernism in architecture.
About Architecture is an engaging introduction to architecture, exploring the ways in which we construct our built environment, and why. Hugh Pearman guides us through the architecture that shapes our lives—from how our towns and cities are organized, to where we live, learn and work, and how we get around, interact with others, and relax. Organized by type—from civic spaces, to homes, offices, and museums—the clear and straightforward structure demystifies the many styles and functions of architecture. Pearman explores how architecture responds to our changing lifestyles and how some buildings evolve or find new uses. He demonstrates that while there is endless variety within each building type, the essence of architecture—the way buildings serve their users—remains surprisingly constant.  Through 55 fascinating international examples, from antiquity to the present day, About Architecture reveals the intriguing stories of the buildings that explain our world.
Colour is architecture’s sharpest tool in the box. It has indexed everything from the feminine, cosmetic and vulgar to the pure, intrinsic and embodied. Attitudes to colour are constantly shifting. They have played a central role in the history of architecture: from the polychromy of the ancients to the great white interiors of high modernism; the figurative flourishes of postmodernism to the embodied sublime of contemporary building systems and facades. In contemporary architecture, colour has emerged as a powerful mode of working and an impactful political proposition. The second digital age has ushered paradigmatic shifts in how architects engage it. Employing the full spectrum of colour requires a projective mode of action – one that anticipates nascent futures. It aids in the democratisation of visual culture, opening the field to enable a multiplicity of identities by introducing new references and embracing new voices. This book explores the operative role of colour in current practice by proffering visions not of idealised other worlds, but rather radical reimaginings of our present one. Features: 100 Architects, Maya Alam, David Batchelor, Galo Canizares, Courtney Coffman, Fala Atelier, Marcelyn Gow, Louisa Hutton, Sam Jacob, Carolyn Kane, Guto Requena, Javier González Rivero, Paulette Singley, Amanda Williams and Mimi Zeiger.
Cities are built over the remnants of their past buried beneath their present. We build on what has been built before, whether over foundations formalising previous permanency or over the temporal occupations of ground. But what happens when you shift a city - when you dislodge its occupation of ground towards a new ground, bury it and forget it? Focusing on Berlin's destruction during World War II and its reconstruction after the end of the war, this book offers a rethinking of how the practices of destruction and burial combine to reform the city through geography and how burying a city is intricately tied to forgetting destruction, ruination and trauma. Created from 25 million cubic meters of rubble produced during World War II, Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain) is the exemplar of the destroyed city. Its critical journey is chronicled in combination with Berlin's seven other rubble hills, and their connections to constructing forgetting through burial. Furthermore, the book investigates Berlin's sublime relation to Albert Speer's urban vision to rival the ancient cities of Rome and Athens through their now shared geographies of seven hills. Finally, there is a central focus on the role of the citizens who cleared Berlin's streets of rubble, and the subsequent human relationships between people and ruins. This book is valuable reading for those interested in Architectural Theory, Urban Geography, Modern History and Urban Design.
When Seon (Zen) Buddhism was first introduced to Korea around Korea's late Silla and early Goryeo eras, the function of the "beopdang" (Dharma hall) was transfused to the lecture hall found in ancient Buddhist temples, establishing a pivotal area within the temple compound called the "upper monastic area." By exploring the structural formation and dissolution of the upper monastic area, the author shows how Korea established its own distinctive Seon temples, unlike those of China and Japan, in the course of assimilating a newly-introduced foreign culture as its own. To accomplish this, the author analyzed the inscriptions on stone monuments which recorded the lives of eminent monks and also numerous excavated temple ruins. These analyses give us a new perspective on the evolution of the upper monastic area, which had the beopdang as its center, at a time when early Seon temples were being established under very adverse and unstable circumstances. The exploration of the spatial organization and layout of Korean Seon temple architecture has illuminated the continuity between Korean Buddhist temples of both the ancient and medieval eras.
We are witnessing an ever-increasing level and intensity of disasters from Ecuador to Ethiopia and beyond, devastating millions of ordinary lives and causing long-term misery for vulnerable populations. Bringing together 26 case studies from six continents, this volume provides a unique resource that discusses, in considerable depth, the multifaceted matrix of natural and human-made disasters. It examines their bearing on the loss of human and productive capital; the conduct of national policies and the setting of national development priorities; and on the nature of international aid and bilateral assistance strategies and programs of donor countries. In order to ensure the efficacy and appropriateness of their support for disaster survivors, international agencies, humanitarian and disaster relief organizations, scholars, non-governmental organizations, and members of the global emergency management community need to have insight into best practices and lessons learned from various disasters across national and cultural boundaries. The evidence obtained from the numerous case studies in this volume serves to build a worldwide community that is better informed about the cultural and traditional contexts of such disasters and better enabled to prepare for, respond to, and finally rebuild sustainable communities after disasters in different environments. The main themes of the case studies include: * the need for community planning and emergency management to unite in order to achieve the mutual aim of creating a sustainable disaster-resilient community, coupled with the necessity to enact and implement appropriate laws, policies, and development regulations for disaster risk reduction; * the need to develop a clear set of urban planning and urban design principles for improving the built environment's capacities for disaster risk management through the integration of disaster risk reduction education into the curricula of colleges and universities; * the need to engage the whole community to build inclusive governance structures as prerequisites for addressing climate change vulnerability and fostering resilience and sustainability. Furthermore, the case studies explore the need to link the existence and value of scientific knowledge accumulated in various countries with decision-making in disaster risk management; and the relevance and transferability from one cultural context to another of the lessons learned in building institutional frameworks for whole community partnerships.
Provides clear distinctions between the subjective and objective dimensions of architecture and the arts Arguments are reinforced by the analysis of seminal architectural examples Bullet points at the end of each chapter summarise the arguments and provide further guidance to the reader
Space, place and territory are concepts that lie at the core of geography and urban planning, environmental studies and sociology. Although space, place and territory are indeed polysemic and polemic, they have particular characteristics that distinguish them from each other. They are interdependent but not interchangeable, and the differences between them explain how we simultaneously perceive, conceive and design multiple spatialities. After drawing the conceptual framework of space, place and territory, the book initially explores how we sense space in the most visceral ways, and how the overlay of meanings attached to the sensorial characteristics of space change the way we perceive it - smell, spatial experiences using electroence phalography, and the changing meaning of darkness are discussed. The book continues exploring cartographic mapping not as a final outcome, but rather as an epistemological tool, an instrument of inquiry. It follows on how particular ideas of space, place and territory are embedded in specific urban proposals, from Brasilia to the Berlin Wall, airports and infiltration of digital technologies in our daily life. The book concludes by focusing on spatial practices that challenge the status quo of how we perceive and understand urban spaces, from famous artists to anonymous interventions by traceurs and hackers of urban technologies. Combining space, place and territory as distinctive but interdependent concepts into an epistemological matrix may help us to understand contemporary phenomena and live them critically.
Masonry constructions are the great majority of the buildings in Europe's historical centres and the most important monuments in its architectural heritage and the demand for their safety assessments and restoration projects is pressing and constant. Nevertheless, there is a lack of a widely accepted approach to studying the statics of masonry structures. This book aims to help fill these gaps by presenting a new comprehensive, unified theory of statics of masonry constructions. The book, result of thirty years of research and professional experience, through an interdisciplinary approach combining engineering, architecture, advances from the simple to the complex and analyses statics of a large variety of masonry constructions, as arches, domes, cross and cloister vaults, piers, towers, cathedrals and buildings under seismic actions.
Through sheer determination and courage, Kahn has researched the nature of concrete in the form of precast, cast in place or blocks. Each of his renowned works in exposed concrete, such as the Yale Art Gallery, the Richards Laboratories, the Bath House, the Salk Institute, the National Assembly, the Kimbell Museum, the Exeter Library and the Yale Center for British Art, is itself an important chapter in the history of architecture for the exploration into concrete s formal expression, beyond the lessons of Le Corbusier. Kahn s obsession with concrete s fabrication processes, the formwork and the mix-design is systematically examined in two volumes. They illustrate Kahn s vision using documents that have never been revealed in other essays, drawing heavily from original sketches, plans, specifications, worksite photographs, and correspondences with collaborators, engineers, technicians and contractors. The first volume "Exposed Concrete and Hollow Stones" focuses on the first ten-year period of Kahn's research on concrete. Moving through the many construction systems experienced by Kahn, from the discovery of exposed concrete in the form of "beton brut" at the Yale Art Gallery, to the precast and poured-in-place techniques, to the values of joint, growth and ornament, the work culminates in the reconstruction of the artistic and technical characteristics of two great worksite, the Richards Laboratories and the First Unitarian Church and School. The second volume, "Towards the Zero Degree of Concrete," covers the following fourteen years and leads the reader along Kahn s path to the true 'nature of concrete', focusing on his main techniques and discoveries such as the 'liquid stone' of the Salk Institute, the 'smooth finish' at Bryn Mawr and the concept of 'monolithic' at the Yale Center for British Art."
This book explores how psychoanalysis and architecture can enhance and increase the chances of mental 'containment', while also fostering exchange between inside and outside. The way in which psychoanalysts take care of mental suffering, and the way in which architects and city planners assess the environment, are grounded in a shared concern with the notion of 'dwelling'. It is a matter of fact that dwelling exists in a complex context comprised of both biological need and symbolic function. Psychoanalysis and architecture can work together in both thinking about and designing not only our homes but also the analyst's consulting rooms and, more generally, our therapy places. However, this is possible only if they renounce the current limited and restrictive model of this interaction, and propose one more that is more in harmony with the questions and situations that clients themselves pose.
Space: it's everywhere, all around, a given. It's abstract and yet not abstract at all, because it governs all human relations, shapes the way we understand our place on the planet, and orients us toward others (for better and for worse). How do theatre scholars understand space and place in performance? What tools do they use to theorize the political work space does on - and beyond - the stage? How can students use these tools to unpack the workings of space and place in the performances they see, the plays they study, and the experiences they have outside their classrooms? Theory for Theatre Studies: Space provides a comprehensive introduction to the 'spatial turn' in modern theatre and performance theory, exploring topics as diverse as embodied space, environmental performance politics and urban performance studies. The book is written in accessible prose and features in-depth case studies of Platform's audio walk And While London Burns, Katie Mitchell's Fraulein Julie, Young Jean Lee's The Shipment, and Evalyn Parry and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory's Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools. TfTS: Space begins with fresh readings of historical dramatic theory, discusses twentieth-century theoretical trends at length, and ends by asking what it will take (and what work is already underway) to decolonize the Western, settler-colonial stage. Online resources to accompany this book are available at: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/theory-for-theatre-studies-space-9781350006072/
Once regarded a secondary consideration, in recent years, materiality has emerged as a powerful concept in architectural discourse and practice. Prompted in part by developments in digital fabrication and digital science, the impact of materiality on design and practice is being widely reassessed and reimagined. Materiality and Architecture extends architectural thinking beyond the confines of current design literatures to explore conceptions of materiality across the field of architecture. Fourteen international contributors use elucidate the problems and possibilities of materiality-based approaches in architecture from interdisciplinary perspectives. The book includes contributions from the professions of architecture, art, architectural history, theory and philosophy, including essays from Gernot Boehme, Jonathan Hill and Philip Ursprung. Important 'immaterial' aspects such as presentation, agency, ecology and concept are examined, deepening our understanding of materiality's role in architectural processes, the production of cultural identities, the pursuit of political agendas, and the staging of everyday environments and atmospheres. In-depth illustrated case studies examine works by Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, and Lacaton & Vassal, interspersed with visual essays and interviews with architects such as MVRDV providing a direct connection to practice. Materiality and Architecture is an important read for researchers and students with an interest in architectural theory and related fields such as art, art history, or visual and cultural studies.
Combining transgender studies with the 'neomodernist' architectures of the internationally renowned firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) and with modernist writers (Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf) whose work anticipates that of transgender studies, this book challenges the implicit 'spatial models' of popular narratives of transgender - interiority, ownership, sovereignty, structure, stability, and domesticity - to advance a novel theorization of transgender as a matter of exteriority, groundlessness, ornamentation, and movement. With case studies spanning the US and UK, Transgender Architectonics examines the ways in which modernist architecture can contribute to our understanding of how it is that humans are able to transform, shedding light on the manner in which architecture, space, and the spatial metaphors of gender can play significant - if often unrealized - potential roles in body and gender transformation. By remedying both the absence of actual architecture in queer theory's discussions of space and also architectural theory's marginal treatment of transgender, this volume constitutes a serious intervention in the field of 'queer space'. It draws on modernist literature in order to reckon with and rebuild the architectural ideas that already implicitly structure common understandings of the queer and transgender self. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in queer theory, the body and transformation, gender and sexuality, modernist writing and architectural theory.
Seemingly immobile and durable, architecture remains a challenge in the modern world of collecting and exhibiting. From the late eighteenth century onward, divergent conventions of display have been conflated with urgent discussions of how material culture is handed down, distributed, appropriated, and evaluated. Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture investigates historical and con temporary practices of displaying architecture, whether in full scale or as fragments, models, or two-dimensional representations. Exploring questions of circulation and temporality, issues of institution and canon, and the discourse and politics of architectural spaces on exhibit, the book's essays discuss the ambiguous status of architecture as an object of display. Contributions from leading scholars in the new research field of architectural exhibitions reveal the centrality of the exhibition in defining and redefining the notion of architecture and its history.
Management of Construction introduces all aspects of management practice to students and professionals based in the construction industry. It is also important for those involved in allied fields such as design, project development, and site monitoring and inspection. The book addresses each stage of the construction project from conception to completion, giving a perspective on the whole life cycle often missing from textbooks. The author also balances engineering concerns with the human resource and personal aspects of construction management that are so important to the successful outcome of a project. Structured on the project life cycle Covers design-build, build-own-operate-transfer, and construction management Discusses environmental issues important in today's construction practice
One distinct feature of human society since the dawn of civilization is the systematic use of inorganic building materials, such as natural stone, unburnt and burnt soil, adobe and brick, inorganic binders like lime and cement, and reinforced concrete. Our heritage has cultural, architectural and technological value and preserving such structures is a key issue today. Planners and conservation scientists need detailed site surveys and analyses to create a database that will serve to guide subsequent actions. One factor in this knowledge base is an understanding of how historic materials were prepared and the crucial properties that influence their long-term behaviour. Any assessment of the way such materials perform must crucially be based on an understanding of the methods used for their analysis. The editors here add to the knowledge base treating the materials used in historic structures, their properties, technology of use and conservation, and their performance in a changing environment. The book draws together 18 chapters dealing with the inorganic materials used in historic structures, such as adobe, brick, stone, mortars, concrete and plasters. The approach is complex, covering material characterisation as well as several case studies of historic structures from Europe, including Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia and Spain, and the My Son Temples in Vietnam. An equally important component of the book covers the analysis of materials, together with a treatment of sustainable development, such as the protection of monuments from earthquakes and climate change. The authors are all leading international experts, drawn from a variety of backgrounds: architecture, civil engineering, conservation science, geology and material science, with close links to professional organisations such as ICOMOS or universities and research centres throughout Europe. Audience: This book will be of interest to geologists, engineers, restorers, consulting engineers, designers and other professionals dealing with cultural heritage and sustainable development. Also graduate students in applied geo-science (mineralogy, geochemistry, petrology), architecture and civil engineering will find interesting information in this book.
The Interior Architecture Theory Reader presents a global compilation that collectively and specifically defines interior architecture. Diverse views and comparative resources for interior architecture students, educators, scholars, and practitioners are needed to develop a proper canon for this young discipline. As a theoretical survey of interior architecture, the book examines theory, history, and production to embrace a full range of interior identities in architecture, interior design, digital fabrication, and spatial installation. Authored by leading educators, theorists, and practitioners, fifty chapters refine and expand the discourse surrounding interior architecture.
Somaiyeh Falahat investigates the spatial and morphological logic of pre-modern Middle Eastern and North African cities, so-called "Islamic cities." She bases her argument on the fact that the city and consequently its form and structure, similar to other human products, have deep roots in the thought-structure of the people. Thus, to know such places properly, one has to refer to this life-world and use it as a structure to observe the city. This approach aims at opening new levels of understanding of the city by grasping indigenous concepts and structures; it puts forward claims for the possibility of a new method of analysis. The author studies the historic city of Isfahan as the case study and suggests that an indigenous term, Hezar-Too, can explain the complexity of the city, which has been interpreted as labyrinthine and maze-like accounting for the essence of the city and its form in an appropriate way. Looking at the city from this new point of view can help in observing it in its context and subsequently in discovering its real character.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), his life and his work have been and continue to be the subject of an enormous number of scholarly works. One of the con- quences of this is the proliferation of identities bestowed on this gure of the Italian Renaissance: Galileo the great theoretician, Galileo the keen astronomer, Galileo the genius, Galileo the physicist, Galileo the mathematician, Galileo the solitary thinker, Galileo the founder of modern science, Galileo the heretic, Galileo the courtier, Galileo the early modern Archimedes, Galileo the Aristotelian, Galileo the founder of the Italian scienti c language, Galileo the cosmologist, Galileo the Platonist, Galileo the artist and Galileo the democratic scientist. These may be only a few of the identities that historians of science have associated with Galileo. And now: Galileo the engineer! That Galileo had so many faces, or even identities, seems hardly plausible. But by focusing on his activities as an engineer, historians are able to reassemble Galileo in a single persona, at least as far as his scienti c work is concerned. The impression that Galileo was an ingenious and isolated theoretician derives from his scienti c work being regarded outside the context in which it originated. |
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