Architecture Takes Time

Though condensed between the stages of design and completion, the conventional process of designing a building is time consuming, involving various stakeholders, planning processes and a wide team of consultants and contractors. What happens, though, if the time period of an architect's involvement is expanded? How might a more process-orientated approach shift the role of the architect? Tobias Armborst, Daniel D'Oca and Georgeen Theodore , principals of Interboro Partners in New York, describe how they have developed projects that have sought opportunities in expanding the timescale and remit of traditional practice.     

Parametric Regionalism

Philip Yuan , Founding Director of Shanghai-based firm Archi-Union Architects, applies parametric techniques to his design and research in China. Here he explains how Parametricism can provide a highly adaptive and open approach to architectural knowledge and spatial organisation, accommodating regional variations in culture and environment, through an emphasis on local climate, materials and craft traditions.     

Upgrading Computational Design

Shajay Bhooshan heads up the computation and design ZHACODE group at Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and is a course master at the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory (AADRL). Here he argues that Parametricism 2.0 has a vital role to play in the progressing of computational design. Assimilating the exploratory developments of the last 15 years, he asserts how the next phase of Parametricism will enable a further consolidation and evolution of digital practices.     

Architectural Patents and Open-Source Architectures: The Globalisation of Spatial Design Innovations (or Learning from ‘E99’)

Patents are the strongest form of intellectual property rights available internationally, so far unbeaten by open source as a body of innovation and know-how. Mark Garcia , senior lecturer in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the University of Greenwich, London, here considers the pros and cons of the patent system for architects in the digital age: from issues over patent categorisation by type, to possibilities of micro-royalties through the capacity of design software to track every stage of input from multiple contributors.     

In the Pursuit of Pleasure: The Not so Fleeting Life of the Pavilion and its Ilk

Author and architecture critic for the London Evening Standard, Robert Bevan reflects on the enduring appeal of the temporary structure, speaking ‘to a latent desire for freedom and movement’ as a hangover of our nomadic past in a sedentary ‘civilised’ society. He highlights the type's historical apex in Henry VIII's palatial pop-up on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, questioning the purpose and purposelessness of more recent examples.     

Memory,narrative and display – city museums in recent initiatives and debates

Currently, the study and the exhibition of the history and artistic traces of city development are gaining new interest. Several Italian and European cities are proposing, or have just established, organisations or museums intended to ‘display’ their past. Recently a research group has been constitued at the University IUAV of Venice based on the premiss that a contemporary City Museum has to be a conduit for knowledge to a large and varied public including, on equal terms: citizens, immigrants, tourists and people with cultural and professional interests in the urban environment. In this sense Venice seems to be a very good clase‐study. While an important initiative, such as the constitution of a new Museum of the twentieth century in Mestre (the mainland of Venice) is going on, the research group thinks that this kind of institution, within the framework of a very complex and rich system of museums, such as the Venetian one, could have a wide remit. In fact, one of the special key issues for Venice in the twentieth century has been opening up its cultural and productive activities to the external world. Foreigner visitors, as well as many citizens have always had the vision of Venice as a medieval and renaissance city with a very old historical centre. Yet in the course of the twentieth century, the urban settlement had greatly changed in a very interesting and innovative way. This has to be explained and shown to both tourists and the Venetians.     

景观化都市建筑学——从2004威尼斯建筑双年展看当代先锋建筑与教育

该文通过对2004年威尼斯双年展部分建筑作品的解读,剖析了当代先锋建筑的一种倾向——景观化都市建筑,即打破了传统建筑学、城市规划与哥观设计学三者之间严格的界线．将曾被视为景观设计领域的方法、技术、工艺融入到建筑设计与城市设计中去,进行全方位的空间整合．且进一步阐述了这类建筑的特征及其相应的学科发展特点.     

全球连线 第11届威尼斯国际建筑双年展报道

文章以独特视角和价值取向对第11届威尼斯国际建筑双年展进行了有选择的评论和解读,从主题展和国家馆的大量展览内容中取得有启示性的内容和线索。     

从战后重建到预防性保护 —— 比利时建筑遗产保护之路

本文分为两个部分,第一部分简述了比利时在不同时期的建筑遗产保护实践,主要包括:第二次世界大战后的战后重建,威尼斯宣言颁布前后的相关实践,1975年"欧洲建筑遗产年"后对"历史文物古迹"的保护延伸到对次要建筑群及其所处环境以及历史城市、村镇的整体性保护,1988年文化遗产保护管理从比利时联邦下放到弗兰芒、瓦隆、布鲁塞尔三区实行分区管理等方面;第二部分着重介绍了比利时在建筑遗产的预防性保护这块的实践,以"文物古迹监护"机构近30年的实践为例,并试图从历史、社会、经济、管理、教育等角度对预防性保护得以成功实施的原因进行了分析。