What consequences does the design of the virtual yield for architecture and to what extent can the nature of architecture be used productively to turn game-worlds into sustainable places - over here, in "reality"? This pioneering collection gives an overview of contemporary developments in designing video games and of the relationships such practices have established with the design of architecture. Due to their often simulatory nature, games reveal constructions of reality while positively impacting spatial ability and allowing for alternative avenues to complex topics and processes of negotiation. Granting insight into the merging of the design of real and virtual environments, this volume offers an invaluable platform for further debate.

Architecture and urbanism seem to be weak disciplines, constantly struggling for a better understanding of their nature and disciplinary borders. The huge amount of metaphors appearing in the discourse of both not only reference to their creative nature but also indicate their weakness and the missing piece strengthening their own understanding: a definition of space for architecture and of city for urbanism. But using metaphors in this field implies a problem -- though metaphors achieve to bring opposites together, there remains the question how literal they can actually become in order to relate to these subjects properly. In this volume, several authors from various fields using different approaches discuss this question.

It has been shown that spatial perception can be improved through practice. Opportunities to offer such practice are offered in this workbook, which was tested by nearly one thousand architecture students before publication, and emerged from an academic study funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, conducted jointly by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the ETH Zurich. The book contains 75 exercises that work with architectural elements but can be mastered without prior knowledge, plus a section with solutions and explanatory texts by experts from theory and practice by M. Berkowitz, D. Dietz, B. Emo, A. Gerber, Chr. Hoelscher, P. Holgate, St. Kurath, C. Leopold, D. Schulz, Th. & N. Shipley, E. Stern, D. Uttal.

Das raumliche Vorstellungsvermoegen lasst sich erwiesenermassen durch UEbung verbessern. Dieses Ziel verfolgt das Arbeitsbuch, das im Vorfeld bereits an fast eintausend Architekturstudenten erprobt wurde und das aus einer vom Schweizer Nationalfond gefoerderten wissenschaftlichen Studie entstanden ist, die gemeinsam von der Zurcher Hochschule fur Angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) und der ETH Zurich durchgefuhrt wurde. Das Buch beinhaltet 75 UEbungen, die mit architektonischen Elementen arbeiten, einen Loesungsteil und erlauternde Texte von Experten aus Lehre und Praxis, u.a. von M. Berkowitz, D. Dietz, B. Emo, A. Gerber, Chr. Hoelscher, P. Holgate, St. Kurath, C. Leopold, D. Schulz, Th. & N. Shipley, E. Stern, D. Uttal.