Everyday Matters Contemporary Approaches To Architecture

An illuminating introduction to the influence of architecture on the world, the environment, and human lives Architecture matters. It matters to cities, the planet, and human lives. How architects design and what they build has an impact that usually lasts for generations. The more we understand architecture—the deeper we probe the decisions and designs that go into making a building—the better our world becomes. Aaron Betsky, architect, author, curator, former museum director, and currently the dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, guides readers into the rich and complex world of contemporary architecture. Combining his early experiences as an architect with his extensive experience as a jury member selecting the world’s most prominent and cutting-edge architects to build icons for cities, Betsky possesses rare insight into the mechanisms, politics, and personalities that play a role in how buildings in our societies and urban centers come to be. In approximately fifty themes, drawing on his inside knowledge of the architectural world, he explores a broad spectrum of topics, from the meaning of domestic space to the spectacle of the urban realm. Accessible, instructive, and hugely enjoyable, Why Architecture Matters will open the eyes of anyone dreaming of becoming an architect, and will bring a wry smile to anyone who already is.

An illuminating introduction to the influence of architecture on the world, the environment, and human lives Architecture matters. It matters to cities, the planet, and human lives. How architects design and what they build has an impact that usually lasts for generations. The more we understand architecture—the deeper we probe the decisions and designs that go into making a building—the better our world becomes. Aaron Betsky, architect, author, curator, former museum director, and currently the dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, guides readers into the rich and complex world of contemporary architecture. Combining his early experiences as an architect with his extensive experience as a jury member selecting the world’s most prominent and cutting-edge architects to build icons for cities, Betsky possesses rare insight into the mechanisms, politics, and personalities that play a role in how buildings in our societies and urban centers come to be. In approximately fifty themes, drawing on his inside knowledge of the architectural world, he explores a broad spectrum of topics, from the meaning of domestic space to the spectacle of the urban realm. Accessible, instructive, and hugely enjoyable, Why Architecture Matters will open the eyes of anyone dreaming of becoming an architect, and will bring a wry smile to anyone who already is.

As an industry that relies on extracted materials and an intense use of resources, isn't construction unsustainable by design? The pressure is increasing for the sector to diligently address the harm caused by the built environment, begging the question of whether real sustainability in architecture and planning is possible. As institutionalized and commodified greenwashing hollows out the term, how do architects and designers position their work beyond the inadequacy of a flattening universalistic understanding of sustainability? What forms of practice allow for accountable and revolutionized construction modes? How can we critically engage with technology as an ambivalent tool in the service of green capitalism. The first volume of a forthcoming series by RIOT—Research and Innovation On Territory, a laboratory within the Institute of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), On Architecture and Greenwashing presents a cross-section of positions on architecture and its political economies and explores ways to correct course in the face of a climate crisis of unprecedented magnitude— beyond greenwashing. RIOT—Research and Innovation On Territory—is a laboratory engaged in pedagogy and research within the Institute of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), lead by architect and urban designer CHARLOTTE MALTERRE-BARTHES. Believing that the construction sector and design disciplines must pivot and wholeheartedly engage in the current social and climatic urgencies by rewiring themselves to face and repair the harm, RIOT utilizes tactics and strategies to decarbonize, decolonize, and depatriarchalize space production—by design.

This book captures concepts and projects that reshape the discipline of architecture by prioritizing people over buildings. In doing so, it uncovers sophisticated approaches that go beyond standard architectural protocols to explore experience-based aesthetics, encounters, action-based research, critical practices, and social engagement. If these are widely understood as singular or incompatible approaches, the book reveals that they form a growing network of interrelations and generate levels of flexibility and dynamism that are reshaping the discipline. The thirteen chapters analyze thought-provoking projects – branded museums, restaged exhibitions, home/work spaces, multi-cultural spaces, ageing apartment blocks, abandoned homes, and urban slums amongst them. Together, they enliven the stalled debate about a single architectural response to the complex challenges of the contemporary world by highlighting pluralistic perspectives on architecture that offer fresh solutions on how architecture can improve people’s lives. Featuring essays from an international range of authors, this book makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the wider conditions under which, and in relation to which, contemporary architecture is produced.

A provocative examination of the connections between contemporary expression in architecture and traditional materials and forms. Architect, architectural historian, and preservationist Françoise Bollack presents eighteen projects that use traditional materials to build contemporary forms or use modern materials to build traditional forms, blurring the boundary between tradition and modernity in architecture. Bollack rejects the modernist taboo against imitation and precedent, tracing the history of adaptive and imitative design from the Renaissance to the Greek and Gothic revivals and to the nineteenth-century modular cast-iron facades that Philip Johnson considered "the basis for modern design." The book examines projects in the US, Europe, and Japan, encompassing a broad range of building types: residential, hospitality, commercial and retail, and cultural spaces. All share an intriguing, even radical, approach to reinterpreting traditional forms and materials. Humble thatch moves beyond the farmhouse roof to clad the walls of a Danish environmental center; a photographic image of a Parisian facade becomes a scrim on the facade of a new building; the ghost of an ancient Italian basilica is outlined in wire mesh. Among the featured architects are Kengo Kuma, architect of the Tokyo 2021 Olympic stadium; MVRDV, a highly regarded Dutch firm; Lacaton & Vassal and Chartier/Corbasson in France; Skene Catling de la Peña in the UK; Morris Adjmi in the USA; Max Dudler in Germany; Dortre Mandrup in Denmark; and Herzog & de Meuron in Switzerland.

Why architecture matters—and how to make it matter more Fit is a book about architecture and society that seeks to fundamentally change how architects and the public think about the task of design. Distinguished architect and urbanist Robert Geddes argues that buildings, landscapes, and cities should be designed to fit: fit the purpose, fit the place, fit future possibilities. Fit replaces old paradigms, such as form follows function, and less is more, by recognizing that the relationship between architecture and society is a true dialogue—dynamic, complex, and, if carried out with knowledge and skill, richly rewarding. With a tip of the hat to John Dewey, Fit explores architecture as we experience it. Geddes starts with questions: Why do we design where we live and work? Why do we not just live in nature, or in chaos? Why does society care about architecture? Why does it really matter? Fit answers these questions through a fresh examination of the basic purposes and elements of architecture—beginning in nature, combining function and expression, and leaving a legacy of form. Lively, charming, and gently persuasive, the book shows brilliant examples of fit: from Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia and Louis Kahn's Exeter Library to contemporary triumphs such as the Apple Store on New York's Fifth Avenue, Chicago's Millennium Park, and Seattle's Pike Place. Fit is a book for everyone, because we all live in constructions—buildings, landscapes, and, increasingly, cities. It provokes architects and planners, humanists and scientists, civic leaders and citizens to reconsider what is at stake in architecture—and why it delights us.

Designed to appeal to visual thinkers, 25 Concepts in Modern Architecture explores the fundamental ideas behind architectural design, through easy-to-follow sketches, drawings and succinct explanations. Twenty-five concepts – each of which are key to architectural design thinking – are accessibly explained by examining twenty-five different masterworks of modern architecture. For example, the concept of 'movement' in architectural design is explained through a close look at a Le Corbusier building; 'transparency' is examined in Philip Johnson's seminal Glass House; 'asymmetry' is understood through the work of Zaha Hadid – and so on, through twenty-five core concepts and twenty-five of the most significant buildings of the modern era. Taking a highly-visual approach, this simple yet visually-powerful guide is an essential companion in the design studio and to introductory courses in modern architecture, interior architecture, and interior design. Understanding these concepts will provide a key to demystifying the greatest works in modern architectural history, inspire new ways to think about new design projects, and reveal how drawing and sketching are used as tools for the visual analysis of architecture.

This innovative edited collection charts the rise, fall and possible futures of the word primitive. The word primitive is fundamental to the discipline of architecture in the west, providing a convenient starting point for the many myths of architecture's origins. Since the almost legendary 1970s conference on the Primitive, with the advent of post-modernism and, in particular, post-colonialism, the word has fallen from favour in many disciplines. Despite this, architects continue to use the word to mythologize and reify the practice of simplicity. Primitive includes contributions from some of today’s leading architectural commentators including Dalibor Vesely, Adrian Forty, David Leatherbarrow, Richard Weston and Richard Coyne. Structured around five sections, Negotiating Origins; Urban Myths; Questioning Colonial Constructs; Making Marks; and Primitive Futures, the essays highlight the problematic nature of ideas of the primitive, engage with contemporary debate in the field of post colonialism and respond to a burgeoning interest in the non-expert architecture. This now controversial subject remains, for better or worse, intrinsic to the very structure of Modernism and deeply embedded in architectural theory. Considering a broad range of approaches, this book provides a rounded past, present and future of the word primitive in the architectural sphere.

Robert Harbison offers a novel interpretation of what architectural theory might look like. The title is based on Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", and like the poem, Harbison's work is a composite structure built of oblique meanings and shifts that give a portrait of architecture in which symbol and metaphor coexist. 10 illustrations.