[AD201105_06] 4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Toolkit for the Open-Source City

“One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet, Aleppo now lies in tatters. This devastation of a designated World Heritage Site is a poignant example of the human and cultural cost of armed conflict — in this case the Syrian Civil War. A project run by the Center for Spatial Research at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of New York’s Columbia University is analysing satellite imagery and reports from the ground to assess the damage and casualties caused there by barrel bombs.”

READ MORE —

Daylight as a Driver of Change

“Improving lives goes hand in hand with improving health. Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 – 370 BC), Considered to be the ‘Father of Western Medicine’, is renowned for his planning advice for health, in which he assigned sunlight, baths and fresh air a central role in the way cities and buildings were planned. His considerations are currently being re-introduced in planning, building and healthcare.”

—Issue #24 of Daylight and Architecture magazine. Download PDF HERE.

MAS Context 29: Bold

"Welcome to our Bold issue. This issue features eighteen projects that explore new possibilities for the city of Chicago. Generated by both emerging and established Chicago-based architects and designers, these projects rethink the future of the city and, at the same time, explore the agency of the architect in shaping these scenarios. The projects, generated without a client, operate fully aware of the constraints and realities of Chicago with the intention to engage in fruitful conversations with public and private agencies to shape its future. Ultimately, while these projects focus on the city of Chicago, the ideas behind their architectural and urban strategies can open up new areas of exploration that can be extrapolated to diverse contexts. The projects featured in the issue were part of the exhibition BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago curated by Iker Gil and included in the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial."

Via — mascontext.com

MAS Context 28: Hidden

"Welcome to our Hidden issue. This issue explores the aspects of our built environment that are hidden, overlooked, not readily apparent, forgotten, and conceptually of physically removed from our sight, whether intentionally or not. Time for us to shine a light on all those things worth rediscovering or seeing for the first time."

Download HERE.

MAS Context 27: Debate

"This issue explores the role of debates, ones that have taken place as well as ones that should take place. How are these debates constructive of opposing positions? What are the topics of those impassioned discussions? What are the issues at stake? What are the venues, physical or virtual, historic or current, in which these debates take place? what conditions favor the generation of these debates? Who participates in these debates, who is the audience, and who should be the audience? And ultimately, what are the outcomes of these debates? We hope you take part of the debate."

Download HERE.

[AD201601_02] Architecture Timed: Designing With Time in Mind

"Time may not be an entirely new subject for discussion. Admittedly for at least the last two decades, there has been a shift in the approach to architecture away from the notion of it as a timeless practice — the architectural ideal being the perfect, completed building captured at handover in all its shiny brilliance by photography entirely vacant of people. The work of Enric Miralles in the early 1990s, for instance, as described by Philip Speranza (pp 60–65), challenged existing conventions as he sought, through his buildings, to provide people with the experience of the passage of time..."

DOWNLOAD HERE.

MAS Context 25-26: Legacy

“This issue focuses in the buildings, places, books, ideas, and proposals that have left or will leave a strong mark on our urban environment. Which are the buildings and proposals that have influenced our understanding and approach to architecture? What can we learn from those that are no longer standing? How are these legacies carried forward, from the formats that are used to the validity that those legacies may have across generations? We will showcase those small and groundbreaking aspects that have left a lasting legacy in our lives, speculating about the future legacies that today's world will generate.”

Download via mascontext.com

[AD201501_02] UAE and The Gulf: Architecture and Urbanism Now

“In the 2000s, the architecture of the UAE and the Gulf attracted international attention and widespread awe. This was epitomised by the audacity and the conspicuous opulence of luxury developments in Dubai such as the Palm Islands, arti ficial islands reclaimed from the ocean shaped in the form of palm trees; the 7-star sail-shaped Burj Al Arab Hotel (1999) designed by Tom Wright of Atkins, the highest hotel in the world; and SOM’s Burj Khalifa (2010) in downtown Dubai, the tallest tower in the world. In the academic architecture community, the attention-grabbing impudence of these excesses was compounded by Dubai’s upstart status as a new city that had risen out of the desert within decades — it was widely referred to as ‘a phenomenon’. It became the popular focus of urban studies and student research trips...”

Download HERE.

MAS Context 24: Tokyo

“[T]his issue explores the value of embracing subjectivity and personal recordings of cities while exploring the biggest metropolitan area in the world. Guest edited by illustrator and editorial designer Luis Mendo, it builds upon his love for the city, the drawing event PauseDraw, and his continued exploration of the city through drawing. Through drawings by thirteen artists and words by another eight contributors, the issue ultimately reveals Tokyo’s built environment, its culture, its people, and some of the aspects that make it one of the most fascinating cities in the world.”

Download via mascontext.com

MAS Context 23: Ordinary

"[T]his issue seeks to explore the value of commonness and the everyday environment. It focuses on those elements that go unnoticed or that we take for granted, from buildings and objects to experiences and traditions. We look at the ordinary elements of life that are worth rediscovering and celebrating, as well as look ahead to what will become ordinary in the future."

Download via mascontext.com

[AD201401_02] High Definition: Zero Tolerance in Design and Production

The issue delivers much that is exciting at the cutting edge of technology with Tobias Nolte and Andrew Witt’s description of the self-optimisation system that Gehry Technologies developed for the  realisation of the Fondation Louis Vuitton art museum in Paris (pp 82–9). Skylar Tibbits also provides an insightful account of the 4D printing processes that the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is collaborating on with multi-material printing company Stratasys Ltd (pp 116–121). New developments in technology often highlight or accentuate existing possibilities and preoccupations in design. This is an important aspect that Sheil gives space to in the issue by dedicating several articles to defining a high-definition approach and the perceptions surrounding it, whether informed by innovative or conventional techniques — see Ilona Gaynor and Benedict Singleton (pp 48–53), Birgir Örn Jónsson (pp 54–9) and Michael Webb’s (pp 60–73) articles.

Download HERE

MAS Context 22: Surveillance

“Welcome to our Surveillance issue. This issue examines the presence of surveillance around us—from the way we are being monitored in the physical and virtual world, to the potential of using the data we generate to redefine our relationship to the built environment.”

“Organized as a sequence of our relationship with data, the contributions address monitoring, collecting, archiving, and using the traces that we leave, followed by camouflaging and deleting the traces that we leave. By exploring different meanings of surveillance, this issue seeks to generate a constructive conversation about the history, policies, tools, and applications of the information that we generate and how those aspects are manifested in our daily lives.”

Download via mascontext.com.

MAS Context 21: Repetition

"Welcome to our Repetition issue. Through eighteen contributions we immerse into a world of monotony, variation, experimentation, replicas, strategies, simulations, imperfections, and routines. We do so in long and short essays, photo essays, interviews, videos, manifestos, and projects. A combination of contributions that question, embrace, and ultimately work with the topic at hand. On top of the varied format of our contributions you will find another aspect added to the mix. Each contribution is uniquely interpreted by a designer based in Chicago, all under the creative direction of Rick Valicenti and Bud Rodecker from Thirst. A specific identity for each contribution that makes up an issue on repetition. We had fun adding even more variation to the topic. In the end, repetition does not have to be boring."

Download via mascontext.

MAS Context 20: Narrative

"Architecture and narrative, as Victor Hugo nostalgically pointed out in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831, have walked hand in hand through history, crossing paths without really risking the extinction that the archdeacon of Notre-Dame gloomily predicted. Today, in a moment where the conjunction of the crisis and the entrance into a new stage in the communication era impulse the discipline into new, multiple directions, the narrative aspects of architecture come to the front. This issue tackles the intersections between architectural practices and different forms of visual narrative. Within this overall theme, our NARRATIVE issue moves on both sides of the line that separates these two disciplines, presenting three different perspectives, organized in three consecutive parts. The first section of the issue deals with the presence of graphic narrative in disciplinary architecture, both past and present while the second one discusses the crossing of borders portrayed by comics artists who also make forays into the built world. Finally, the third one moves towards both sides of the spectrum, briefly covering the tangents with (implied) written narratives and emerging animation practices in architecture."

Download via mascontext.

MAS Context 19: Trace

xx

xx

"This issue explores physical remnants and selective memories, tangible and intangible reminders of a past that influence our present and future. At the same time, it discusses the traces that we continue to leave, both physical and digitally, and how those will affect us in the future. What are the consequences and opportunities that can emerge from the new traces we create? Who benefits from the generation of new traces? Which traces should we embrace and which ones should we dismiss or even fight against? Is ignoring all traces the only way to truly move forward and foster radical changes?"

xx

+ Download pdf via mascontext.

xx

MAS Context 18: Improbable

[]

[]

"Unlikely futures envisioned in the past that never became a present. Improbable situations that, beating the odds, became the most tangible reality. Ambitious, grandiose and experimental, all these dreams and schemes radically challenged their present and envisioned a new future. They outlined principles for collective ambitions, defining new physical, political, economic and social organizations. Whether realized or not, these proposals hold valuable lessons for our present and future."

[]

+ Download pdf via mascontext

[]

MAS Context 17: Boundary

[]

[]

''We all set our personal and physical boundaries. They are important to keep us running as well as sane. Other boundaries, established by people, countries or nature are used to define edges, separate two entities, and interrupt natural flows such as human migrations and ecosystems. Natural and artificial boundaries exist and will continue to do so in one way or another. Is it possible, then, to rethink what a boundary is, what its potential in our society can be, and if we even need them?''

[]

+ Download pdf via mascontext.

[]

[AD201302_03] The Innovation Imperative: Architectures of Vitality

[]

[]

Innovation has become the golden goose of the 21st century, as expressed by Barack Obama in his presidential victory speech on 7 November 2012 in Chicago: "We want our kids to grow up in a country... that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation with all of the good jobs and new businesses that follow." For stagnating developed economies, innovation remains the great white hope—the essential stimulus to ongoing prosperity sought through entrepreneurship, Internet startups and biotech, software and hardware companies.

[]

For the practice of architecture, no simple equation exists between innovation and commercial success. Most truly innovative designers are not purely motivated by wealth. In contemporary architecture, innovation

is a life force. Architecture thrives off the impulse to innovate. At a day-to-day level it is what elevates architecture beyond mere building production, and the original and analytical thinking that makes clients

come back for more, while making us reach for our smart phone to see the latest architectural project on Facebook. What guest-editors Pia Ednie-Brown, Mark Burry and Andrew Burrow bring to this issue is a

new clarity and tautness to the definition of 'innovation' in architecture. Their subtitle for the publication—'architectures of vitality'—chimes with notions of emergence, but also of architecture as a collective practice in tune with current processes and cultural shifts.

[]

What drew AD to the theme of this issue—aside from the opportunity to work with key members of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) at RMIT in Melbourne—was its timeliness. The innovation imperative today requires a greater intensity than it might have 50 years ago. As the guest-editors state in their introduction: "The urge to examine innovation more closely—and in relation to architecture in particular—is inflected by the broadly defining conditions of rapid change we find ourselves in." A new level  of ingenuity is called upon not only to keep in step with shifts in technology, but also to retain architecture's relevance at a time of economic, social, environmental and political change.

[]

—Helen Castle

[]

Download PDF.

MAS Context 16

[]

[]

"MAS Context, a quarterly journal created by MAS Studio, addresses issues that affect the urban context. Each issue delivers a comprehensive view of a single topic through the active participation of people from different fields and different perspectives who, together, instigate the debate."

[]

PDF via mascontext.

The Architectural Review 201210

[]

[]

Free issue of The Architectural Review. Via issuu.

[]