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Nature Of Enclosure

Nature of Enclosure

Jeffrey S. Nesbit From Crystal Palace in 1851 to Buckminster Fuller’s Spaceship Earth in 1969, nature became enclosed. Claimed to be a reaction of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics, Fuller’s geodesic domes became symbols of American counterculture. Yet, from Fuller’s description of Spaceship Earth “sea masters,” the dome seems to prioritize an environment of occupation inside the dome, over those residing outside—a world of civilized control on its interior and wilderness, war, and wasteland on the other side. Overlapped by cultural consumption and politics, planetary imagination stimulates a useful framework for interrogating the human impact on environmental limitations over a technological foreground. The blurry lines between the engineered logic and cultural imagination are continually embedded and influenced by intuition in the cultural practices of capital enclosure. Theories, design practices, and the forms of imagination, including science fiction, open up critical questions on the status of our environment here on Earth. Nature of Enclosure is a series of conversations to gather experts from a range of disciplines, including architects, landscape architects, architectural historians, design theory scholars, geographers, historians of science and technology, and professionals at the intersection of architecture and the environment. Organized in three parts, (1) Nature of the Synthetic Environment, (2) Air, Capital and the Planetary Imaginary, and (3) Enclosed Boundaries of Political Geographies, this book continues the conversation with a collection of essays as both reflections from the provocative discussions and expanding the discourse of enclosed environments in architecture and design fields. With Contributions of Daisy Ames, Rachel Armstrong, Daniel Barber, Jordan Bimm, Galo Canizares, Mishuana Goeman, Mariano Gomez Luque, Aleksandra Jaeschke, Lydia Kallipoliti, Ersela Kripa, Mae-ling Lokko, Stephen Mueller, Joshua Nason, Antoine Picon, Shawn Rickenbacker, David Salomon, Fred Scharmen, Julia Smachylo, Geoffrey Thün, Joël Vacheron, and Kathy Velikov. Nature of Enclosure (podcast series, urbanNext, 2020) Created and Hosted by Jeffrey S. Nesbit Edited by Marta Buges and Ricardo Devesa Session 1:  https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s1/ Session 2: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s2/ Session 3: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s3/ Session 4: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s4/ Session 5: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s5/ Session 6: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s6/ Session 7: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s7/ Session 8: https://urbannext.net/nature-of-enclosure-s8  
Carlos Ferrater + OAB 2022 Pack

Carlos Ferrater + OAB 2022 Pack

This compendium assembles 2 volumes that explore the complete works by Carlos Ferrater and Office of Architecture in Barcelona.
The green book reflects on Carlos Ferrater’s professional practice, having proved his worth in many projects of enormous relevance and distinction.
The red book gathers works by OAB that generate richer and more varied, prepared and flexible projects. The office attempts to address the challenges that contemporary architecture has raised in intellectual, social, technological, and environmental spheres.
 
Carlos Ferrater

Carlos Ferrater

Projects 1979-2004 Carlos Ferrater, Borja Ferrater, OAB Before setting up in 2006, along with Xavier Martí, Lucía Ferrater and Borja Ferrater, the Office of Architecture in Barcelona (OAB), Carlos Ferrater developed an intense and prolonged professional career on his own since 1971, with his advanced project for the Instant City. Now we present this first and therefore complete monograph on the unique career of this Catalan architect, Carlos Ferrater, awarded the 2009 National Architecture Award by the Spanish Ministry of Housing for his overall career and since 2011 member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (International RIBA Felowship). The book reflects Carlos Ferrater professional practice, having proved his worth in many projects of enormous relevance and distinction. EBOOK VERSION
Climax Change!

Climax Change!

How architecture must transform in the age of ecological emergency Pedro Gadanho Climax Change! offers an overview of how the current environmental emergency will impact the practice of architecture. At a crossroads in which the construction sector and built environment produce nearly 40% of greenhouse gases accountable for global warming, architects are just starting to acknowledge their complicity in an impending disaster. In need of a paradigm shift similar to that of the Modern Movement, architecture desperately requires clear guidelines and targets so as to operate its inevitable transformation towards an ecologically-friendly design logic. From historical analyses of ecocide or the environmental avant-gardes, to topics such as decarbonization, degrowth, the Great Transition and the aspirations of Green New Deals, this book features ten essays around today's climate change debates, bringing them home to architectural thinking.  EBOOK VERSION
Out Of The Ordinary

Out of the Ordinary

The Work of John Ronan Architects John Ronan In previous decades, architectural production was constrained by the limits of technology; architects pushed on the boundaries imposed by technology and it gave them common purpose.  Those limits are gone.  Over the preceding two decades it has been demonstrated that with enough technology (and money) anything is possible.  What does an architect do when anything is possible? This is the question which confronts architects today, who now operate within a professional landscape where all is possible, but little has meaning.  The “anything goes” mentality which currently prevails has resulted in innumerable self-referential “object” buildings which engage only with their architect’s ego, often resulting in an urban fabric of autonomous formal objects comprised of arbitrarily-applied design tropes which celebrate formal invention for its own sake.  But what do architects leave society once the novelty of form has worn off? In this architectural age of arbitrary shape-making, devoid of context or meaning, Out of the Ordinary proposes an architecture of innovation rising from ordinary concerns, about relationships not form, which exposes new spatial relationships with diagrammatic clarity in a process of distillation what seeks to lay bare meaningful relationships between essential building elements.  With Contributions of John Ronan (author) Sean Keller Carlos Jiminez  EBOOK VERSION
Monsoon As Method

Monsoon as Method

Assembling Monsoonal Multiplicities Lindsay Bremner, Beth Cullen, Christina Geros, Harshavardhan Bhat, Anthony Powis, John Cook, Tom Benson The book presents the methods that Monsoon Assemblages has evolved for engaging the monsoon, a globally connected weather system, as a co-producer of urban life and space in South and Southeast Asian cities. It challenges views of climate as an inert backdrop to urban life, instead suggesting that it is materially and spatially active in shaping urban politics, ecologies, infrastructures, buildings and bodies. The book invites urban practitioners, from architects to policy makers, to think differently about space, time, representation and human and non-human agency. It offers intra-disciplinary, intra-active methods for rethinking human and non-human relations with weather in ways that meet the challenges of climate change and the Anthropocene.  Foreword by Karen Coelho. EBOOK EDITION
Iconoclastia

Iconoclastia

News from a post-iconic world Josep Lluís Mateo, ETH In the past, buildings and other constructions representing singular moments for the community were called monuments. Their origin was expression of power, celebration of ritual or collective affirmation. In the contemporary world, a project that aspires to be exceptionally expressive is commonly called an Icon. This book claims that star-architects and their “iconic” architecture are no longer valid today, as these projects are all driven by marketing machineries. Architecture should re-emerge as a credible artefact and fulfill the transcendent demands of our time. The publication begins with a series of general texts on themes that vary but all share a common critical look at the role of the iconic on the recent architecture scene. With contributions of Yannis Aesopos, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Isabel Concheiro, Sabine Von Fischer, Naoto Fukasawa, Hans Ibelings, Krunoslav Ivanisin, Alicia Guerrero Yeste, Fredy Massad, Daniel Kiss, Josep Lluís Mateo, Jasper Morrison, Agustí Obiol, Florian Sauter, Peter Sloterdijk, Elías Torres Tur, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. EBOOK VERSION  
Shanghai Transforming

Shanghai Transforming

The Changing Physical, Economic, Social and Environmental Conditions of a Global Metropolis Iker Gil This comprehensive study of Shanghai’s profound urban transformation presents the bold new opportunity for architecture and urbanism that Shanghai represents. Immersed in a deep physical transformation with the upcoming 2010 World Expo, Shanghai is reconsidering relationships within the city and surrounding neighborhoods. Shanghai transforming examines this complex transformation through history, natural and artificial resources, economy, society, and public perception. With illustrations, texts, maps, and photos, this is a rich resource for understanding Shanghai’s past and future, through a transformation which is highly unique for speed, scale, and politics. Texts by Denise Scott Brown, Saskia Sassen, Robert Venturi, Greg Girard, Silas Chiow, Philip Enquist, Sharon Haar, Xiangning Li, Xiaochun Zhang, Weigang Qiu, Haolun Shu, Sol Madridejos, Juan Carlos Sancho, Jonathan Miller, Peter G. Rowe EBOOK VERSION  
Ideología Construída

Ideología Construída

Cinco mil años de arquitecturas del poder Fernando Grasa Throughout 5,000 years the visual plot has been shown as the systematic alphabet that Mediterranean cultures have used to write multiple architectural accounts of a sacred and ceremonial nature. We will begin this memory - a true travel notebook - by presenting what the Christian temples of discipline have taught us. Then we travel to Egypt, Rome and finally to Malta and Gozo. The systematicity and similarities in the crystallization of the ideological discourse were incredible and we invite the reader to verify those teachings. To facilitate this, the text includes more than 360 sketches and 300 images of more than 200 buildings belonging to 17 countries. EBOOK VERSION
Inventing Greenland

Inventing Greenland

Designing an Arctic Nation Bert De Jonghe Through the lens of urbanization, Inventing Greenland provides a broad understanding of a unique island undergoing intense transformation while drawing attention to its historical and current challenges and emerging opportunities. Geared towards architects, landscape architects, and urban planners, this book examines the local cultural, social, and environmental realities with a distinct spatial sensitivity, recognizing the diverse array of relationships that the built environment both supports and produces. By exploring Greenland as a complex and interconnected cultural and geographical space, Inventing Greenland reveals and anticipates transitional moments in the region’s highly intertwined urbanized, militarized, and touristic landscapes. With Contributions of  Bert De Jonghe (author) Charles Waldheim (foreword) Mia M. Bennett (co-author chapter 1) + (copy editor) EBOOK VERSION
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