Koolhaas pronounced urbanism dead in 1995. Since then, urban design has struggled to come to terms with this and other losses including environmental stability, af- fordable housing, design control, and urban amenity. This book explores urban design paradigms transitioning through a misappropriation of Kübler-Ross' "five stages of grief" – from pro-sprawl 'denial', NIMBY 'anger', revisionist…
In the context of recent global political and economic disruption, architecture seems no longer equipped to address the demands of contem- porary society as an isolated discipline. One solution offered in this crisis of relevance is the notion of transdisciplinarity characterised by the hybridisa- tion of distinct disciplines. Transdisciplinarity is the New Order. In ection Volume 3 explores th…
Dirty theory follows the dirt of material and conceptual relations from the midst of complex milieus. It messes with mixed disciplines, showing up in ethnography, in geography, in philosophy, and discovering a suitable habitat in architecture, design and the creative arts. Dirty theory disrupts a comfortable status quo, including our everyday modes of inhabitation and our habits of thinking. Th…
Our built environment exists in a perpetual state of becoming, caught in a process of creation that is continuous and unending. If we wish to understand architecture today, we must engage with the state of flux that defines it. In 2015, Inflection Volume 02 considers the idea of projection, interrogating its meaning in architecture and the built environment. Bringing together the work of studen…
Architects are expected to create original ideas resulting in a unique, bespoke design. With the rise of Modern Architecture, originality became ingrained in perceptions of good design. As a result, originality has become a barometer against which we measure the value of design. However technology today allows for ease of replication and copies, thus originality in design has become an ostensib…
CULINARY LESSONS - The Space of Food is based on a series of events, Culinary Lessons, which were hosted by the Städelschule Architecture Class and which engaged with the relation between food, art and architecture. The series addressed the enormous so- cial, economic and cultural spaces that accompany the production and consumption of food, and attempted to unravel some of these spaces' struc…
If architecture is a design-centred discipline which proceeds by suggesting propositional constructions then, Zambelli argues, archaeology also designs, but in the form of reconstructions. He proposes that whilst practitioners of architecture and archaeology generally purport to practice in future-facing and past-facing-modes respectively, elements of these disciplines also resemble one another…
Diagrams: Tropes, Tools and Abstract Machines examines the pervasive roles of diagrams as analytical, generative, narrative and critical devices manifest in design practices by architects and non-architects that draw on thick cultural milieus and that operate at personal, architectural and urban scales. What are potentials of diagrams beyond representation, as situated cultural practices, corpo…
Guest-edited by Owen Hopkins and Erin McKellar Our current moment is one of profound political and economic change. Historically, these moments of transition have seen a parallel period of cultural – and notably architectural – flux. In the late-1970s this was manifested in Postmodernism. Today, a number of architects are looking again at this movement and redeploying a range of its tacti…
Impressive in size, emotional and visual impact, the buildings of Hamburg-based architects Bothe Richter Teherani are also remarkable for their attention to finishing detail, functionality and financial accountability, and have won international recognition. BRT s style is provocative and controversial; it took the city of Cologne 10 years to come to terms with their glass crane structures, pre…