Michael Hensel

Architecture is on the brink. It is a discipline in crisis. Overthe last two decades, architectural debate has diversified to thepoint of fragmentation and exhaustion. What is called for isan overarching argument or set of criteria on which to approach thedesign and construction of the built environment. Here, theinternationally renowned architect and educator Michael Henseladvocates an entirely different way of thinking about architecture.By favouring a new focus on performance, he rejects longstandingconventions in design and the built environment. This not onlybridges the gap between academia and practice, but, even moresignificantly, the treatment of form and function in design. Italso has a far-reaching impact on knowledge production anddevelopment, placing an important emphasis on design research inarchitecture and the value of an interdisciplinary approach. Though ‘performance’ first evolved as a concept inthe humanities in the 1940s and 1950s, it has never previously beensystematically applied in architecture in an inclusive manner. HereMichael Hensel offers Performance-Orientated Architecture as anintegrative approach to architectural design, the built environmentand questions of sustainability. He highlights how core conceptsand specific traits, such as climate, material performance andsettlement patterns, can put architecture in the service of thenatural environment. A wide range of examples are cited to supporthis argument, from traditional sustainable buildings, such as theKahju Bridge in Isfahan and the Topkapí Palace in Istanbul tomore contemporary works by Cloud 9, Foreign Office Architects,Steven Holl and OCEAN.

Rethinking Architectural Design and the Built Environment

Performance-Oriented Architecture

Achim Menges

Christopher Hight

The Space Reader provides a highly pertinent and contemporary understanding of space for a new generation of students and architects. It espouses a definition of space that is heterogeneous (an object or system consisting of a diverse range of different items). An example of heterogeneous space, for instance, is Manhattan where complex and multiple social and technological conditions are overlaid. (This is to be contrasted with highly centralised and ordered Modernist cities.) With the onset of globalisation and the Web, heterogeneneous space, with its emphasis on differentiation, is more relevant to the contemporary condition, which encourages the mixing of space, than a much more static conception of Modernist space. This book foregrounds spatial issues and the potential of heterogeneous space through a threefold strategy: 1) Its compilation of seminal essays on the discourse of heterogeneous space. These are to include previously published key texts by Reyner Banham, Andrew Benjamin, Robin Evans, Jeff Kipnis and Henri Lefebvre, as well as new texts by important contemporary commentators, such as Mark Cousins, Werner Durth and Anthony Vidler. 2) By commenting on these seminal texts and drawing links between them. 3) By distilling from the first two efforts a contemporary outlook on a discourse of heterogeneous space that is of future significance.

Heterogeneous Space in Architecture

Space Reader

Mehran Gharleghi

Over the last few decades, Iranian architects have made a significant contribution to architectural design. This has, however, remained largely unrecognised internationally, as architects in Iran have had little exposure in publications abroad and the diaspora of well-known Iranian designers working in the West, such as Hariri & Hariri and Nader Tehrani of NADAAA, are not necessarily associated with their cultural background. Moreover Iran, or rather Persia, has one of the richest and longest architectural heritages, which has a great deal of untapped potential for contemporary design. The intention of this issue is both to introduce key works and key architects from a range of generations – at home and abroad – and to highlight the potential of historical structures for contemporary architecture. Features Hariri & Hariri, Nader Tehrani of NADAAA, Farjadi Architects, and studio INTEGRATE. Places the spotlight on emerging practices in Iran: Arsh Design Studio, Fluid Motion Architects, Pouya Khazaeli Parsa and Kourosh Rafiey (Asar). Contributors include: Reza Daneshmir and Catherine Spiridonoff, Farrokh Derakhshani, Darab Diba, Dr Nasrine Faghih and Amin Sadeghy, Farshad Farahi, Mehran Gharleghi and Michael Hensel. Looks at garden and landscape design as well as the urban fabric in Iran from a historical and contemporary context. Includes articles on the work of post-revolutionary architecture.

Past, Present and Future

Iran

Michael Weinstock

This issue of AD introduces a new approach to architectural practice based on the interrelationship of emergence and self-organisation concepts. A sequence to the successful Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies title by the same guest-editors, it advances on the previous publication by taking on board the latest developments for fully integrated design evolution, manufacturing and construction. Emergence requires the recognition of architectural structures not as singular and fixed bodies, but as complex energy and material systems that have a lifespan, exist as part of the environment of other active systems, and as an iteration of a series that proceeds by evolutionary development. Thus the focal point of this issue will be the exploration of techniques and technologies that enable the implementation of such morphogenetic strategies, requiring a new set of intellectual and practical skills. Though the publication stands alone as an investigation and presentation of cutting-edge techniques and technologies within the design and construction field supported by examples from adjacent industries, it also introduces a new springboard for understanding and rethinking the radical changes in which architecture is now being conceived, designed and produced. While representing a timely exploration of the embedding of techniques and technology in an alternative design approach, it also presents wholly new strategies for tackling issues of sustainability.

Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design

Emergence - the process by which new and coherent structures, patterns and properties ‘emerge’ from within complex systems Traditional architecture starts from the premise that architectural structures are singular and fixed, and however well integrated are separate from their environment and context. Emergence requires that the opposite is true – that those structures are complex energy and material systems that have a lifespan, exist as part of an environment of other active systems, and develop in an evolutionary way. This book, based on the authors’ internationally renowned Emergent Technologies and Design course at the Architectural Association in London, introduces a new approach to the practice of architecture. The authors use essays and projects to demonstrate the interrelationship of concepts such as emergence and self-organisation with the latest technologies in design, manufacturing and construction. With projects from their course, and critiques and commentary from some of the world’s leading design theorists and practitioners, the authors of Emergent Technologies and Design have introduced a radical new way of understanding the way in which architecture is conceived, designed and produced.

Towards a Biological Paradigm for Architecture

Emergent Technologies and Design

The discipline of architecture is currently undergoing a significant change as professional practice and academia seem to be transforming one another specifically through succinct research undertakings. This book continues the discussion started in The Changing Shape of Practice - Integrating Research and Design in Architecture on architectural offices' modes of research and lines of inquiry in architecture and how it reshapes practice. The book aims to contribute to the mapping and discussion on research in architectural practice and its transformational impact and gives input to the discussions on where the architectural profession is heading. In this second volume, various research initiatives and modes in architectural practices are portrayed. The book also includes contributions that broaden the scope and put the developments into larger contexts, and present an overview of developments from different regional perspectives and of various social aspects of architecture. It also relates the developments in practice to educational efforts and to initiatives where the more traditional role of architects is challenged. The contributions include chapters by Walter Unterrainer, Anthony Burke, Renée Cheng and Andrea J. Johnson, and Michael U. Hensel, and on the practices atelier d'architecture autogérée, Helen & Hard, MVRDV and The Why Factory, NADAAA & Nader Tehrani, Nordic - Office of Architecture, Schmidt Hammer Lassen, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Void, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, and Älvstranden Utveckling.

Michael Hensel

Books

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