Transformational Architecture


Book Description

“How Can I More Effectively Reach People of My Generation with the Message of the Gospel?” Start the story where God starts the story. In other words, it’s not about “lifestyle evangelism.” Or being cleverer than the person with whom you’re talking. Or knowing everything there is to know about the Bible. It’s about knowing what’s most important to your friends, family, coworkers, and others you meet along life’s journey. It’s about, to use author Ron Martoia’s words, discovering the “story” each of us lives every waking day of our lives. Once you know that, you’ll know how God’s story fits into our human stories. Jesus spread the Good News this way. He talked to people, asked them questions about who they were, what they were doing–in short, he found out what made each person get out of bed every morning. And then he shared with them a bigger story–and how they fit into it. Jesus knew that when people grasped God’s big picture, they felt compelled–even overjoyed–to be a part of it. In today’s increasingly individualistic, disenfranchised world, it’s never been more important to know God’s story and how one fits into it. Let Transformational Architecture be your guide to reaching those around you with God’s life-changing message of hope.




The Software Architect Elevator


Book Description

As the digital economy changes the rules of the game for enterprises, the role of software and IT architects is also transforming. Rather than focus on technical decisions alone, architects and senior technologists need to combine organizational and technical knowledge to effect change in their company’s structure and processes. To accomplish that, they need to connect the IT engine room to the penthouse, where the business strategy is defined. In this guide, author Gregor Hohpe shares real-world advice and hard-learned lessons from actual IT transformations. His anecdotes help architects, senior developers, and other IT professionals prepare for a more complex but rewarding role in the enterprise. This book is ideal for: Software architects and senior developers looking to shape the company’s technology direction or assist in an organizational transformation Enterprise architects and senior technologists searching for practical advice on how to navigate technical and organizational topics CTOs and senior technical architects who are devising an IT strategy that impacts the way the organization works IT managers who want to learn what’s worked and what hasn’t in large-scale transformation




African Architecture


Book Description

Provides an extraordinary account of the evolution, transformation and development of architecture across this continent. It is examined and evaluated from a wide range of ethnic, climatic, political economic and religious factors.




Information Systems Transformation


Book Description

Every major enterprise has a significant installed base of existing software systems that reflect the tangled IT architectures that result from decades of patches and failed replacements. Most of these systems were designed to support business architectures that have changed dramatically. At best, these systems hinder agility and competitiveness and, at worst, can bring critical business functions to a halt. Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) restores the value of entrenched systems by capturing and retooling various aspects of existing application environments, allowing old infrastructures to deliver renewed value and align effectively with enterprise strategies and business architectures. Information Systems Transformation provides a practical guide to organizations seeking ways to understand and leverage existing systems as part of their information management strategies. It includes an introduction to ADM disciplines, tools, and standards as well as a series of scenarios outlining how ADM is applied to various initiatives. Drawing upon lessons learned from real modernization projects, it distills the theory and explains principles, processes, and best practices for every industry. Acts as a one-stop shopping reference and complete guide for implementing various modernization models in myriad industries and departments Every concept is illustrated with real-life examples from various modernization projects, allowing you to immediately apply tested solutions and see results Authored by the Co-chair of the Object Management Group (OMG) Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) Task Force, which sets definitive systems modernization standards for the entire IT industry A web site supports the book with up to date coverage of evolving ADM Specifications, Tutorials, and Whitepapers, allowing you to remain up to date on modernization topics as they develop




Designing Urban Transformation


Book Description

While designers possess the creative capabilities of shaping cities, their often-singular obsession with form and aesthetics actually reduces their effectiveness as they are at the mercy of more powerful generators of urban form. In response to this paradox, Designing Urban Transformation addresses the incredible potential of urban practice to radically change cities for the better. The book focuses on a powerful question, "What can urbanism be?" by arguing that the most significant transformations occur by fundamentally rethinking concepts, practices, and outcomes. Drawing inspiration from the philosophical movement known as Pragmatism, the book proposes three conceptual shifts for transformative urban practice: (a) beyond material objects: city as flux, (b) beyond intentions: consequences of design, and (c) beyond practice: urbanism as creative political act. Pragmatism encourages us to consider how we can make deeper and more systemic changes and how urbanism itself can be a design strategy for such transformations. To illuminate how these conceptual shifts operate in vastly different contexts through analysis of transformative urban initiatives and projects in Belo Horizonte, Boston, Cairo, Karachi, Los Angeles, New Delhi, and Paris. The book is a rare integration of theory and practice that proposes essential ways of rethinking city-design-and-building processes, while drawing critical lessons from actual examples of such processes.




Visualising Business Transformation


Book Description

Business transformation typically involves a wide range of visualisation techniques, from the templates and diagrams used by managers to make better strategic choices, to the experience maps used by designers to understand customer needs, the technical models used by architects to propose possible solutions, and the pictorial representations used by change managers to engage stakeholder groups in dialogue. Up until now these approaches have always been dealt with in isolation, in the literature as well as in practice. This is surprising, because although they can look very different, and tend to be produced by distinct groups of people, they are all modelling different aspects of the same thing. Visualising Business Transformation draws them together for the first time into a coherent whole, so that readers from any background can expand their repertoire and understand the context and rationale for each technique across the transformation lifecycle. The book will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers involved in change, whether that is by creating change models themselves (strategists, architects, designers, engineers, business analysts, developers, illustrators, graphic facilitators, etc.), interpreting and using them (sponsors, business change managers, portfolio/programme/project managers, communicators, change champions, etc.), or supporting those involved in change indirectly (trainers, coaches, mentors, higher education establishments and professional training facilities).




Neoliberalism on the Ground


Book Description

Architecture and urbanism have contributed to one of the most sweeping transformations of our times. Over the past four decades, neoliberalism has been not only a dominant paradigm in politics but a process of bricks and mortar in everyday life. Rather than to ask what a neoliberal architecture looks like, or how architecture represents neoliberalism, this volume examines the multivalent role of architecture and urbanism in geographically variable yet interconnected processes of neoliberal transformation across scales—from China, Turkey, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, Britain, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia. Analyzing how buildings and urban projects in different regions since the 1960s have served in the implementation of concrete policies such as privatization, fiscal reform, deregulation, state restructuring, and the expansion of free trade, contributors reveal neoliberalism as a process marked by historical contingency. Neoliberalism on the Ground fundamentally reframes accepted narratives of both neoliberalism and postmodernism by demonstrating how architecture has articulated changing relationships between state, society, and economy since the 1960s.




Rethinking Building Skins


Book Description

Rethinking Building Skins: Transformative Technologies and Research Trajectories provides a comprehensive collection of the most relevant and forward-looking research in the field of façade design and construction today, with a focus on both product and process innovation. The book brings together the expertise, creativity, and critical thinking of more than fifty global innovators from both academia and industry, to guide the reader in translating research into practice. It identifies new opportunities for the construction sector to respond to present challenges, towards a more sustainable, efficient, connected, and safe future. - Introduces the reader to the role of façades with respect to the main challenges ahead - Provides an overview of the major façade technological advancements throughout history and identifies prospective research trajectories - Includes interviews with key industry players from different backgrounds and expertise - Showcases a comprehensive range of leading research topics in the field, organised by product and process innovation - Covers major innovations across the value chain including façade design, fabrication, construction, operation and maintenance, and end-of-life - Contributes towards the definition of an international research agenda and identifies emerging market opportunities for the façade industry




Healthcare Architecture in an Era of Radical Transformation


Book Description

In the 1960s and 1970s large, high-technology, inpatient oriented hospitals reflected the central role of such facilities in an expanding healthcare system. But hospital architecture and the healthcare system have vastly changed since then, in profound and unpredicted ways. This book explores for the first time how and why acute care hospitals and the often related psychiatric facilities, retirement communities, and community clinics have been transformed during the final decades of the twentieth century. The authors also consider utopian visions of unbuilt work and look ahead to the possible healthcare landscape of the future: "health villages," home-based care for the aging and aged population, and cyberclinics and virtual hospitals.




Gunnar Asplund's Gothenburg


Book Description

In the west coast port city of Gothenburg, Sweden, the architect Gunnar Asplund built a modest extension to an old courthouse on the main square (1934–36). Judged today to be one of the finest works of modern architecture, the courthouse extension was immediately the object of a negative newspaper campaign led by one of the most noted editors of the day, Torgny Segerstedt. Famous for his determined opposition to National Socialism, he also took a principled stand against the undermining of urban tradition in Gothenburg. Gothenburg’s problems with modern public architecture, though clamorous and publicized throughout Sweden, were by no means unique. In Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg, Nicholas Adams places Asplund’s building in the wider context of public architecture between the wars, setting the originality and sensitivity of Asplund’s conception against the political and architectural struggles of the 1930s. Today, looking at the building in the broadest of contexts, we can appreciate the richness of this exquisite work of architecture. This book recaptures the complex magic of its creation and the fascinating controversy of its completed form.