Field Conditions Revisited


Book Description




Points and Lines


Book Description

This text collates Stan Allen's writings and projects that propose architectural strategies for the contemporary city. It presents speculative texts outlining Allen's general principles with specific projects created by his office in an interplay of theory and practice. Projects include: the Cardiff Bay Opera House, Wales; the Korean-American Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Museo del Prado, Madrid; and White Columns Gallery, New York. Each project is accompanied by explanatory text as well as drawings, models, photographs and computer renderings.




Fundamentals of Ship Hydrodynamics


Book Description

Fundamentals of Ship Hydrodynamics: Fluid Mechanics, Ship Resistance and Propulsion Lothar Birk, University of New Orleans, USA Bridging the information gap between fluid mechanics and ship hydrodynamics Fundamentals of Ship Hydrodynamics is designed as a textbook for undergraduate education in ship resistance and propulsion. The book provides connections between basic training in calculus and fluid mechanics and the application of hydrodynamics in daily ship design practice. Based on a foundation in fluid mechanics, the origin, use, and limitations of experimental and computational procedures for resistance and propulsion estimates are explained. The book is subdivided into sixty chapters, providing background material for individual lectures. The unabridged treatment of equations and the extensive use of figures and examples enable students to study details at their own pace. Key features: • Covers the range from basic fluid mechanics to applied ship hydrodynamics. • Subdivided into 60 succinct chapters. • In-depth coverage of material enables self-study. • Around 250 figures and tables. Fundamentals of Ship Hydrodynamics is essential reading for students and staff of naval architecture, ocean engineering, and applied physics. The book is also useful for practicing naval architects and engineers who wish to brush up on the basics, prepare for a licensing exam, or expand their knowledge.




Ugly, Useless, Unstable Architectures


Book Description

Ugly, Useless, Unstable Architectures traces productive intersections between architecture and the discourses of Post-Structuralism and New Materialism. It investigates how their unique ‘ontological regimes’ can be mobilised to supersede the classical framework that still informs both the production and the evaluation of architecture. Throughout its three main chapters, this enquiry challenges one of the most prevalent tropes of architectural assessment: Beauty, Utility and Stability. Author Miguel Paredes Maldonado critically unpacks the spatial and operational qualities of these three idealised concepts, before setting out an alternative framework of spatial practice that draws from Gilles Deleuze’s post-structuralist take on the production of the real and Manuel DeLanda’s model-based branch of New Materialism. This book reads and situates a series of spatial works through the lens of this critical methodology to contest the conceptual aspects traditionally underpinning architectural ‘value’. It posits that architecture can operate as a continuous, generative spectrum encompassing a broad range of potential configurations. Written for academics and students in architectural theory, design and contemporary philosophical thought alike, this book should appeal to a wide audience.




Landform Building


Book Description

Green roofs, artificial mountains and geological forms; buildings you walk on or over; networks of ramps and warped surfaces; buildings that carve into the ground or landscapes lifted high into the air: all these are commonplace in architecture today. New technologies, new design techniques and a demand for enhanced environmental performance have provoked a re-thinking of architecture's traditional relationship to the ground. The book Landform Building sets out to examine the many manifestations of landscape and ecology in contemporary architectural practice: not as a cross-disciplinary phenomenon (architects working in the landscape) but as new design techniques, new formal strategies and technical problems within architecture.




Taiwan Studies Revisited


Book Description

This book examines and reviews some of the key figures in Taiwan Studies to plot the development of the field by revisiting their earlier influential books and bodies of work. Often autobiographical in detail, each chapter asks the author to discuss the origins of their research and how their engagement with the field has developed since. The contributors then discuss their methodologies, fieldwork and arguments, as well as how their work was received at the time. They also go on to reflect on their chosen methods and core findings, assessing whether they have stood the test of time. Reflecting the diversity of the Taiwan Studies field, subjects covered in this volume include sociology, musicology, linguistics, comparative politics, international relations and anthropology. As such, this comprehensive overview adopts a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to understanding Taiwan. Painting a picture of the changing state of international Taiwan Studies through the work of leading scholars, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Studies and Asian politics, culture and society.




Ecology Revisited


Book Description

As concerns about humankind’s relationship with the environment move inexorably up the agenda, this volume tells the story of the history of the concept of ecology itself and adds much to the historical and philosophical debate over this multifaceted discipline. The text provides readers with an overview of the theoretical, institutional and historical formation of ecological knowledge. The varied local conditions of early ecology are considered in detail, while epistemological problems that lie on the borders of ecology, such as disunity and complexity, are discussed. The book traces the various phases of the history of the concept of ecology itself, from its 19th century origins and antecedents, through the emergence of the environmental movement in the later 20th century, to the future, and how ecology might be located in the environmental science framework of the 21st century. The study of ‘ecological’ phenomena has never been confined solely to the work of researchers who consider themselves ecologists. It is rather a field of knowledge in which a plurality of practices, concepts and theories are developed. Thus, there exist numerous disciplinary subdivisions and research programmes within the field, the boundaries of which remain blurred. As a consequence, the deliberation to adequately identify the ecological field of knowledge, its epistemic and institutional setting, is still going on. This will be of central importance not only in locating ecology in the frame of 21st century environmental sciences but also for a better understanding of how nature and culture are intertwined in debates about pressing problems, such as climate change, the protection of species diversity, or the management of renewable resources.




The Architectural Imagination at the Digital Turn


Book Description

The Architectural Imagination at the Digital Turn asks what it means to speak of a "digital turn" in architecture. It examines how architects at the time engaged with the digital and imagined future modes of practice, and looks at the technological, conceptual and economic phenomena behind this engagement. It argues that the adoption of digital technology in architecture was far from linear but depended on complex factors, from the operative logic of the technology itself to the context in which it was used and the people who interacted with it. Creating a mosaic-like account, the book presents debates, projects and publications that changed how architecture was visualized, fabricated and experienced using digital technology. Spanning the university, new media art institutes, ecologies, architectural bodies, fabrication and the city, it re-evaluates familiar narratives that emphasized formal explorations; instead, the book aims to complicate the "myth" of the digital by presenting a nuanced analysis of the material and social context behind each case study. During the 1990s, architects repurposed software and technological concepts from other disciplines and tested them in a design environment. Some architects were fascinated by its effects, others were more critical. Through its discussion on case studies, places and themes that fundamentally influenced discourse formation in the era, this book offers scholars, researchers and students fresh insights into how architecture can engage with the digital realm today.




The Digital Turn in Architecture 1992 - 2012


Book Description

Architektur im digitalen Zeitalter, eine zwei Jahrzehnte alte und wechselvolle Geschichte. Dieses Buch aus der Reihe Architectural Design (AD) beschreibt sämtliche Stufen und Phasen: von Folding zu Cyberspace, Nichtlinearität und Hypersurface-Architektur, von Versionierung zu Skripting, Emergenz, Informationsmodellen und Parametricism. Es erfasst und interpretiert den Geist der jeweiligen Zeit mit dokumentarischer Präzision, fördert und antizipiert oftmals bedeutende Entwicklungen in Architektur und Architekturtheorie. Diese Anthologie der bedeutendsten Artikel aus Architectural Design ist chronologisch und thematisch geordnet, bietet einen vollständigen historischen Zeitstrahl zu computergestütztem Design und digitalen Produktionsformen, von den Anfängen bis zur heutigen Vorrangstellung dieser Technologien. Mario Capo gibt in seiner ausführlichen Einleitung und im Vorwort zu jedem Originaltext einen scharfsinnigen Überblick über die jüngste Geschichte des digitalen Designs. Diese Synopse fehlte bislang, sowohl als pädagogisches Instrument für Studenten als auch Forschungsinstrument für Wissenschaftler. Sie spannt den Bogen zwischen dem Status quo "digitaler" Architektur und der Geschichte und Theorie jüngster Entwicklungen und Trends, stellt wichtige Fragen zu den heutigen Methoden und Techniken im professionellen Design. Eine umfassende Anthologie digitaler Architektur von Mario Carpo, einem der herausragendsten Wissenschaftler in diesem Fachgebiet. - enthält bahnbrechende Essays von Bernard Cache, Peter Eisenman, John Frazer, Charles Jencks, Greg Lynn, Achim Menges und Patrik Schumacher - stellt die wichtigsten Werke von FOA, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Ali Rahim, Lars Spuybroek/NOX, Kas Oosterhuis und ShoP vor




The Prairie Agrarian Movement Revisited


Book Description

"The formation of the Territorial Grain Growers Association in 1901 was not the only important event in the early history of what has come to be known broadly as the agrarian movement in the Canadian prairies, but it was a defining moment in some respects. Arguably it signalled the formation of an agrarian class, but at least it was an indicator of an awakening of a democratic consciousness among family farmers. Ultimately, the Association provided a venue for analysis and critique, the development of strategies and tactics, and of course the nurturing of leadership and organizational forms that would have a profound influence upon politics and the state in the three prairie provinces and the Dominion, as well as the creation of co-operatives and other forms of direct action. These eighteen essays honouring the 100th anniversary (in 2001) of the formation of the TGGA explore important aspects of the historical legacy of the agrarian movement and contemplate their relevance to the current setting for the rural prairies."--pub. desc.




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