Lighting Up

Through the work of London practice Cinimod Studio, led by Dominic Harris, Valentina Croci explores the potential that lighting design offers for interactive work, whether it is transforming unwelcoming urban spaces or enhancing the public's experience of the city. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Never Mind All That Environmental Rubbish,Get On With Your Architecture’

Could the primacy of green architecture in recent years be eroding the discipline? Is it reducing architecture to a mere ‘environmental techno-science’? Penelope Dean argues for a revised environmental agenda that is driven by ideas and concepts rather than subservient technologies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Baroque Parameters

Andrew Saunders describes how students on Rensselaer School of Architecture's Rome programme were encouraged to explore the geometry and mathematics that underlie the architecture of the Baroque through parametric design. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Unconventional Low-Cost Museum

Valentina Croci describes how a diminutive museum dedicated to the feminine arts in Salerno, southern Italy, provides an intimate experience for visitors: its modest interior being enriched by an interface of information panels and interactive installations designed by Id-Lab in Milan. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seawater Greenhouses and the Sahara Forest Project

In this issue, Ken Yeang joins forces with Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture Ltd to investigate how seawater, when combined with the biological know-how of a beetle, might hold the key for creating fresh water in desert environments. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parallel Biological Futures

Neil Spiller looks beyond the digital and envisions a surreal future of ‘biological parallelism’ that pushes the boundary of architecture deep into the natural sciences, potentially creating ‘huge rafts of new architectural flora and fauna’. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Basking in a World of Your Own Making

As the credit crunch bites in, are pockets of young architects reviving a battle against commodified materialism? Neil Spiller describes how he has experienced this close to home with his own class of 2009 at the Bartlett which has reactivated its own brand of Surrealist cybernetic research, inspired by Dalí. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Architecture of Disbelief: Is Architectural Speciation a Good Thing?

Can visionary architects have their cake and eat it, luxuriating in pecuniary success while also continuing to assert their avant-gardism? Neil Spiller attended a conference in Cornell that brought the role of the architectural visionary under the spotlight and gave him much food for thought. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

FREEZE: A Celebration of Design in the Modern North

Brian Carter reports from Anchorage, in Alaska, where he co-curated an art and architectural event in early 2009 that set out to celebrate the climate, landscape and light of the icy north. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The EmTech Wave Canopy 2009

Michael Weinstock describes the constraints and creativity behind the Wave Canopy, the EmTech Masters programme construction project for 2009, which was located on the upper terrace of the Architectural Association's premises in Bedford Square. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exit Ltd

For London-based editor, author and curator Shumon Basar , The Temple of Janus Revisited by Exit Ltd is an effective critique of post-9/11 politics and culture. A virtual re-enactment of the Roman Temple of Janus in Washington DC, it evokes the imminent collapse of the American Empire. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What Are You Looking At?

There is a rebirth of interest in anamorphic perspective - that erudite artistic trick that allows one to represent different points of view in a single plane or view. Neil Spiller sees a new future for this arcane spatial practice that enables objects to dissolve their muteness. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recent History - Art In Ruins

Some two decades on, guest-editor Nic Clear returns to the work of Hannah Vowles and Glyn Banks of collaborative art practice Art in Ruins. As cited by Brian Hatton on their behalf in 1989: ‘in the city of the future everything will be historical (ie visited) for fifteen minutes’. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

A new generation of architects, urban designers and planners are rethinking the city. Bill Menking describes how the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) has orchestrated a number of art-based collaborations in the New York boroughs that enable the community to participate in the reimagining of urban space. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Digital Morphogenesis

Taking its inspiration from biology, digital morphogenesis operates through a logic of optimisation. Departing from the notion of architecture primarily as form-finding that privileges appearance, Neil Leach describes how morphogenesis places emphasis on ‘material performance’ and ‘processes over representation’. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design

Though parametricism has its roots in the digital animation techniques of the mid-1990s, it has only fully emerged in recent years with the development of advanced parametric design systems. Patrik Schumacher explains why parametricism has become the dominant, single style for avant-garde practice today and why it is particularly suited to large-scale urbanism as exemplified by a series of competition-winning masterplans by Zaha Hadid Architects. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Morphogenetic Urbanism

Peter Trummer pursues a morphogenetic model of urban design in which matter and form are placed in a dynamic rather than a fixed relationship. He demonstrates its application with a neighbourhood model that he has developed for the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, with the Second-Year Research Programme at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vassall Road Housing and Healthcare Centre,Brixton, London

Tony Fretton's latest project is a demonstration of what can be achieved on a tight budget. David Littlefield describes how the practice has managed to create a thoughtful and yet highly practical health and residential centre on a rather typical south London street. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Royal Institution

David Littlefield describes how Sir Terry Farrell's rethinking of the Royal Institution in Mayfair has led to a rationalisation and redesign that has transformed the premises from a tatty Georgian labyrinth into an airy series of modern spaces, Farrell having effectively re-imagined ‘the building while retaining the essence of what made it special in the first place’. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.