The book presents the research by the Action Space! Studio on the Evolutionary City. An ambitious project meant to create a new tool not only for urban planners, but also for people involved inside project management business and people outside that practice. A kind of simulator-educational tool. The journey of discovery began by understanding evolution starting with Darwin, his phenotypes, the realms of biology, sociology, and economics. Pumped by evolution's magic the studio quickly plunged into game theory. These two lines of research synthesized into a set of games modeled on diverse aspects of the city - from the tasks a building developer faces when dealing with land value to the more intangible aspects of a city (i.e. the driving forces of desires in social groups).

From the 2006 Marcus Prize Studio at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Winy Maas of MVDRV presents the work of twelve students who explored the relationship between infrastructure, architecture, and urban form. This highly investigative studio pushed the physical and conceptual limits of given definitions of city, circulation, and program. Tested in two scenarios (one real in Tianjin, China and the other purely hypothetical) Maas and his students sever vehicular traffic flow from its traditional two-dimensional plane and then forecast the potentials of a new, hyper-volumetric city where given urban activity inflate to fully occupy all three-dimensions. Populated by 5 million inhabitants and rising 800 meters high, this new 'sky car city' is buzzing with the flows of goods and people, as they navigate the airways in several models of air-born vehicles, also designed by the students.

The European Nomadic Biennial Manifesta takes place every two years in a different European city. The biennial rethinks the relations between culture and society, investigating and catalyzing positive social change in Europe through contemporary culture in a continuous dialogue with its host city. Manifesta's founding director, Hedwig Fijen invited the architectural bureau MVRDV led by Winy Maas to develop an urban research of the city of Marseille. This new methodology, is a manner to decipher the complex settings of the cities that invite the biennial. In the study, multilayered structures of religion, ethnicity, geography, culture and politics are explored. Breaking away from its particular focus on art and culture, Manifesta has become an interdisciplinary and participatory program that aims to embrace holistic approaches that are uniting political, cultural and ecological questions within the host city.

With this ambitious volume, The Why Factory throws down the gauntlet to the city of Hong Kong. A theoretical and visual expedition into Hong Kong's future, "Hong Kong Fantasies" plots out alternative paths, new visions and strategies for the city's urban and architectonic future, including visual renderings of the most probable scenarios and spatial interventions.

Flexible working hours, cheap flights to every far-flung corner of the planet, millions of downloadable films, television programs and songs at our disposal: we have become a society of leisure devotees and connoisseurs of pleasure. But who is paying attention to the civic and ecological effects of leisure as we slowly become addicted to its consumption? In "The Death of Leisure," The Why Factory reveals the footprint our leisure activities have left behind on our cities, architecture and landscapes, and aims to elevate these conversations within architecture and urban planning to a higher tier of socio-cultural debate. "The Death of Leisure" includes articles by Felix Madrazo, Alexander Sverdlov and Winy Maas, Chair of Architecture and Urban Design at Delft University of Technology and leader of The Why Factory.