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Dispositional Intelligence in Architecture

José AragüezDispositional Intelligence proposes a contemporary theory of spatial organization in architecture through original research into a particular kind of hybrid design production

Unveiling Architectural Innovation José Aragüez Dispositional Intelligence proposes a contemporary theory of spatial organization in architecture through original research into a particular kind of hybrid design production—inherently architectural yet strongly driven by modes of intellection traditionally associated with engineering—which surfaced between the mid-1950s and the mid-2000s. Three highly important yet radically overlooked bodies of work are examined here: those of the Italian architect and artist Vittorio Giorgini (1926–2010), the Israeli architect, engineer, and geometer Michaël Burt (b. 1937), and Sri-Lankan-born, London-based engineer and theorist Cecil Balmond (b. 1943). Giorgini was a trailblazer in incorporating surface topology into architectural thinking with a considerable level of scientific self-awareness. Burt’s body of work proves to be one of the earliest, most thoroughgoing investigations into the discovery and visualization of three-dimensional models for the subdivision of space based on patterns of configurational continuity. Balmond pioneered the translation of aspects of nonlinearity into design moves of significant

Neglected Dimensions

Paul CarterHow public space is produced is one of the great enigmas of democratic society.

Sketches for Public Space Paul Carter How public space is produced is one of the great enigmas of democratic society. Paul Carter’s innovative concept of spatial history, his theory and practice of material thinking and, more recently, his account of public space design as choreotopography have been internationally influential in promoting new postcolonial planning discourses and design ecologies. Neglected Dimensions is the first publication of the drawing practice that underwrites his analysis of public space dynamics. Carter’s description of public space as a continuous entanglement of trajectories, experienced multi-modally (discursively, kinetically, mimetically) is the fruit of a public art experience that has encompassed Olympic Games commissions, major urban design (Federation Square, Melbourne) and significant Aboriginal co-design engagement. It also reflects Carter’s subject position as a migrant where ‘the ground is not given’: the local improvisation of meeting protocols applies wherever hyperdiversity complicates finding common ground. The graphic DNA articulating this trajectory of

Felix Candela From Mexico City to Chicago

Alexander EisenschmidtFelix Candela, one of the most important and iconic architects of the 20th century, became world-renowned for his many captivating concrete-shell structures in Latin America and across the globe.

Rise and Fall of Experimentation in Concrete Alexander Eisenschmidt Candela’s move from Mexico City to Chicago, despite his professional success, is rarely discussed. This book investigates the political and economic conditions that influenced his work and motivated his departure, offering a more nuanced understanding of his contributions to mid-20th-century architecture. Unlike existing literature, it examines Candela’s work in both Mexico and the US, highlighting his role as an architect who shaped new architectural spaces with smooth curves and rough concrete. Combining historical research, oral histories, contemporary theories, construction photographs, essays, interviews, and translations of Candela’s writings, this book reveals his unique position in Latin-American and US architecture. It explores the conditions in both countries, such as Mexico's low wages and cheap timber fostering concrete experimentation in the 1950s, and how the 1968 student demonstrations in Mexico City and Chicago's architectural legacy influenced Candela. The book also delves into Candela’s "Chicago period" through essays based

Bio/Matter/Techno/Synthetics

Franca Trubiano, Susan Kolber, Marta Llor, Maria Jose Fuentes, Amber FarrowCollectively, B/M/T/S challenges the common place nature of ideas founded in parametricism, object- oriented ontology, parafictional realism, post-digital representations, and corporate functionalism.

Design Futures for the More than Human Franca Trubiano, Susan Kolber, Marta Llor, Maria Jose Fuentes, Amber Farrow B/M/T/S articulates future ready visions for a field that is increasingly called upon to participate in ever more complex aesthetic, ethical, environmental and socio-political contexts by redefining the very origins, principles, and values of design. Despite the propensity of contemporary discourse to favor the search for a hegemonic theory, this collaborative project convenes the work of twenty-eight women, all of whom interrogate the origins, methods, and tactics of their respective disciplines. Collectively, B/M/T/S challenges the common place nature of ideas founded in parametricism, object-oriented ontology, parafictional realism, post-digital representations, and corporate functionalism. In exchange, it seeks the confluence of critical, aesthetic, and ethical thought in future speculations on the biological, the material, the technological, and their synthesis. The twenty-three papers and five editorials collected in this volume speak to subjects of bio-design, speculative biology, green

Viviendas para el Patronato de Casas Militares / Dwellings for the Military Housing Trust

Viviendas para el Patronato de Casas Militares / Dwellings for the Military Housing Trust

Javier García-Germán, Ricardo Sánchez Lampreave and Alejandro ValdiviesoThe book traces the history of the building, from the demolition of the former Hospital de la Princesa, the first attempts to build a housing complex for military personnel

Fernando Higueras, Antonio Miró, Madrid 1966-1974 Javier García-Germán, Ricardo Sánchez Lampreave and Alejandro Valdivieso Being the first book series dedicated to vindicating and disseminating Madrid’s 20th century architectural heritage both among the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM) members themselves —and, in particular, among the youngest ones— as well as among the citizens of Madrid, the 'Libros de Arquitectura' Series will dedicate its first volume to Housing. As a secondary objective, by offering the books in a bilingual Spanish-English edition, the possibility of distributing them outside Spain is raised, positioning, in addition to the work of the COAM’s Special Collections Archive, the work of the architects and the architecture from Madrid; updating it based on the paradigms proposed for each of the forthcoming issues of the magazine Arquitectura (territory, climate, inclusion, body, beauty and practice). Motivated by the absence of a document that critically determines its value and validity —by updating the

Foundations of Urban Design

Foundations of Urban Design

Marcel SmetsThe book is structured into twenty-nine essays, each dedicated to a pair of urbanistic concepts.

Marcel Smets The book is structured into twenty-nine essays, each dedicated to a pair of urbanistic concepts. Discussing historical and contemporary, interpretive and designerly approaches to urbanity, the notions composing the 29 pairs relate dialectically, as theses-and-antitheses. Still, we are warned, ‘the presented antagonisms are not a priori in opposition, but rather complementary. “With this book, Marcel Smets not only offers an inspiring vocabulary to describe the spatial features of the city but, above all, a unique dictionnaire raisonné to discuss past and future interventions in our largest man-made artefact.” Tom Avermaete, Chair for the History and Theory of Urban Design, ETH Zürich. Smets’ fundaments may be likened to emblems. A Renaissance genre, proliferating before the Industrial Age, emblems are complex knowledge repositories, their meaning emerging at the intersection – but not as ‘sum’ of – a title, a text and an image. The paired titles, the written analysis, alternating abstractions and historic references,

Spatial Infrastructure

Spatial Infrastructure

José AragüezThis book recasts architectural thinking as a form of knowledge by addressing a number of fundamental questions relevant to the reading of works across styles, time-periods, and geographic boundaries.

Essays on Architectural Thinking as a Form of Knowledge José Aragüez José Aragüez's second book revolves around a new concept in architecture, spatial infrastructure, that operates both as a design tool capable of projecting architectural thinking forward, and as an analytical category that shifts our understanding of the history of the field and contemporary production. Taken together, the collection of essays presented here investigates some of the most intractable issues pertaining to architectural discourse, while also examining scientific, critical, and cultural dimensions where relevant. Key subjects include a building’s discursive building, engineering patents and spatial disposition in architecture, typological invention and sponge surfaces, “the organic” at the intersection of architecture and philosophy, imageability in the context of an evolving market economy, language vis-à-vis self-determinacy in creative practices, a building’s spatial kernel, and the possibility of architectural metacriticality. Building upon each other to engender a coherent and distinct outlook on twentieth-century and contemporary

UFO- English edition

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT FOR CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE (ENG ED.)

Beatrice Lampariello, Andrea Anselmo, Boris Hamzeian (eds.)"UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT for contemporary architecture" is the first monographic publication focused on the Florentine UFO group (1968-1978)

UFO’s Experiments between Political Activism and the Artistic Avant-garde Beatrice Lampariello, Andrea Anselmo, Boris Hamzeian (eds.) The contemporary context is defined by a unique conjuncture. On one hand, we witness the revival of the Radical Architecture that from the avant-garde experiments of the origins recovers creative processes and iconographic fragments while nullifying the original ideological and political values. On the other hand, we see social protests in defense of fundamental rights of democracy, as in 1968. With these premises, Architecture is now reinvestigating those ephemeral experiments that have endured half a century as new “stone monuments” capable of indicating new perspectives for both research and design. Placing UFO group, one of the authors of those still poorly known “monuments”, at the core of the contemporary debate means investigating their formal and seductive aspects, but also the ideological, political and social values with which objects, installations and happenings have been innervated, transforming them into

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT PER L’ARCHITETTURA CONTEMPORANEA (IT ED.)

Beatrice Lampariello, Andrea Anselmo, Boris Hamzeian (eds.)"UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT for contemporary architecture" is the first monographic publication focused on the Florentine UFO group (1968-1978)

UFO’s Experiments between Political Activism and the Artistic Avant-garde Beatrice Lampariello, Andrea Anselmo, Boris Hamzeian (eds.) The contemporary context is defined by a unique conjuncture. On one hand, we witness the revival of the Radical Architecture that from the avant-garde experiments of the origins recovers creative processes and iconographic fragments while nullifying the original ideological and political values. On the other hand, we see social protests in defense of fundamental rights of democracy, as in 1968. With these premises, Architecture is now reinvestigating those ephemeral experiments that have endured half a century as new “stone monuments” capable of indicating new perspectives for both research and design. Placing UFO group, one of the authors of those still poorly known “monuments”, at the core of the contemporary debate means investigating their formal and seductive aspects, but also the ideological, political and social values with which objects, installations and happenings have been innervated, transforming them into

Builders, Housewives an the Constuction of Modern Athens

Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens

Ioanna TheocharopoulouThis book reassesses the explosive growth of postwar Athens through its most distinctive building type, the polykatoikía, and its different connotations through the decades

Ioanna Theocharopoulou Athens’ most distinctive building type, polykatoikía, and its different connotations through the decades: from a monotonous and ugly element of the city to the role it might play in the urban sustainability. Sprawling beneath the Acropolis, modern Athens is commonly viewed in negative terms: congested, ugly and monotonous. “Builders, Housewives and the Construction of Modern Athens” questions this stereotype, reassessing the explosive growth of postwar Athens through its most distinctive building type: the polykatoikía (a small-scale multistory apartment block). Theocharopoulou re-evaluates the polykatoikía as a low-tech, easily constructible innovation that stimulated the postwar urban economy, triggering the city’s social mid-twentieth-century transformation. The interiors of the polykatoikía apartments reflect a desire for modernity as marketed to housewives through film and magazines. Regular builders became unlikely allies in designing these polykatoikía interiors, enabling inhabitants to exert agency over their daily lives and the shape of the postwar city. This revised edition of Theocharopoulou’s

MCHAP The Americas Two

MCHAP The Americas 2

Florencia Rodríguez (ed.)New approaches to nature, landscape, and territory were key in the jury’s and architect’s architecture discussions during the second cycle of the MCHAP prize.

Territory & Expeditions Florencia Rodríguez (ed.) The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP), directed by Dirk Denison from within the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), promotes an academic award that is given to the best architecture built in the American continent during a specific period. “MCHAP The Americas 2, Territory & Expeditions,” is inspired on the discussions held during the second cycle of the prize, which took place in 2016. Based on the selection of the finalist projects—Weekend House by SPBR, New Campus for the UTEC by Grafton Architects, Pachacamac Museum by Llosa Cortegana Architects, Tower 41 by Alberto Kalach, Star Apartmens by Michael Maltzan Architecture, and Grace Farms by SANAA—, the jury conversations and “discoveries” were very much conditioned by the ideas of nature and its intimate relation to architecture and landscape. This book is part a reader, part a catalogue, part a visual essay/research on these matters. The texts and projects are

Lewerentz Fragments

Lewerentz Fragments

Jonathan Foote, Hansjörg Göritz, Matthew Hall, Nathan MattesonThe publication Lewerentz Fragments introduces new scholarship on the architect’s motivations and compiles new essays from all the major scholars on his work.

Jonathan Foote, Hansjörg Göritz, Matthew Hall, Nathan Matteson Through new essays, recently discovered archival material, photography, and drawings, the publication Lewerentz Fragments explores the architect’s body of work spanning three-quarters of the twentieth century. Comprising writings from all the major scholars on Lewerentz’ work, along with several new voices, this publication offers new insight into the context surrounding this architect’s work. Rather than focusing on a single thesis, the book offers a diversity of insight from multiple cultural and professional perspectives. In addition, previously unpublished translations of interviews and dialogs among the architect and his contemporaries offer a voice to the ‘silent architect’ altering the traditional interpretations of the work and digging past the surface of what might be considered his philosophy of building. Rather than serving as an introduction to the architect’s work, this volume provides detailed fragments as a deep and diverse dive into one of the most mysterious

Marcelo Spina, Georgina Huljich/ P-A-T-T-E-R-N-SInterrogating historical, contemporary, and speculative images, the book aims to construct a viable alternative to the icon’s cliché.

& Other Dichotomies of the Real in Architecture Marcelo Spina & Georgina Huljich with Constance Vale/ P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S Interrogating historical, contemporary, and — more importantly— speculative images, ‘Mute Icons & Other Dichotomies of the Real in Architecture’ aims to construct a viable alternative to the icon’s cliché and exhausted form of communication, positing one that is decidedly introverted and withdrawn. Developing a language and a sensibility for discovering simultaneous, contradictory, and even unexpected readings of architectural form, Marcelo Spina & Georgina Huljich / PATTERNS’s new book Mute Icons, aims to carve out a niche in contemporary culture and history by suggesting that far from being a crowd-pleaser, architecture can persist within society as a constructive cultural and social irritant. No longer concerned with narrative excesses or with the "shock and awe" of sensation making; the mute icon becomes intriguing in its deceptive indifference towards context, perplexing in its unmitigated apathy towards the body. Object

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