Looking Beyond Informality

It is all too easy to be optimistic about the economic and social future of Latin America. Daniela Fabricius , the author of 100% Favela: The Informal Geographies of Rio de Janeiro (forthcoming), calls into question architects working within the realpolitik of a globalised, post-nationalist world. Could an all too ready acceptance of existing conditions and the adoption of informality leave inhabitants short-changed? For to live informally is also to live precariously - no substitute for secure and prosperous living.     

Distinguishing Concepts: Lexicons of Interactive Art and Architecture

Interactive design has come about as a result of the intermingling of disciplines. As a consequence, the language it uses has become blurred - borrowed or stolen with little restraint from elsewhere. Though particular terms have become ubiquitous, the original concepts that lie behind them have been lost. This means that all too frequently they are no longer knowingly used. Usman Haque sorts the wheat from the chaff and brings clarity to bear on the vocabulary and thinking behind interactivity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biofuel from Algae

Finding an alternative fuel for our built environment as a substitute for fossil fuels is the Holy Grail of a sustainable future. Ken Yeang discusses the potential of mass algae production as a source of biofuel. Could we be powering our buildings and cars with algae in years to come? Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ex Silico Ad Vivo: Computational Simulation and Urban Design at Foster + Partners

What makes a successful city? Can this be replicated simply by following tried-and-tested urban typologies? Francis Aish, Adam Davis and Martha Tsigkari of Foster + Partners' Applied Research + Development (ARD) group argue that technology allows other approaches to urban design. They explain that computational simulation is increasingly valuable in predicting how the dynamic and complex systems of a city might play out in an urban context, forging an exciting new alliance between computation and intuition.     

Postindividualism: Fata Morgana and the Swindon Gout Clinic

What might happen to Middle England if the retail and financial sectors were simply to melt away? Michael Aling casts a visionary eye on his hometown of Swindon and imagines a dystopian future of ‘post-individualism’ in which retail mausoleums and gout clinics take the place of shopping malls and call centres. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Future is Unwritten: Global Culture,Identity and Economy

Is architecture no more than a mere handmaid to global capitalism and the international property market? Murray Fraser , Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, asserts that the true picture is both much more complex and less homogeneous than it might appear. While acknowledging that economic conditions are significant drivers in architecture, he argues that it is still possible for designers to respond creatively with suppleness and foresight in their exploration of paths for a better future.     

A/B Architecture: Publicly Augmented Design

Architects are sometimes criticised for prioritising aesthetics over functionality; but attempts to involve end users in building design all too often encounter apathy. Is a successful participatory design process possible? Carlo Ratti and Matthew Claudel of MIT's Senseable City Lab have been researching ways to make it so. Their solutions include an adaptation of the A/B testing method used in software development, together with means from questionnaires to immersive virtual systems that can draw both conscious and unconscious public feedback while maintaining architects' central role.     

Meeting the New Boss: After the Death of Theory

Christopher Hight seeks to find out what might be left over after the death of theory. Have theoretical questions become merely replaced by reproducible techniques and business plans? How should architects think and practise if they no longer - in the wake of Koolhaas - solely think architecturally? Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Informalising Architecture: The Challenge of Informal Settlements

Transgression is often driven by the power to exercise choice and consciously cross the line. As Kim Dovey , Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne, explains, informal settlements, which have grown up globally out of immediate need for shelter and community, and are legally precarious, transgress established codes of ‘land tenure, urban planning, design and construction’. Their condition requires transgression, even if they are subversion through necessity rather than by design. So what is architecture's future role in informal settlements? And what can be learnt from this more ad hoc and incremental model of urban design?     

The ‘valley of ashes’ and the ‘fresh green breast’: metaphors from The Great Gatsby in planning New York

ABSTRACT

Visions in planning of what a city could or should be tend to be constructed around metaphors, rhetorical tropes that crystalize the image of a preferable future city. Such metaphorizations are never innocent: they draw on pre-existing cultural narratives and activate particular frames of expectation. This article examines two metaphors used in the planning of New York City, and its shores, in particular: the spectre of the ‘valley of ashes’ and the dream of the ‘fresh green breast’. These metaphors, taken from F. Scott Fizgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1925), appear time and again in the planning and thinking of the New York shoreline, from Robert Moses’s plans for Flushing Meadow to Major Bloomberg’s waterfront development and Eric Sanderson’s vision of a 2406 New York in Mannahatta (2006). This article examines how the metaphors of the ‘valley of ashes’ and the ‘fresh green breast’ have been adapted throughout decades of planning New York City to accommodate changing relationships, conflicts and ideals, always infused by a pastoral undercurrent that is already questioned in Fitzgerald’s novel.     

Why We Need Architecture of Tolerance

Professor and Chair in Integrated Design at the University of Calgary Faculty of Environmental Design, Branko Kolarevic has established an international reputation as an author and commentator on digital design and manufacturing in architecture. Here he questions the importance of high-definition tolerance in construction itself. As an industry that operates at far greater sizes and scales than other manufacturing bases, has the ‘messy world of building’ not always had to allow for a reasonable tolerance of errors? Should high-definition processes, which negate or negotiate zero tolerance, really be for architects and construction professionals the Holy Grail that they first appear?     

An Examination of Tabriz Gardens in Iranian Garden Art

This study was conducted to determine the place of historic gardens in the city of Tabriz vis-a-vis Iranian garden arts. It provides information on the historic gardens of Tabriz, which are no longer in existence, for example, ‘Saheb Abad’ Garden, ‘North’ Garden, ‘Sefa’ Garden, ‘Amir Kabir’ Garden, ‘Saheb Divan’Garden and ‘Fath Abad’ Garden, as well as four historical maps belonging to the Qajar era in the city of Tabriz. In this research, the factors influencing the design of El-Goli Garden were studied, which can be grouped into three major categories: physical, biological and cultural. After a brief study of the above factors in the city of Tabriz and its different microclimates, the types of similarities that exist relating to Iranian garden art were determined.     

The Street As Platform: How Digital Dynamics Shape the Physical City

What might be the long-term ramifications of the smart city and big-data-driven algorithms on physical urban space? Designer and urbanist Dan Hill , Executive Director and Chief Design Officer of the UK innovation agency Future Cities Catapult, fast-forwards to 2050, taking the opportunity to imagine the physical reality of ‘the street’ in an age of eerie silence, drones and lush foliage.     

Architecture and Dispersal

To close the issue, guest-editors Rafi Segal and Els Verbakel curated a discussion with Stan Allen, Margaret Crawford, Marcel Smets and Sarah Whiting, and put some provocative questions to them: What constitutes public space in the contemporary city? Can the public sphere still exist in the urban context? Should public space be fought for by architects and urban designers? Or, as Allen proposes, is it the landscape architects alone who have been quick to realise the potential of the empty spaces in our cities as a ripe terrain for change? Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

欧洲教堂建筑的适应性再利用研究:对遗产转型的批判性评价

欧洲璀璨的建筑遗产,尤其是基督教和天主教教堂建筑,正处在功能逐渐退化甚至彻底消失的危险境地中。 其主要原因在于西方基督教社会面临的社会变迁连带冲击了大众宗教知识、教会参与度以及圣召的数量。如今, 很多西方国家面临着一个共同的问题,即如何应对众多逐渐遭到弃用的教堂和修道院,以及如何解决随之而来的 关于这些建筑的使用、维护、财务、所有权分配和遗产保护的问题。本文是对濒危遗产的批判性评价。那些已经 失去其原有用途的教堂建筑,未来将何去何从？谁来决定这些建筑该以何种方式,或被退役,或再利用,又或被 拆除？是否还有其他的使用模式？遗产保护会对教堂的再利用产生什么影响？半个世纪以来,我们在与冗余的教 会建筑和适应性再利用的经验中学到了什么？笔者对教堂建筑的各种不尽相同的适应性再利用方式、不断变化的 建筑遗产价值以及可能会在未来发挥作用并能引发中国读者思考的全新决策模式等问题作出回顾性思考。     

Architects as Hairdressers

Neil Spiller reactionary? Spiller finds himself recoiling into a ‘grumpy old man’ as he observes the emergence of an alarming new trend in architecture schools that prioritises style over matter. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Natural Methods of Interaction Or Natural Interaction in the Everyday Digital World

Computers, mobiles and automatised machines are so omnipresent that the means by which we interact with digital devices is now generally regarded as a given. Italian practice iO Agency, though, questions our use of mechanised interfaces and the language that they require us to learn. Valentina Croci explains how iO Agency has developed more natural ways for people to interact with digital environments through physical or tactile ‘triggers’. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Animating Architecture: Coupling High-Definition Sensing with High-Definition Actuation

Ruairi Glynn , lecturer on interactive architecture at the Bartlett School ofArchitecture, University College London (UCL), puts the pressing question: ‘What does a world of hyper-connective, high-definition sensing offer architectural design?’ Despite the pervasiveness of ubiquitous computing – the Internet of Things (IoT) – and students' ability to speculate, build and test responsive lifesize installations, could practice itself be in danger of getting left behind?     

武汉市“詹天佑”故居修缮设计研究

詹天佑故居系詹天佑在武汉任职时亲自设计建造,系全国重．董保护单位。该文以武汉市“詹天佑”故居修缮工程为例,通过对其修缮的有利条件,从文物保护的角度对该建筑的维修技术和材料进行探讨,得到近现代建筑的保护修缮做法和实例,揭示了中国近现代建筑损害主要原因。同时也为近现代建筑保护修缮寻找一种新办法,消除其影响建筑结构的主要病害,延长使用寿命。以期为今后的文物保护工程结合科研提供有益的探索和尝试。     

The New Materiality

In the last few decades an entirely new conception of the material world has emerged. Here, philosopher Manuel DeLanda , whose work has become synonymous with this ‘new materialism’, introduces this novel understanding of materiality. Like any other conceptual framework, it has precedents in the history of philosophy - the work of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza is a good example - but only recently has it become coherently articulated with science and technology. Gone is the Aristotelian view that matter is an inert receptacle for forms that come from the outside (transcendent essences), as well as the Newtonian view in which an obedient materiality simply follows general laws and owes all its powers to those transcendent laws. In place of this, we can now conceptualise an active matter endowed with its own tendencies and capacities, engaged in its own divergent, open-ended evolution, animated from within by immanent patterns of being and becoming.