General Theory of Urbanization 1867

Ildefons Cerdà

First translation into English on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the publication of the General Theory of Urbanization by Ildefons Cerdà, an essential work on urban development.

In 1867 Ildefons Cerdà published his “Teoria general de la urbanització.” In this text, the “science of building cities”, understood as a phenomenon, became a new discipline with a broad economic, social and cultural impact on the life of the people of the city. Coinciding with 150 years since its publication, its first translation into English is being presented along with the publishing online urbanization.org with the statistics transformed into interactive graphics and open data, with the aim of expanding the knowledge of Cerdà’s work and encouraging debate on the process of “urbanization” in the future.

Co-published with the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in collaboration with the Diputació de Barcelona, the Generalitat de Catalunya through Incasòl. Bloomberg Philanthropies contributed as a collaborator for the international diffusion of the project.

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Álvaro Siza Vieira: A Pool in the Sea

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RCR. Dream and Nature

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Repair

Australian Pavilion, 16th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2018

Mauro Baracco, Louise Wright This book unpacks the theme, documents the exhibition and catalogues Australian architectural projects that are conceived through acts of repair exhibited at the Australian pavilion. Repair aims to expand the point of view from the object of architecture, to the way it operates in its context, advocating a role for architecture that catalyses or actively engages with the environmental, social and cultural repair of the places it is a part of. Repair as an approach to architectural thinking is set to become a critical strategy of architectural culture. It is particularly relevant to Australian architects who work in one of the most diverse and ecologically sensitive landscapes in the world. Uniquely, our cities are interspersed and bordered by remnant vegetation and often connected to large natural systems as well as built over the traditional cultural landscapes of our First Nations peoples. They are also scenes of developing ecosystems at which humans are at the centre of.

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Ideas, Images, and Projects from the Spanish Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale Iñaqui Carnicero, Carlos Quintáns, Santiago de Molina, Jacobo García-Germán, Alfonso Batalla, Amale Andraos, et alt. The book displays the work of seven photographers and fifty five projects of architecture, presenting the problem through the unfinished constructions strewn across different points of Spain ́s geography, as well as five critic essays and eleven interviews with prestigious professors from the international academia. The dictionary definition of “unfinished” presents the following synonyms: unadorned, crude, formless, imperfect, raw, rough, under construction, unfashioned, unperfected, unpolished, unrefined. All of these adjectives conjure in the imagination of designers a new type of architectural intervention that perceives the existing built environment as a constraint upon which we can leave an important but impermanent mark. In this way, architects become a link in the chain of a structure’s life. Through the concept of the “unfinished,” we may understand the desirability of a perpetual state of evolution of the architectures that define our societies. The architecture of the unfinished leaves open a door to the unexpected, and to ideas and interventions of the future - many of which we may not yet be aware. This book gathers essays and interviews with international critics, together with all the photo series and projects that were exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Inaqui Carnicero and Carlos Quintáns, and awarded with the Golden Lion as the Best National Pavilion, that presented a selection of projects developed in the Iberian Peninsula over the last ten years that epitomize a new type of architectural intervention, showing the optimistic and creative view of those who have fought back against the recent past of economic crisis. EBOOK EDITION

Geostories

Another Architecture for the Environment Rania Ghosn & El Hadi Jazairy / DESIGN EARTH

How do we make sense of the Earth at a moment in which it is presented in crisis? Geostories is a manifesto on the environmental imagination that renders sensible the issues of climate change and through geographic fiction invites readers to relate to the complexity of Earth systems in their vast scales of time and space. The book is organized into three sections– terrarium, aquarium, planetarium, each of which revisits such devices of wonder that assemble publics around representations of the Earth. The series of architectural projects becomes a medium to synthesize different forms and scales of knowledge on technological externalities, such as oil extraction, deep-sea mining, ocean acidification, water shortage, air pollution, trash, space debris, and a host of other social-ecological issues. Through design research, Geostories brings together spatial history, geographic representation, projective design, and material public assemblies to speculate on ways of living with such legacy technologies on the planet.

Yamuna River Project

New Delhi Urban Ecolgy Iñaki Alday & Pankaj Vir Gupta

This publication presents the results of more than five consecutive years of focused research initiatives and designs from The University of Virginia School of Architecture towards the revitalization of New Delhi, India's water bodies. In collaboration with the Delhi Jal Board, The University of Virginia's Yamuna River Project is an inter-disciplinary research program, proposing to revitalize the ecology of the Yamuna River in Delhi and creating vital urban links with the Yamuna River as it flows through India's capital city. Through the research, methodologies, and designs contained within this publication, this project aims to serve as a catalyst for the urgent recovery of the Yamuna River and its tributaries, building a publically accessible body of information and expertise resulting in visions of what an alternative future would be. Only by addressing human equality and the complexity of Delhi's urban phenomenon can the social and ecological crises manifested through these neglected water bodies be solved.

DAM Deutsches Architekturmuseum International Architecture Book Award 2018 Visit urbanNext for exclusive on-line content about this book EBOOK EDITION

Calme Bloc

Avenier Cornejo, Chartier Dalix Architects, authors, and photographers’ different viewpoints on a dense and complex building in Paris’s 20th arrondissement. Photographer Myr Muratet, who spent several weeks living there, offers us an authentic reportage of the building’s appropriation by its new inhabitants. Located just above the city’s eight-lane ring road, this calm block was recently completed by Parisian architecture firms Chartier Dalix and Avenier Cornejo, which combines a kindergarten with 240 studio apartments for young workers in a rapidly changing neighbourhood. Its users’ behaviour, habits, and adaptations confirm or subvert the designers’ intentions. As the building weighs anchor in its neighbourhood, not only does the alchemy of this process resonate in the immediate surroundings, but also further afield, in the wake of individual users’ destinies. Inquisitive visitor Sébastien Marot sets sail on an urban and architectural cruise, exploring the physical, social, and historical flux that is the undercurrent of this built reality. EBOOK VERSION

Kazuyo Sejima in Gifu (ENG ED.)

Albert Ferré, Tomoko Sakamoto Located in Gifu, sits a building that constitutes the first material expression of Kazuyo Sejima's studies on metropolitan housing. This investigation proceeded from the conclusion that not all subsidized housing needs to be the same. Starting from a generic public housing program, Sejima's housing block in Gifu departs from convention and occupies the conceptual and physical space created between oppositional design concerns: where a strictly modulated structure confronts a random arrangement of different spaces; between the length of the building and the reduction of its built depth; between inhabitable space and the surrounding landscape; between the individual and the family unit. Buy Spanish edition

Phylogenesis (ENG ED.)

Foreign Office Architects Through a series of competitions, speculative commissions, and built work, FOA's first monograph is structured to reflect the development of their specific attitude and as a compendium of the technical arsenal that they use to within their practice. With the spirit of scientific classification, the genesis of an architectural project is identified within a series of phylum, actualized and simultaneously virtualized, in their specific application to the unique conditions of a project's location. Phylogenesis also includes a collection of texts from several critics who investigate related topics that touch upon different aspects of FOA's discourse. Buy Spanish edition EBOOK EDITION

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Australian Pavilion, 16th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2018