Let's Rock over Barock

Since the 17th century, Austria has been a stronghold of the Baroque. Here Wolf D Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au recognises the deep pull of this cultural tradition in contemporary Austrian architecture, as it continues to endow its designers with an aptitude for spatial sequence and a tendency to prefer to design complex spaces over simplified boxes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Digital Cities

Code, it would seem, is everywhere. We are beginning to understand that much of our natural environment is based on rule-based behaviours, from the emergent swarm intelligence of flocks of birds and schools of fish, to the complex patterns of snowflakes, ferns, seashells and zebra skins. And nothing escapes. Not even the human body. The human genome is being mapped out and sequenced by scientists to provide a genetic blueprint of human life itself. In this context, it is hardly surprising that architects are now beginning to explore similar principles in the design studio. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pattern Deposition: From Scripts to Applications

Is the widespread adoption of existing design software appropriated from other disciplines limiting architects' potential for pattern-making? Could the development of complex code applied to equally complex pattern problems open up alternative avenues of expression? Mike Silver illustrates work by himself and other architects and artists that suggest that new kinds of software-driven pattern recognition and simulation computer models are opening up the field. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

(Science) Fiction,Ecophysical Apparatus and Skizoid Machines: Animism,Vitalism and Machinism as a Way to Rearticulate the Need to Confront the Unknown in a Contradictory Manner

François Roche of R&Sie(n) ruminates on the contradictory nature of the present: a time that is ‘vibrating’ while ultimately ‘lacking momentum’. Reclaiming ‘the scenarios and substances that condition architecture’, he rejects the large-scale flights of fancy of international signature architects and argues for the reactivation of ‘a throbbing, complex and unfinished “localism”’. In so doing, he advocates a machinism that enables fictionalisation and speculation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Materialising Complexity

The specialist practice designtoproduction consults on the digital production of complex architectural designs. Here, co-founder Fabian Scheurer charts the relatively recent journey that architecture has taken from the regular to the irregular. He provides a comprehensive account of how this shift to curvilinear and complex forms has impacted on design and production methods, and the strengths and pitfalls of parametric design and CNC fabrication. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Encoding Material

Gramazio & Kohler's work in the faculty of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich is renowned for its pioneering work with industrial robots. Here, Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler and Silvan Oesterle describe how the integration of fabrication-relevant decisions into encoded designs enables the control of complex interactions between material elements and facilitates the direct generation of machine data, as epitomised by their West Fest Pavilion project. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fabricating Design: A Revolution of Choice

Berlin-based practice Barkow Leibinger has become synonymous with expertise in digital fabrication. For 12 years, the firm has been engaged in designing buildings for machine-tool company Trumpf in Stuttgart - a relationship that has given the firm remarkable insights into the laser cutting of sheet metal. Here, Frank Barkow describes the fruitful research that the studio has undertaken in laser cutting as well as two innovative projects that have resulted from it. He explains why a new technology like that of digital fabrication must be for architects by necessity ‘a revolution of choice’ - a speculation on where best to exploit new possibilities, albeit informed by research and experimentation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extreme Integration

Tom Wiscombe advances an argument for an architecture of ‘extreme integration’, where the sanctity of the single surface responsible solely for affect is challenged by multilayered and multidimensional built surfaces. The new species of architecture is ‘robust enough to be both formally and technologically innovative’, replacing a mechanistic model with a biological jungle ecology of messiness and excess. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

赫尔佐格和德梅隆：石屋——在人文与非人文之间

本文以赫尔佐格和德梅隆在1988年完成的石屋为研究对象,探讨了两位建筑师如何处理人文与非人文、框架和装饰、薄膜与图像间的复杂关系,并由此延伸至两位建筑师对于历史的批判性设计思考。     

城市综合体建筑火灾灾害链风险分析

为降低城市综合体建筑火灾演化过程中的影响,基于灾变链式理论和复杂网络理论,通过分析城市综合体火灾灾害中的致灾因子、孕灾环境、承灾体等因素,构建城市综合体火灾灾害链网络模型。利用出入度、子网节点数、介数中心度等指标,综合评估灾害链网络中节点的重要度与边的脆弱性,得出影响灾变的关键节点以及断链的位置,为减缓综合体建筑火灾带来的灾害提供参考。结果表明：灾害链中脆弱性较大的边与重要度较大的节点具有一定的关联性,在城市综合体建筑火灾演化过程中,地面交通瘫痪、人群恐慌、过街天桥受损、地铁站受损、爆炸是风险控制的关键节点。     

Information Modelling as a Paradigm Shift

Building information modelling (BIM) is not just a change in software or skills sets, it requires a paradigm shift. Dennis Shelden , Chief Technology Officer of Gehry Technologies, outlines the more ‘fundamental, subtle and profound decisions’ on the road to BIM. It is necessary to fully consider not only the impacts both ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ from the conventional design phase, but also the possible creative restrictions as there is a potential trade-off that comes with the emphasis on collaborative processes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distructuring Utopias

In order to meet the challenges of fast-paced urban transformations, Laurent-Paul Robert and Dr Vesna Petresin Robert of Rubedo call for a rethinking of the perennial Utopian model of urban design. They espouse a design strategy that is both able ‘to reflect the dynamics of urban growth and decay’, while meeting the needs of a ‘post-capitalist economy’ - a condition in which change is the only constant. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comings and Goings

As a throwback to the idealism of the 1970s, with its contemporary layering of ‘obscure language, extreme ideas and incomprehensible rhetoric’, is EcoRedux helpful to architects? Brian Carter , Professor and Dean at the School of Architecture and Planning at the State University of New York at Buffalo, thinks so. A licensed architect in the UK, who most recently worked in practice with Arup Associates in London before taking up an academic position in North America, Carter regards environmental issues as a single but important aspect of design. He urges architects and architectural educators to make the direct engagement with the difficulties of designing and constructing buildings their priority. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北京地铁隧道水平冻结和暗挖施工模型试验与实测研究

将人工地层冻结模型试验研究应用于工程实施中,针对我国隧道内首例长距离水平地层冻结和暗挖工程,在冻土壁温度场、地层应力、位移场等方面进行了测试,取得了和工程实测一致的规律和定量结果。说明解决复杂条件下的地下工程施工难题,模型试验研究是一种有效的技术辅助手段。     

Dystopian Farming

In this project for Manhattan, the typology of the high-rise is redefined. Farmers (producers) and city dwellers (consumers) are brought together in close proximity. Eric Vergne describes how rather than embracing the bucolic notion of the rural farm where food aspires to be grown in its most natural or organic state, this ‘dystopian farm’ by necessity embraces technologically advanced modes of food production such as genetic engineering. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

土工测试与勘察技术研究进展

文章总结国内外近年来在土工测试与勘察技术领域的研究进展,主要包括土工室内测试技术,土工离心模拟技术,岩土工程勘察技术,原位测试技术等。分析表明,随着各类工程建设呈现高、大、深、重的趋势,传统的土工测试技术已发生根本改变,考虑“水-热-力”耦合、震动、风化、高压、波浪、冲刷等复杂工况的大型土工室内试验及离心机设备,以及电子测量、光纤测试、电磁测试、声波测试、激光扫描、无线传感、物探等先进勘察技术,在岩土工程领域已得到广泛应用。     

Futuristic Retail Spaces

Valentina Croci finds the entries to a competition organised by the Benetton Group, displayed at the 2009 Milan Triennale, a rich source for emerging retail design trends. Not only do the various schemes express new relationships between shops and the city, they also highlight the importance of interactivity and experience for the physical shopping environment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Line Array: Protocells as Dynamic Structure

Lisa Iwamoto of IwamotoScott Architecture describes how the Line Array project was developed as a means of proposing a new range of structural surface formations in which protocells could be applied to architecture. She specifically speculates on how materials might behave morphologically, responding in a fluid manner to varying surface geometries. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relying on Interdependencies: Snøhetta in the Middle East

Kjetil Trædal Thorsen and Robert Greenwood of Snøhetta describe how opportunities to build multicultural programmed buildings in the Middle East have opened up the possibilities of developing a new iconography for a new building type, embedded in the emotional translation of a rich iconographic and decorative tradition; an ongoing dialogue with the clients and users; and a Middle Eastern preference to define the present by looking to the future. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.