El Sur Global: Future Resilient City

Shifting the focus from futuristic visions, Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner with Alexis Kalagas of interdisciplinary design practice Urban-Think Tank urge us to ‘forget about utopia’, for in the most part the urban environment of 2050 is already built. Architects’ sights need to be set on the sometimes grim and unfolding reality of favelas and the world's informal cities.     

Weaverbird: Topological Mesh Editing for Architects

Design and computation consultant Giulio Piacentino is the developer of WeaverBird. Here he describes how the plug-in ‘gives architects more geometric control and allows them to create complex surface structures that join in orderly ways, yet in arbitrary configurations’.     

Practices @ Home: Assimilating the Past and the Present for a Visionary Architecture

Guest-Editor Mehran Gharleghi describes the work of four Iranian practices - Fluid Motion Architects (FMA), Pouya Khazaeli Parsa, Arsh Design Studio and Kourosh Rafiey/Asar Consultant Engineers' Co) - that are worthy of international attention. Over the last decade, all have distinguished themselves by developing a body of work ‘that is not only globally informed but also conscious and proud of its local, regional and national identity’.     

Radical Italian Architecture Yesterday and Today

In Italy there is a revival of the spirit of 1960s Radicalism. Fresh from university, young architects ‘pick up a rock band name, enrol in an architectural competition or just invent their own research and project installations’. William Menking, who co-curated the 2003 exhibition at London's Design Museum on Superstudio - the supergroup of Italian radicali - and Olympia Kazi bring the new generation of young protagonists under scrutiny. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Young Experimentalists

Experimental architecture in Italy began to take a new form in the 1990s when young architects, who were embracing new digital technologies, also began to go abroad to study and practise in greater numbers. Anna Baldini outlines a fecund strand in Italian architecture which, while no longer wholly new or youthful, retains its vitality. She highlights, in particular, the contributions of: Avatar Architettura, Gianluca Brini, Elastico spa+3, Exposure Architects, Giuliano Fausti, Luisa Fontana, Giorgio Goffi, ian+, Iotti+Pavarani Architetti, Fabrizio Leoni, ma0/emmeazero, Antonella Mari, Metrogramma, Open Building Research (OBR), RoccAtelier, studio.eu and Vulcanica Achitettura. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Serving,Owning, Authoring

Service provider or creative – which is the architect's primary role? And what legal, economic and ethical implications does each aspect carry? Architect and theorist David Ruy examines evolving business models in the architectural profession, from forays into property management to a focus on intellectual property rights, and considers the complexities of copyright law in the digital era.     

Palladio’s Villa Emo: The Golden Proportion Hypothesis Rebutted

In a most thoughtful and persuasive paper Rachel Fletcher comes close to convincing that Palladio may well have made use of the ‘golden section’, or extreme and mean ratio, in the design of the Villa Emo at Fanzolo. What is surprising is that a visually gratifying result is so very wrong when tested by the numbers. Lionel March provides an arithmetic analysis of the dimensions provided by Palladio in the Quattro libri to reach new conclusions about Palladio’s design process.

Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; Nor all that glisters, gold (Thomas Gray, Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat)

     

Metrogramma

Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi describes how the two principals of Metrogramma, an emerging office in Milan, drew on their postgraduate experiences in New York and the Netherlands to inform the dynamic manner in which they practise. Building up their practice through strategic urban planning, they are now setting their sights on major architectural schemes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.