Trügerische Transparenz (DE ED.)

Thoughts and Observations Triggered by a Visit to Farnsworth House Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron Treacherous Transparencies analyzes transparency as expressed in architecture and art in an attempt to understand the intentions and objectives that underlie its use by pertinent architects and artists. The publication looks at a few important works by selected artists and architects who work with transparency as an artistic strategy, which they implement primarily by using glass and mirrors but other media as well. The architects and artists listed together in this context form an unlikely alliance: Bruno Taut, Ivan Leonidov, Marcel Duchamp, Mies van der Rohe, Dan Graham and Gerhard Richter. But they do have something in common: their work marks salient way stations in the story of modernism up to the present day. Published in the context of the inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP). Launch of the publication series by the inaugural MCHAP award winners Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron for their project 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Buy English Edition

The Mexican Social Housing (SP ED.)

Promises Revisited Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorship Tatiana Bilbao This book is a compilation of the projects developed at the Yale School of Architecture in an advance studio called, Diversification: How to reintegrate abandoned social housing complexes in different areas of Mexico, led by the architect Tatiana Bilbao who was the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor for a semester, and was developed in conjunction with the INFONAVIT (Institute of the National Fund for Worker’s Housing). In response to the aggravating abandonment rates in Mexican social housing complexes, the studio aimed to address this issue and simultaneously offer solutions to the actual housing deficit. The studio’s focal point was to understand the specific environmental conditions each of the chosen case study housing complexes, and to cast a proposal that could architecturally reintegrate these spaces and transform them into a positive detonator for its surroundings. The book features a general introduction of the problem and thematic of the studio, and a chapter for each of the projects: Monterrey, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Guadalajara, and Cancún.

Verb Conditioning (SP ED.)

Albert Ferré The fourth issue of Verb looks at two related processes: the conditioning of architectural environments and the conditioning of behaviors. On the one hand, studies of luminosity, sound, atmosphere and temperature expand the range of techniques available to the discipline, allowing the production of ever more extensive effects with increasingly minimal means. On the other, the rise of commerce, theming and the manufacturing of identity produce a different set of effects, directing users and their emotions for maximum financial success. What are the real potentials of conditioning? Do these new environments merely replicate the existing with increasing accuracy and sophistication, or can they generate qualitatively new atmospheres capable of stimulating not just new effects but also new forms of living? Featured works: The Venetian in Las Vegas, Spanish Pavilion in Aichi by FOA, New Milan Trade Fair by Fuksas, Arup SoundLab, Décosterd & Rahm, Arakawa + Gins, Enric Ruiz, Tomihiro Museum by Makoto Yokomizo, and texts by Norman Klein and AUDC. Buy English Edition

Verb Processing (SP ED.)

Jaime Salazar The shift from modern to digital systems of design and production opens up a material work to a deeper relationship between author and perceiver. From the classical work to the modern object and from the modern industrial to 'computerised' procedures, the interplay between author and user has become closer, more direct and open. How does this increasing complicity affect architectural practice? How can architecture be conceived as a more fluid informational development? Publishing architectures is much more than displaying a recently finished product in which the architect is the unique author. To make architecture is a real undertaking of numerous authors based on the processing of information before, during and after the materialization of the building. The contemporary relationship between information and authorship in architectural practice, featuring works and texts by Manuel de Landa, Jorge Wagensberg, FOA Architects, Sadar & Vuga, njiric & njiric, Love, Lacaton & Vassal. Buy English edition

Verb Natures (SP ED.)

Irene Hwang “What is fascinating is the inability to separate the real from the digital, because they already form part of the same nature.” So we said in the last issue of Verb. Here we explore how this fusion takes place. Buildings and cities grow, are transformed, and dissolve. How can this evolution be generated, controlled, enhanced or imagined? Is our environment programmable? How does the fusion of natural and artificial matter produce new architectural organisms, new environments, new natures? How does technology animate space, and how do users and programs animate matter? The fifth volume of Actar's boogazine looks for a new definition of the organic.Projects by: Terraswarm, Aranda/Lasch, Shohei Matsukawa / 000studio, Kram/Weisshaar, Michael Meredith, mos, Foster + Partners, George L. Legendre, IJP Corporation, PTW Architects + Arup Australia + CSCEC, ON-A, Hitoshi Abe, Manuel Gausa Asociados, Vicente Guallart, Mick Pearce, Yusuke Obuchi, R&Sie(n), Cristina Díaz, AMID, INI, ONL...

Vivienda Total (SP ED.)

Alternativas a la Dispersión Urbana Albert Ferré Total Housing was designed to be a demonstration of the virtues of high and medium density multi-family homes, and an antidote to urban sprawl. The selection of works in Total Housing (in hard copy and on its supplementary website: www.actar.com/totalhousing/) spans a period coinciding with the height of the housing boom, and consequent bust, experienced in most "developed" economies. From among the huge amount of projects developed in this period, Total Housing selects 61 of them from 22 countries which exemplify outstanding innovations in construction systems, layout of residential space, systems of unit aggregation, integration of the residential program into the other functions that make up our cities, and repercussions in the formation of the urban fabric. These innovations are summarised in a series of concepts or keywords that identify their "virtues" as a residential model on the first page of each project. This book is a design manual as much as a reference for future good practices. Its structure follows a simple sequential order of the number of homes included in each project (from 4 to 750), regardless of the other complementary programs they may respond to. This sequence aims to facilitate the identification of possible examples and case studies, and show that interesting design solutions are found in big and small projects alike. The final section consists of detailed plans of 17 of the works in the book. Buy English edition

Casas SANAA (SP ED.)

Sam Chermayeff, Agustín Perez Rubio Sanaa’s housing projects, both finished (House A, S House, House in a Plum Grove, Small House and Moriyama House), and unfinished projects (Flower House, Garden & House, Seijo Apartments, Ichikawa Apartments, House in China and Eda Apartments). SANAA's architecture embraces complexities within deceptively simple appearances. It has many elements that are impossible to understand unless actually “experienced”. In contrast with modern architecture, SANAA has many aspects that cannot be revealed in “representative” media such as plans, models, and photographs. The “representations” of their architectural works incorporate ambiguity and chronological elements. This characteristic makes Sanaa one of the most innovative offices in the current architectural panorama. EBOOK VERSION

Verb Crisis ( SP ED. )

Mario Ballesteros Verb Crisis examines architectural solutions to the extraordinary conditions of an increasingly dense and interdependent world.It presents innovative projects and research through original photos, essays, and exclusive interviews with key figures from architecture and urban planning to environmental, economic, and global affairs. Confronted by shifting densities and uncharted urban transformations, Crisis tackles the conflict between the physical limits of architectural design and the demands on the practice for an updated social relevance. Featuring: FOA, Teddy Cruz, Shigeru Ban, Elemental, Boris B.Jensen, Hilary Sample, John May, Jacobo García Germán, Markus Miessen, Interboro Partners, MVRDV, and Takuya Onishi. Buy English edition

Revisions de la Barcelona Metropolitana (CAT ED.)

Espai Públic 2013-2017 Projects and Urban Design Section, AMB / Poch Comunicación This volume, the fifth in the collection Metropolitan Spaces, is published with the intention of marking a turning point as it broadens its sights and moves away from the concept of catalogue. Its objective, beyond incorporating a historical reflection of the vital role that the AMB has played in the design, the construction of public space, and the transformation and structuring of the metropolitan territory, is to blaze new paths for the future. In order to do so, the volume offers three types of concepts: data, texts and projects. The data explains the context and offers the reader an objective idea of the territory. Then, the texts and their authors help to explain the complexity of the territory, its past and its future potential. Visiting public space, the way of understanding it and acting in it contributed by guest practices, is complemented by re-visiting the work carried out in the last 30 years, contributed by the team of the AMB. Finally, the projects included confirm the diversity and the quality of the works developed by the institution. The content is divided into six chapters: park space, river space, coastal space, covered space, urban space and mobility space. These are, in short, spaces that characterise the metropolitan area of Barcelona, and which, in the course of these 30 years, have acquired an entity of their own.

Revisiones de la Barcelona Metropolitana (SP ED.)

Espacio Público 2013-2017

Projects and Urban Design Section, AMB / Poch Comunicación This volume, the fifth in the collection Metropolitan Spaces, is published with the intention of marking a turning point as it broadens its sights and moves away from the concept of catalogue. Its objective, beyond incorporating a historical reflection of the vital role that the AMB has played in the design, the construction of public space, and the transformation and structuring of the metropolitan territory, is to blaze new paths for the future. In order to do so, the volume offers three types of concepts: data, texts and projects. The data explains the context and offers the reader an objective idea of the territory. Then, the texts and their authors help to explain the complexity of the territory, its past and its future potential. Visiting public space, the way of understanding it and acting in it contributed by guest practices, is complemented by re-visiting the work carried out in the last 30 years, contributed by the team of the AMB. Finally, the projects included confirm the diversity and the quality of the works developed by the institution. The content is divided into six chapters: park space, river space, coastal space, covered space, urban space and mobility space. These are, in short, spaces that characterise the metropolitan area of Barcelona, and which, in the course of these 30 years, have acquired an entity of their own.

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Espacio Público 2013-2017