What happens when computational design and fabrication technologies ramp up to the urban scale? Though these innovative production processes are currently now largely limited to small-scale design projects, what will happen when they are applied to the vast scale of the 21st-century world city? Could new technologies enable an important shift away from mass production to increasingly bespoke and c…
Parametricism is an avant-garde architecture and design movement that has been growing and maturing over the last 15 years, emerging as a remarkable global force. The tendency started in architecture but now encompasses all design disciplines, from urban design to fashion. In architecture, the style has an international following and is currently progressing beyond its experimental roots to make a…
Integrate poetics into real-world spaces by bringing theory down to earth Practical Poetics in Architecture takes poetics out of the theory class and into the design studio, showing architects how the atmospheric and experiential qualities of built structures can be intentionally considered and planned. With an emphasis on analysing and explaining the sensibility of poetics at work in designing an…
Otl Aicher (1922-1991) was an outstanding personality in modern design, he was a co-founder of the legendary Hochschule fur Gestaltung (HfG), the Ulm School of Design, Germany. His works since the fifties of the last century in the field of corporate design and his pictograms for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich are major achievements in the visual communication of our times. «An integral compon…
Even more than authorship, ownership is challenged by the rise of digital and computational methods of design and production. These challenges are simultaneously legal, ethical and economic. How are new methods of fabrication and manufacture going to irreversibly change not only ways of working, but also designers’ ethics and their stance on ownership? In his 2013 second-term State of the Union ad…
The current trend for constructing experimental structures is now an international phenomenon. It has been taken up worldwide by design professionals, researchers, educators and students alike. There exist, however, distinct and significant tendencies within this development that require further investigation. This issue of AD takes on this task by examining one of the most promising trajectories …
4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Tool Kit for the Open-source City The evolution of digital tools is revolutionising urban design, planning and community engagement. This is enabling a new ‘hyperlocal’ mode of design made possible by geolocation technologies and GPS-enabled mobile devices that support connectivity through open-source applications. Real-time analysis of environments and individuals’ input…
Evoking Through Design: Contemporary Moods in Architecture is visually stunning, featuring built work and speculative projects, which highlight how contemporary practices are using devices such as spatial compositing, surface articulation and novel manipulations of materials in order to constitute spatial conditions radiating in delicate and sophisticated atmospheres. Contributors: Benjamin Bratto…
At the end of the 20th century, Dubai attracted international media attention as the world sought to make sense of the city’s extraordinary growth. Exuberant projects such as the Burj Arab, the Burj Khalifa and the Palm Islands attracted investment in dreams to transform the region. While the global financial crisis kept dreams from becoming reality, this issue of AD seeks to present a view of arc…
Architecture in Context: Designing in the Middle East provides a foundation for understanding the critical context of architecture and design in this region. It does this by: presenting a practical overview of architectural know-how in the Middle East, and its potential for cultivating a sense of place introducing local architectural vocabularies and styles, and how they can still be reactivated i…
How do we think about architecture historically and theoretically? Forty Ways to Think about Architecture provides an introduction to some of the wide-ranging ways in which architectural history and theory are being approached today. The inspiration for this project is the work of Adrian Forty, Professor of Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UC…
Delve deep into the complex issues surrounding humanitarian design Ground Rules in Humanitarian Design establishes essential foundations for thinking about humanitarian design and its role in global change. Outlining a vital framework for designing for impoverished and disaster-stricken communities, this informative guide explores the integration of culture, art, architecture, economy, ecology, he…
Highlights how architecture needs to rise to the challenge of a demographic revolution As people sixty-five and older constitute an ever increasingly proportion of population in most industrialized nations, the design of housing and other built provisions needs to be rethought in order to accommodate this ever-expanding ageing population. How can far-reaching architectural solutions play a key par…
A pioneering title, High Definition explores the onslaught of new and highly accurate digital metrology tools in large- and small-scale 3-D scanning and 3-D modelling. Capable of measuring space to an accuracy of less than 1 mm, these tools offer unprecedented precision for the development and interrogation of design before, during and post production. Over the last decade or so, the array of desi…
Since the publication of the first edition of Architectural Technology, in 2002, there have been significant developments in the number of courses, the profile of the discipline as well as significant changes in the Construction sector. The Second edition of Architectural Technology addresses these challenges directly. Much greater emphasis is given to the three core themes of the book – Environme…