Bøger i Architectural Design serien

There is a newfound interest in architectural drawing. Some of the most forward-looking architects worldwide are reinventing it to discover the radical possibilities of contemporary architecture as a rich mix of the virtual and the actual. Architectural drawing is adapting to compensate for these new changes to the discipline, and is being used to speculate on new paradigms of space and representation. This AD seeks to showcase the architects who are pushing the envelope of drawing in extraordinary ways, and their insights into architecture's future spatial dexterity. The issue is built around an international group of architects involved in an ongoing KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture international drawing research project, who are creating new drawing methodologies in new and exciting realms. Their projects are written about from the perspective of architectural representation by critics and commentators from across the globe, illustrating a cornucopia of graphic verve and talent in this highly contemporary and thought-provoking issue. Contributors: Aaron Betsky, Penelope Haralambidou, Ulrika Karlsson, Michael McGarry, Nicholas de Monchaux, Ricardo de Ostos, Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Peter Salter, Chris L Smith, Wolfgang Tschapeller, Sarah de Villiers, Robin Wilson, and Jason Young. Drawings by: Bryan Cantley, Nat Chard, Peter Cook, Riet Eeckhout, CJ Lim, Perry Kulper, Metis (Mark Dorrian and Adrian Hawker), Shaun Murray, Smout Allen, Neil Spiller, Nada Subotincic, Michael Webb, Mark West, and Michael Young.

California has historically provided a fertile breeding ground for radical modes of architectural thinking, practice and building, which from the 1920s onwards was sparked by the presence of eminent émigré architects. It was also central to the birth of 'cool' mid-century Modernism - all in parallel with the intense concentration of design and experimentation in the film, aerospace and tech industries. This AD issue explores the influential formal tropes generated in the nexus between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, as well as the thriving theoretical preoccupations that have brought California's architects global attention. Between Hollywood and the Silicon Valley, this unique context has nurtured and become the platform for those who not only build buildings around the world, but have also founded and directed schools and educated emergent generations of architects.Contributors: Frances Anderton, Jasmine Benyamin, Blaine Brownell, Courtney Coffman, Heather Flood and Aaron Gensler, David Freeland and Brennan Buck, Craig Hodgetts, Max Kuo, Eva Menuhin, Nicole Meyer, Jill Stoner, and Grace Mitchell Tada.Featured architects: Atelier Manferdini, Ball-Nogues Studio, Faulders Studio, FreelandBuck, Hood Design Studio, Oyler Wu Collaborative, Preliminary Research Office, Stereobot, and Synthesis Design + Architecture.

Guest-edited by Marcus White and Jane BurryCities are facing several coinciding global crises. There is the dominant existential narrative of the impact of and adaptation to climate change, itself powered by cities. In a time of unprecedented urbanisation and growth, resilient architecture and urbanism is needed in response. New modes of transport, renewed anxiety about robots taking jobs, AI, and the humbling recent experience of a global pandemic are all challenging norms and expectations. All of these are forces of social division, all are changing life experience, evoking strong-arm politics, and giving a sense of teetering between radically different possible futures. This is a story about reclaiming the urban design narrative and being alert to the potential impacts of socio-technical decision-making and design in cities. It is a story for its time. The issue explores the dichotomy of idealised visions for the design of urban settlements and the potentially shocking realities that may emerge from the same impulses and intentions. It examines the slippery territory between utopias and some of the ensuing dystopias that may unfold.Contributors:Tridib Banerjee, Daniele Belleri and Carlo Ratti, Steve Glackin, Justyna Karakiewicz, Nano Langenheim and Kongjian Yu, Mehrnoush Latifi, Andong Lu, Dan Nyandega, Jordi Oliveras, Kas Oosterhuis, Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, Ian Woodcock, and Tianyi Yang.Featured architects:Carlo Ratti Associati, ecoLogicStudio, Harrison and White, Turenscape, and Anton Markus Pasing, Remote Control Studio.

Guest-edited by Jill Stoner and Ozayr SaloojeeOver the past decade, and in a more concentrated form over the past two years, there has been increasing recognition of architecture's systemic complicity in constructing and upholding hierarchies of race and class, and privileging colonial paradigms that perpetuate spatial and economic inequity. This AD issue reveals how designers, practitioners, scholars and architects are participating in dismantling the major canons of Western architecture. The work is both literal and figural: taking buildings apart and reconstituting them, and challenging mythologies that include drawing-as-analogue, building-as object, architect-as-hero and nature-as-other.Architecture has both potential and responsibility for political agency in the public realm. The contributions to this issue foreground emancipatory spatial ideas and practices from around the world, demonstrating that refusal is no longer just absence and denial, but a constructive mode of resistance and action that needs to be approached through subversive urban works, design pedagogy and alliances across multiple disciplines.Contributors: Piper Bernbaum, Carwil Bjork-James, Thiresh Govender, Lucia Jalón Oyarzun, Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers, Cong Chi Nguyen, Quilian Riano, Hannah Le Roux, Alberto de Salvatierra, Cathy Smith, Chat Travieso, and Ilze Wolff.

AI is already part of our lives even though we might not realise it. It is in our phones, filtering spam, identifying Facebook friends, and classifying our images on Instagram. It is in our homes in the form of Siri, Alexa and other AI assistants. It is in our cars and our planes. AI is literally everywhere. Artworks generated by AI have won international prizes, and have been sold at auction. But what does AI mean for the world of design?This issue of AD explores the nature of AI, and considers its potential for architecture. But this is no idle speculation. Architects have already started using AI for architectural design and fabrication. Yet - astonishingly - there has been almost no debate about AI within the discipline of architecture so far. Surely, nothing can be more important for the profession of architecture right now. The issue looks at all aspects of AI: its potential to assist architects in designing buildings so that it becomes a form of 'augmented intelligence'; its capacity to design buildings on its own; and whether AI might open up an extraordinary new chapter in architectural design.Contributors: Refik Anadol; Daniel Bolojan; Alexa Carlson; Sofia Crespo and Feileacan McCormick; Gabriel Esquivel, Jean Jaminet and Shane Bugni; Behnaz Farahi; Theodoros Galanos and Angelos Chronis; Eduard Haiman; Wanyu He; Damjan Jovanovic and Lidija Kljakovic; Immanuel Koh; Maria Kuptsova; Sandra Manninger; Lev Manovich; Achim Menges and Thomas Wortmann; Wolf dPrix, Karolin Schmidbaur and Efilena Baseta; M Casey Rehm; and Hao Zheng and Masoud Akbarzadeh.Featured architects: Alisa Andrasek, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Lifeforms.io, Nonstandardstudio,SPAN, Kyle Steinfeld, Studio Kinch and Xkool Technology.

Given the ongoing climate and socio-ecological emergencies, it is paramount to support a socially just rethinking of the world we inhabit, which is intrinsically dependent on the health of the earth's systems. This requires a radical transformation of the role of environmental designers in developing propositions, mitigation strategies and advocacy initiatives.This issue of AD explores the principles behind the Green New Deal and how they apply to the architectural and landscape professions. Whatever form the Green New Deal will take and is taking, it will be materialised through infrastructure, buildings, landscapes and various other constructed forms. The contributors to this AD examine the theoretical frameworks and design practices within which the protocols of the Green New Deal could be integrated. Initially, such a goal requires a survey of the available design tools and methodologies necessary to achieve a transition to a decarbonised economy in an equitable manner. The articles feature design practices who are transforming their existing modes of operation to work in environments were fossil fuels are kept well below ground, and to explore renewable forms of local, regional and planetary urbanisation.Contributors: Lindsay Bremner; Miriam Brett and Mathew Lawrence; Billy Fleming, Christina Geros, Jon Goodbun and Godofredo Enes; Kai Heron and Alex Heffron; Jane Hutton; Daniel Kiss and Swadheet Chaturvedi, Elena Luciano, Yasmine Yehia and Rafael Martinez, Liam Mouritz and Alex Breedon; Clara Oloriz; Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió; and Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass and Filip Mesko.Featured architects: Groundlab, Monsoon Assemblages, and Julian Siravo.

In a world that is missing a central theoretical voice in architecture, now more than ever it is time to solicit emergent voices on the topic of'alternative formalisms'(Alt-Form). This issue of AD aims to reach peripheral disciplines in order to support an architecture that no longer operates as a standalone field of study, and is rather one that responds to broader, urgent and pluralistic cultural shifts.In the existing contemporary landscape of visually oriented fields of study, casual compositions and other formless expressions have begun to re-emerge, particularly in the disciplines of art, architecture and popular image culture. In architecture, with the rise of the digital, the last two decades have witnessed a field in pursuit of novel styles through the use of the latest digital tools. More recently, however, over the last five years or so, the field has experienced a more novelty-apathetic attitude, permeated with project proposals that resist the urge to offer immediate solutions in favour of enmeshment with a contemporary condition characterised by duress, destruction, uncertainty and other formless becomings. This AD explores this new, emerging world.Contributors: Suzanne Cotter, Andrew Culp, Jack Halberstam, Jeff Halstead, Carolyn Kane, Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, Carl Lostritto, Thom Mayne, V Mitch McEwen and Kristina Kay Robinson, Anna Neimark, Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers, Dorina Pllumbi, Faysal Tabbara, and Dalena Tran. Featured architects: AGENCY, Architecture and Other Things, Atelier Office, Dream the Combine, First Office, MIRACLES, and Morphosis.

This issue of AD looks at the work of STUFISH Entertainment Architects. Founded by the late Mark Fisher, the legendary British architect known for his rock music stage sets for bands including the Rolling Stones, U2 and Pink Floyd, the studio is a recognised leader in entertainment architecture.The STUFISH team of architects, designers, visualisers, production managers, technical specialists and producers creates ambitious and pioneering work, exploring new ways to inspire audiences and visitors, from musical experiences to theatrical shows, exhibitions and buildings. Its work has been synonymous with the key theatrical, musical and monumental events embodied in the collective memory of generations across the globe since the mid-1990s.Entertainment architecture is a highly innovative, creative endeavour, producing ever-more elaborate, architectural spectacles. This issue visits the many facets of STUFISH - its history and design process, audience memory and experience -exploring the story behind and evolution of this particular brand of popular culture and its spatial manifestations, and touching on what the future may hold for it.Contributors include: Leonard Auerbach, Victoria Broackes, Peter Cook, Adam Davis, Haidy Geismar, Robert Kronenburg, Theo Lorenz, Ash Nehru, Aubrey Powell, Neil Thomas, Willie Williams, Patrick Woodroffe and Maciej Woroniecki.

The Industrial Revolution caused a paradigm shift from an agrarian economy to a manufacturing economy, giving birth to the industrial city. 'City' became synonymous with a concentration of factories causing unfiltered scenes between centres of production and urban dwellings. The corrupted image of the city ultimately led to the displacement and separation of production away from residential zones in the 20th century. However, new innovative manufacturing technologies are allowing a coexistence between factories and dwellings through hybrid typologies that blend production back into the urban fabric. This AD issue discusses the implications of the re-emergence of production as an architectural and urban agenda through hybrid models that engage a new socioeconomic shift. Given the contemporary circumstances of a global pandemic affecting global supply chains, it is necessary to deliver a vision for a new productive urbanism that allows autonomous circular economies to flourish. Our 21st-century cities have an obligation to explore a new industrial revolution of shared economies that optimise the use of the legacy systems, infrastructure and building stock. Yet it is ultimately up to architecture to take arms in delivering new typologies.Contributors: Frank Barkow, Michele Bonino and Maria Paola Repellino, Kristiaan Borret, Vicente Guallart, Tali Hatuka, Doojin Hwang, Yerin Kang and Chihoon Lee, Kengo Kuma, Wesley Leeman, Scott Lloyd and Alexis Kalagas, Winy Maas, DK Osseo-Asare, Marina Otero Verzier, Nina Rappaport, and Shohei Shigematsu.Featured architects: Barkow Leibinger, DJH Architects, Goldsmith, Kengo Kuma & Associates, MVRDV, OMA, and TEN.

There is a newfound interest in architectural education. This AD is a survey of some of the best contemporary architecture student work in the world. The most forward-looking architecture schools worldwide are reinventing pedagogy in the hope of developing radical syllabi that are a rich mix of the virtual and the actual. Design education is changing and adapting to compensate for the new material changes to the discipline, and is being used to disentangle old, outmoded spatial practices and replace them with new paradigms of space and representation. This issue showcases the students and teachers who are pushing the envelope of architecture in extraordinary ways, offering their insights into its future materiality and spatial dexterity. It premieres a new young generation of architects who are likely to become names in the architectural profession and possibly important teachers themselves. Their work has been selected by their own influential teachers of architecture who describe the studio methodologies - and reasons for them - that prompted the work.Contributors: Daniel K Brown, Jane Burry, Nat Chard, Odile Decq, Evan Douglis, Riet Eeckhout, Mark Garcia, Nicolas Hannequin, Perry Kulper, Elena Manferdini, Mark Morris, Hani Rashid, and Michael Young.Featured institutions: A Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan; Architectural Association, London; Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London; Carleton University, Ottawa; CONFLUENCE Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, Paris; Cooper Union, New York; University of Greenwich, London; KU Leuven, Belgium; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York; Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Los Angeles; Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne; Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; and the University of Applied Arts, Vienna

AHMM is a premier international architectural practice. Established over 30 years ago, it has won numerous awards including the Stirling Prize. Through the contributions of journalists, clients, fellow professionals and academics, this AD issue celebrates the practice's achievements in all areas of architectural production, featuring archive material, new works and unparalleled access to the AHMM organisation, revealing new insights into their work and urban philosophies.To get to this eminent position, the office has consistently responded in innovative and imaginative ways to the changing imperatives of art, science and economics that influence our built environment. These parameters have metamorphosed considerably since AHMM was founded, in terms of advances in digitisation, material science and changes to contract management, what constitutes sustainability, procurement routes, construction methods, collaboration and architectural education.Above all this AD will explore AHMM's practice as a holistic design project in itself, in terms of building buildings, but also in using a design ethos to cope with shifts in workload and the firm's varying business activities and its administration over the years, thus providing insight for a future generation of potentially successful architectural professionals.

In light of current developments in modelling, and with the aim of reinvigorating debates around the potentiality of the architectural model - its philosophies, technologies and futures - this issue of AD examines how the model has developed to become an immersive worldbuilding machine. Worldbuilding is the creation of imaginary worlds through forms of cultural production. Although this discourse began with an analysis of imaginary places constructed in works of literature, it has evolved to encompass worlds from fields such as cinema, games, design, landscape, urbanism and architecture. Worldbuilding differs from the notion of worldmaking, which deals with how speculative thinking can influence the construction of the phenomenal world. As architects postulate ever-increasingly complex world models from which to draw inspiration and inform their practice, questions of scale, representation and collaboration emerge. Discussed through a range of articles from acclaimed international contributors in the fields of both architecture and media studies, this issue explores how the architectural model is situated between concepts of worldbuilding and worldmaking - in the creative space of worldmodelling.Contributors: Kathy Battista, Thea Brejzek and Lawrence Wallen, Pascal Bronner and Thomas Hillier, Mark Cousins, James A Craig and Matt Ozga-Lawn, Kate Davies, Ryan Dillon, Christian Hubert, Chad Randl, Theodore Spyropoulos, and Mark JP Wolf.Featured architects: Phil Ayres, FleaFolly Architects, Minimaforms, and Stasus.

This issue of AD posits that this re-examination and redeployment of postmodernist approaches is the architectural attempt to reflect, grapple with and make sense of the current political and economic situation. The term 'ad hoc' is used to describe a resistance to stylistic conformity and predictability that embraces individuality, and which conceives architecture in a broader cultural space. As a mode of practice marked by stylistic divergence, the links, shared interest and continuities that exist among a range of architects are often overlooked. It will explore and provide a critical analysis of the design tactics and the strategies that inform them, and will investigate some key questions: What is it that has led architects to adopt tactics that have long been vilified within architectural culture? What connections exist between our present moment and the postmodern one, architecturally and in terms of the broader political shifts, in particular our present moment's return of the grand narrative - whether of populist nationalism, identity or climate change? What do these tactics represent, how do they reflect this situation, and what do they offer in articulating a position for architects and the public role of their profession?This issue brings together a range of architects and critical voices to reflect on these questions and offer some answers. Essays by historians and critics situate practice in relation to postmodernism and its legacies. Following these will be essays by architects situating their work in relation to the ideas posited by the thematic introduction, and the broader contexts in which it operates and proceeds. The issue will be completed by interviews with early career architects, reflecting on their work thus far, its influences, pressures and future directions.

This issue of AD explores the working discipline of architecture as it impacts the material culture within which it is always embedded. An architecture of impact uses advanced digital techniques in such a way that its material assembly supersedes its use of the digital.Until now, this type of architecture has been formally and materially bound by restrictive conventional methodologies, which the digital project has moved from the scale of installations to three-dimensional building-sized fabrications. Unless architects turn to a new culture of making, architecture shaped by even innovative digital technology will become irrelevant. Architectural projects that are more subversive in how they are created and that lose their digital signature have greater potential to be at the forefront of the discipline's new materialisations. This issue illustrates these ideas and their architectural impact.Contributors: Kutan Ayata, Ben van Berkel, Hernan Diaz Alonso, David Goldblatt, Thomas Heatherwick, Ferda Kolatan, Ascan Mergenthaler, Antoine Picon, Casey Rehm, Patrik Schumacher, and Philip F Yuan.Featured architects: Archi-Union, Contemporary Architecture Practice, HDA-X, Heatherwick Studio, Herzog & de Meuron, Ishida Rehm Studio, Pininfarina, SHoP Architects, SU-11, UNStudio, and Young & Ayata, and Zaha Hadid Architects.

This groundbreaking edition of AD brings together a range of global expertise on social value, exploring its potential for demonstrating the positive impact of both architecture and architects on homes and communities in terms of social justice, sustainability and wellbeing. There has been a recent groundswell of interest in the mapping and measuring of social value caused by developments in legislation and planning, as well as a revival of interest in the ethical dimensions of architectural practice. Not only do architects promote wellbeing through the development of carefully conceived and appropriate designs, they can also add social value through the processes of consultation, visioning, briefing, co-design, co-creation, user manuals, soft landings (helping people to make the most of their buildings in use) and post-occupancy evaluation. These are, however, poorly recognised aspects of an architect's role. We live in an audit culture where organisational performance is measured against predetermined targets. Unfortunately, the focus of architectural practice is generally on the financial cost of what it does in the short term rather than its long-term social value, arguably its market niche. This AD posits that the mapping and measuring of social value provides a real opportunity for the architectural profession to make its key contribution heard. Contributors: Nabeela Ahmed and Ayona Datta, Nicola Bacon and Paul Goodship, Irena Bauman, Cristina Garduno Freeman, Mat Hinds, Anthony Hoete, Karen Kubey, Mhairi McVicar, Aoibheann Ní Mhearáin and Tara Kennedy, Jenni Montgomery, Edward Ng and Li Wan, Doina Petrescu, and Peter Andreas Sattrup Featured architects: Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée (AAA), Barton Willmore, Bauman Lyons Architects, Jateen Ladd, John McLaughlin Architects, and Taylor and Hinds Architects

Given the rapid evolution of concepts such as smart cities, who are the architects riding the wave of new possibilities for urban design? How do contemporary agencies find pathways to understand the challenges and opportunities presented by evolving urban technology, and how does architecture engage with the expanding pool of associated disciplines? How should schools of architecture and urban design engage with radical digitalised urbanism?This issue of AD claims that this is contested territory. The two-dimensionality of planners' urban construct is as limited as engineers' predilection to zero-in and solve problems. Urban Futures contends that society needs a much broader professional brush than has been applied in the past: interdisciplinary urban design professionals who can reach across the philosophy and mundanity of urban existence with a creative eye. The issue identifies a selection of internally resourceful visionaries who combine sociology, geography, logistics and systems theory with the practical realities and challenges of mobility, sustainable materials, food, water and energy supply, and waste disposal. Crucially, they seek to ensure better urban futures, and a civil and convivial urban experience for all city dwellers.Contributors: Refik Anadol, Philip Belesky, Shajay Bhooshan, Jane Burry and Marcus White, Thomas Daniell, Vicente Guallart, Shan He, Wanyu He, Dan Hill, Justyna Karakiewicz, Tom Kvan, Areti Markopoulou, Ed Parham, Carlo Ratti, Ferran Sagarra, and Bige Tunçer.Featured architects: Arup Digital Studio, Guallart Architects, Space10, Space Syntax, UNStudio, and XKool Technology.

Who defines the landscapes around us? What practices are employed as contemporary landscapes are produced? This issue argues that landscapes are made and remade through interrelations between people and the worlds around them - from geographers investigating the lives of urban wastelands to landscape architects projecting future cities, and from migrants navigating border systems to artists working with local residents. In contrast to tendencies to emphasise the physical forms of landscapes, with their potential to be redesigned and represented in drawings, this issue brings to the forefront the social constructedness of landscapes by focusing on a range of critical practices and daily actions. As conventional frames of landscape are challenged, other ways of measuring, mapping, imagining, designing, building and occupying them are revealed. For centuries, artists and designers have represented landscapes of power in paintings and have transformed them through their design proposals. But in recent years a number of researchers, designers, artists and activists have explored an expanded field of landscape, investigating populations fleeing conflict zones, reimagining cities facing ecological challenges, questioning territorial claims, and critiquing processes of urbanisation. This issue focuses on some of these individuals whose work and lives encompass a diverse range of practices, brought together through their critical redefinition of landscape relations.Contributors: Pierre Bélanger, Harry Bix, Neil Brenner and Nikos Katsikis, Luis Callejas and Charlotte Hansson, James Corner, Gareth Doherty and Pol Fité Matamoros, Matthew Gandy, Christina Leigh Geros, Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, Nina-Marie Lister, Richard Mosse, Kate Orff, Toya Peal, Neil Spiller, Tiago Torres Campos and Tim Waterman.Featured practices: Advanced Landscape and Urbanism, Design Earth, East Anglia Records, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, Furtherfield, James Corner Field Operations, Larissa Fassler, LCLA office, OPSYS and SCAPE.

Today there are more tools for communication than ever before, yet very little in the way of reflection on how these are being used and even less on what exactly is being conveyed. This issue of AD looks at how architecture is communicated from a cultural perspective. Do the identities of practices or their business-driven branding and promotional efforts resonate with the critical acclaim many architects seek? Has slick image-led media coverage sold the profession short? How is it possible to convey the less visual and haptic qualities of architecture? Can architects be more creative in their communication efforts, making these joyous on their own terms as Le Corbusier did so memorably? Is there really a need to succumb to the world of corporate marketing processes and managerial business jargon?The issue explores notions of editing and curating work in an age of data deluge, and discusses social media as a genuinely alternative space for communication rather than for just repurposing and regurgitating information relayed. The Identity of the Architect encourages the promotion of practices as an integral extension of the very culture they hope to engender through their work.Contributors: Stephen Bayley, Caroline Cole, Adam Nathaniel Furman, Gabor Gallov, Jonathan Glancey, Justine Harvey, Owen Hopkins, Crispin Kelly, Jay Merrick, Robin Monotti, Juhani Pallasmaa, Vicky Richardson, Jenny Sabin, and Austin Williams.Featured architects: Ian Ritchie, BIG, MVRDV, IF_DO and Zaha Hadid Architects

Beauty in architecture matters again. This issue of AD posits that after 80 years of aggressive suppression of engagement with aesthetics, the temporarily dormant preoccupation with beauty is back. This is evidenced by a current cultural shift from the supposedly objective to an emerging trust in the subjective - a renewed fascination for aesthetics supported by new knowledge emanating simultaneously from disparate disciplines.Digital design continues to influence architectural discourse, not only due to changes in manufacturing but also through establishing meaning. The very term 'post-digital' was introduced by computational designers and artists, who accept that digital gains in architectural design are augmented by human judgement and cognitive intuition.The issue takes an interdisciplinary approach to this re-emerging interest in beauty across neuroscience, neuroaesthetics, mathematics, philosophy and architecture, while discussing the work of the international architects, in both practice and academe, who are generating new aesthetics.Contributors: Alisa Andrasek,Izaskun Chinchilla, Marjan Colletti, Peter Cook, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Winka Dubbeldam, David Garcia, Graham Harman, Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, Alan Powers, Gilles Retsin, Kristina Schinegger and Stefan Rutzinger, Fleur Watson and Martyn Hook and Semir Zeki.Featured architects: Archi-Tectonics, ecoLogicStudio, NaJa & deOstos, Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA, soma architecture, Studio Gang, John Wardle Architects and Tom Wiscombe Architecture.

The 1960s and 1970s avant-garde has been likened to an 'architectural Big Bang', such was the intensity of energy and ambition in which it exploded into the postwar world. Marked out by architectural projects that redefined the discipline, it remains just as influential today. References to the likes of Archizoom, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk and Superstudio abound. Highly diverse, the avant-garde cannot be defined as a single strand or tendency. It was divergent geographically - reaching from Europe to North America and Japan - and in its political, formal and cultural preoccupations. It was unified, though, as a critical and experimental force, critiquing contemporary society against the backdrop of extreme social and political upheaval: the Paris riots of May 1968, the anti-Vietnam war movement in America and the looming ecological crisis.Re-imagining the Avant-garde outlines how in contemporary architectural practice, avant-garde projects retain their power as historical precedents, as barometers of a particular design ethos, as critiques of society and instigators of new formal techniques. Given the far-reaching impact of the subsequent digital revolution, which has since reshaped every aspect of practice, the issue asks why this historical period continues to retain its undeniable grip on current architecture.Contributors: Pablo Bronstein and Sam Jacob, Sarah Deyong, Stylianos Giamarelos, Damjan Jovanovic, Andrew Kovacs, Perry Kulper, Igor Marjanovic, William Menking, Michael Sorkin, Neil Spiller and Mimi Zeiger.Featured architects: Archizoom, Andrea Branzi, Jimenez Lai, Luis Miguel (Koldo) Lus Arana (Klaus), NEMESTUDIO, Superstudio and UrbanLab.

Architectural research is being redefined in practice. Whereas once the value of a piece of research was solely measured by the number of citations it received by fellow academics, shifting funding models and new societal concerns are forcing academia to question its structure and this mode of evaluation. At the same time a wave of practitioners and new types of institutions, such as RMIT in Melbourne and the London School of Architecture (LSA), have been recasting architectural education and theoretical speculation within practice, turning the traditional architectural studio into a learning environment that adopts and adapts academic models, and starts to use architectural research as a potential source of business intelligence, as a means for self-generating future commissions and speculative opportunities that sometimes even shift the terrain of practice.This new focus on research in practice is indicative of a profession redefining its relevance and scope. This is destabilising the traditional roles of academia and practice by questioning their deep-rooted separation and demanding a new definition of the term 'research' with one that is relevant to both parties. This issue features contributions from architectural thinkers, researchers and a number of practitioners who are recasting academic speculation within their own studios. This not only redefines what is meant by research and what forms it takes, but also how it creates value for them, their clients, for the discipline as a whole and for the ultimate users of their designs. This helps us to understand how research might be deemed valuable beyond a purely academic context. Moreover, it raises significant questions in terms of opportunities and risks that arise when research is recast into the less regimented realm of practice.Contributors: Daniel Davis, Lionel Devlieger, David Green, Harriet Harris, Rory Hyde, Lara Kinneir, James Soane, Ziona Strelitz, Leon van Schaik, John ZhangFeatured architects: Assemble, DSDHA, Foster + Partners, Iredale Pedersen Hook, OMA, Public Practice and Superflux.

Today, architecture in China is at a watershed. Over the last decade, rapid urbanisation and the burgeoning economy turned the country into a playground for the world's signature architects, making it possible to realise extravagant forms and structures at a vast scale. The Chinese government has now drawn a line under this phenomenon by issuing a directive calling an end to the 'oversized, xenocentric, weird' buildings devoid of character or cultural heritage that have sprung up across the country, requiring that urban architecture be 'suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye'. This government directive comes at a time when homegrown architecture has become increasingly self-assured and reflective in its approach. A new generation of architects in China in their 30s and 40s are emerging, and in a wholly contemporary way they are exploring local responses to often bewildering urban and rural conditions and serious social and environmental challenges. This is often expressed through a revival of interest in traditional street patterns, courtyards and gardens. At the same time, architects are also recognising the opportunities to harness the potential of China's established manufacturing base to develop prefabricated building systems. Innovative practices are employing new modes of working, such as research-based studio teaching and exhibitions, field workshops, cross-disciplinary collaboration, laboratory-based practice, design think-tanks and collective projects, generating a vibrant culture of design research. Contributors: Lu Feng, Murray Fraser, Xiao Fu and Wei You, Xiahong Hua and Shen Zhuang, Xinggang Li, Yichun Liu, James Shen, Yehao Song, Hui Wang, Shuo Wang, Xin Wang and Qiuye Jin, Philip F Yuan and Xiang Wang, Li Zhang, Xin Zhang and Jingxiang Zhu. Featured architects Archi-Union Architects, Atelier Archmixing, Atelier Deshaus, Atelier Li Xinggang, Integrated Architecture Studio, LanD Studio, META-Project, People's Architecture Office, SUP Atelier, URBANUS and Zaoyuan Gardening Studio

New modes of practice are now emerging in architecture. Rural Studio, Exyzt, Muf, Assemble and many more have led the way by challenging conventional ideas of 'The Architect' and reclaiming the notion of architecture as something public that should work ultimately towards the collective good. This quiet revolution is born out of a crisis in the profession and a wider vacuum in the political, environmental and economic situation. On the one hand, architecture as a profession has seen its influence diminish rapidly over the last 50 years through privatisation and the dominance of finance, while on the other hand it has also lacked collective courage and readiness to evolve. Without necessarily being aware of each other, studios around the world are now redefining the profession of architecture as something more proactive, self-aware and political. They are broadening their skill sets and becoming deeply involved in their projects, initiating them themselves, financing them and running them. Though much of this work is dealing with local issues at a relatively small scale, it is inherently ambitious with global application.* Contributors include: Shumi Bose, Indy Johar, Alison Killing, Douglas Murphy, and Finn Williams* Featured architects: Aterlier d'Architecture Autogérée (AAA), adamo-faiden; Baupiloten, Grupo Toma, Hector, Inteligencias Colectivas, raumlaborberlin, studioBASAR, Studio GutGut, Taller Ken, and We Made That.

Architects are facing a crisis of agency. For decades, they have seen their traditional role diminish in scope as more and more of their responsibilities have been taken over by other disciplines within the building construction industry. Once upon a time, we might have seen the architect as the conductor of the orchestra; now he or she is but one cog in a vast and increasingly complex machine. In an attempt to find a way out of this crisis, there is growing debate about how architects might reassert the importance of their role and influence. On one side of this argument are those who believe that architects must refocus their attention on the internal demands of the discipline. On the other are those who argue that architects must, instead, reacquaint themselves with what many still believe to be the discipline's core mission of advancing social progress and promoting the public good, and at the same time the scope of their traditional disciplinary remit. At root, this question is fundamentally about freedom, about whether architects still possess it - if they have ever done - and whether it is possible to find the professional, disciplinary and individual autonomy to be able to define the spheres of their own practice. Presenting a variety of views and perspectives, this issue of AD takes us to the heart of what freedom means for architecture as it adapts and evolves in response to the changing contexts in which it is practised in the 21st century. Contributors include: Phillip Bernstein, Peggy Deamer, Adam Nathaniel Furman, Kate Goodwin, Charles Holland, Anna Minton, Patrik Schumacher, Alex Scott-Whitby, Ines Weizman, and Sarah Wigglesworth. Featured architects: Atelier Kite, C+S Architects, Anupama Kundoo, Noero Architects, Umbrellium, and Zaha Hadid Architects.

We are entering a new era of architecture that is technologically enhanced, virtual and synthetic. Contemporary architects operate in a creative environment that is both real and digital; mixed, augmented and hybridised. This world consists of ecstasies, fears, fetishisms and phantoms, processes and spatiality that can best be described as Surrealist. Though too long dormant, Surrealism has been a significant cultural force in modern architecture. Founded by poet André Breton in Paris in 1924 as an artistic, intellectual and literary movement, architects such as Le Corbusier, Diller + Scofidio, Bernard Tschumi and John Hejduk realised its evocative powers to propel them to 'starchitect' status. Rem Koolhaas most famously illustrated Delirious New York (1978) with Madelon Vriesendorp's compelling Surrealist images.Architects are now reviving the power of Surrealism to inspire and explore the ramifications of advanced technology. Architects' studios in practices and schools are becoming places where nothing is forbidden. Architectural languages and theories are 'mashed' together, approaches are permissively appropriated, and styles are not mutually exclusive. Projects are polemic, postmodern and surreally media savvy. Today's architects must compose space that operates across the spatial spectrum. Surrealism, with its multiple readings of the city, its collage semiotics, its extruded forms and artificial landscapes, is an ideal source for contemporary architectural inspiration.Contributors include: Bryan Cantley, Nic Clear, James Eagle, Natalie Gall, Mark Morris, Dagmar Motycka Weston, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Shaun Murray, Anthony Vidler, and Elizabeth Anne Williams.Featured architects: Nigel Coates, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Perry Kulper, and Mark West.

January/February 2018 Profile 251 Volume 88 No 1 ISBN 978 1119 379515 Guest-Edited by John Nastasi, Ed May and Clarke Snell In the 21st century, architects and engineers are being challenged to produce work that is concurrently sustainable and resilient. Buildings need to mitigate their impact on climate change by minimising their carbon footprint, while also countering the challenging new weather conditions. Globally, severe storms, extreme droughts and rising sea levels are becoming an increasingly reoccurring feature. To respond, a design process is required that seeks to integrate resiliency by building in the capacity to absorb the impacts of these disruptive events and adapt over time to further changes, while simultaneously being part of the solution to the problem itself. This issue of AD is guest-edited by the interdisciplinary team at Stevens Institute of Technology who developed the winning entry for the 2015 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition, the SU+RE House. While particular focus is paid to this student designed and built prototype home, the publication also provides a broader discussion of the value of design-build as a model for tackling the issue of integrating sustainability and resilience, and what changes are required across education, policy, practice and industry for widespread implementation. Contributors include: Bronwyn Barry, Michael Bruno, Alex Carpenter, Adam Cohen, Ann Holtzman, Ken Levenson, Brady Peters, Terri Peters, Craig Robertson, Karin Stieldorf, Alex Washburn, Claire Weisz, and Graham Wright. Featured architects: 3XN, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), FXFOWLE Architects, Local Office Landscape Architecture, Lateral Office, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Structures Design/Build, and WXY architecture + urban design.

Some architects dream of 3D-printing houses. Some even fantasise about 3D-printing entire cities. But what is the real potential of 3D printing for architects? This issue focuses on another strand of 3D-printing practice emerging among architects operating at a much smaller scale that is potentially more significant.

Workflows are being rethought and remodelled across the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) spectrum.

We are now on the brink of a new era in construction that of autonomous assembly. For some time, the widespread adoption of robotic and digital fabrication technologies has made it possible for architects and academic researchers to design non-standard, highly customised structures.