Space & Anti-space

Space & Anti-space
Author: Steven Peterson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: Cities and towns
ISBN: 9781941806777

"This book challenges the conventional idea of what should constitute the physical form of the contemporary city. Observing the absence of connective urban fabrics in the new global cities being made today, it argues that they are merely dense accumulations of buildings that lack the positive formal attributes that are required to establish an extended public realm. Cities cannot be made by individual buildings alone but rather depend on the intertwined combination of architectural and urban forms bound together in networks of public space. ... Cities, because of their compact efficiency, will be an important part of the solution to climate change and resource depletion, especially as they house an increasing percentage of the world's population. In this series of essays and urban projects, 'Space & anti-space' makes the case for an urban fabric of shaped public space being the indispensable core of the future city."--Front flap of paper wrapper.

Finding Lost Space

Finding Lost Space
Author: Roger Trancik
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1991-01-16
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780471289562

The problem of "lost space," or the inadequate use of space, afflicts most urban centers today. The automobile, the effects of the Modern Movement in architectural design, urban-renewal and zoning policies, the dominance of private over public interests, as well as changes in land use in the inner city have resulted in the loss of values and meanings that were traditionally associated with urban open space. This text offers a comprehensive and systematic examination of the crisis of the contemporary city and the means by which this crisis can be addressed. Finding Lost Space traces leading urban spatial design theories that have emerged over the past eighty years: the principles of Sitte and Howard; the impact of and reactions to the Functionalist movement; and designs developed by Team 10, Robert Venturi, the Krier brothers, and Fumihiko Maki, to name a few. In addition to discussions of historic precedents, contemporary approaches to urban spatial design are explored. Detailed case studies of Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Goteborg, Sweden; and the Byker area of Newcastle, England demonstrate the need for an integrated design approach--one that considers figure-ground, linkage, and place theories of urban spatial design. These theories and their individual strengths and weaknesses are defined and applied in the case studies, demonstrating how well they operate in different contexts. This text will prove invaluable for students and professionals in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning. Finding Lost Space is going to be a primary text for the urban designers of the next generation. It is the first book in the field to absorb the lessons of the postmodern reaction, including the work of the Krier brothers and many others, and to integrate these into a coherent theory and set of design guidelines. Without polemics, Roger Trancik addresses the biggest issue in architecture and urbanism today: how can we regain in our shattered cities a public realm that is made of firmly shaped, coherently linked, humanly meaningful urban spaces? Robert Campbell, AIA Architect and architecture critic Boston Globe

Dark Skies

Dark Skies
Author: Daniel Deudney
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2020-03-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019090335X

Space is again in the headlines. E-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are planning to colonize Mars. President Trump wants a "Space Force" to achieve "space dominance" with expensive high-tech weapons. The space and nuclear arms control regimes are threadbare and disintegrating. Would-be asteroid collision diverters, space solar energy collectors, asteroid miners, and space geo-engineers insistently promote their Earth-changing mega-projects. Given our many looming planetary catastrophes (from extreme climate change to runaway artificial superintelligence), looking beyond the earth for solutions might seem like a sound strategy for humanity. And indeed, bolstered by a global network of fervent space advocates-and seemingly rendered plausible, even inevitable, by oceans of science fiction and the wizardly of modern cinema-space beckons as a fully hopeful path for human survival and flourishing, a positive future in increasingly dark times. But despite even basic questions of feasibility, will these many space ventures really have desirable effects, as their advocates insist? In the first book to critically assess the major consequences of space activities from their origins in the 1940s to the present and beyond, Daniel Deudney argues in Dark Skies that the major result of the "Space Age" has been to increase the likelihood of global nuclear war, a fact conveniently obscured by the failure of recognize that nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are inherently space weapons. The most important practical finding of Space Age science, also rarely emphasized, is the discovery that we live on Oasis Earth, tiny and fragile, and teeming with astounding life, but surrounded by an utterly desolate and inhospitable wilderness stretching at least many trillions of miles in all directions. As he stresses, our focus must be on Earth and nowhere else. Looking to the future, Deudney provides compelling reasons why space colonization will produce new threats to human survival and not alleviate the existing ones. That is why, he argues, we should fully relinquish the quest. Mind-bending and profound, Dark Skies challenges virtually all received wisdom about the final frontier.

Lateness

Lateness
Author: Peter Eisenman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0691203911

A provocative case for historical ambiguity in architecture by one of the field's leading theorists Conceptions of modernity in architecture are often expressed in the idea of the zeitgeist, or "spirit of the age," an attitude toward architectural form that is embedded in a belief in progressive time. Lateness explores how architecture can work against these linear currents in startling and compelling ways. In this incisive book, internationally renowned architect Peter Eisenman, with Elisa Iturbe, proposes a different perspective on form and time in architecture, one that circumvents the temporal constraints on style that require it to be "of the times"—lateness. He focuses on three twentieth-century architects who exhibited the qualities of lateness in their designs: Adolf Loos, Aldo Rossi, and John Hejduk. Drawing on the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and his study of Beethoven's final works, Eisenman shows how the architecture of these canonical figures was temporally out of sync with conventions and expectations, and how lateness can serve as a form of release from the restraints of the moment. Bringing together architecture, music, and philosophy, and drawing on illuminating examples from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Lateness demonstrates how today's architecture can use the concept of lateness to break free of stylistic limitations, expand architecture's critical capacity, and provide a new mode of analysis.

The Construction of Logical Space

The Construction of Logical Space
Author: Agustín Rayo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-06-27
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0199662622

Our conception of logical space is the set of distinctions we use to navigate the world. Agustín Rayo argues that this is shaped by acceptance or rejection of 'just is'-statements: e.g. 'to be composed of water just is to be composed of H2O'. He offers a novel conception of metaphysical possibility, and a new trivialist philosophy of mathematics.

Space Forces

Space Forces
Author: Fred Scharmen
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021-11-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1786637340

The radical history of space exploration from the Russian Cosmists to Elon Musk Many societies have imagined going to live in space. What they want to do once they get up there - whether conquering the unknown, establishing space "colonies," privatising the moon's resources - reveals more than expected. In this fascinating radical history of space exploration, Fred Scharmen shows that often science and fiction have combined in the imagined dreams of life in outer space, but these visions have real implications for life back on earth. For the Russian Cosmists of the 1890s space was a place to pursue human perfection away from the Earth. For others, such as Wernher Von Braun, it was an engineering task that combined, in the Space Race, the Cold War, and during World War II, with destructive geopolitics. Arthur C. Clark in his speculative books offered an alternative vision of wonder that is indifferent to human interaction. Meanwhile NASA planned and managed the space station like an earthbound corporation. Today, the market has arrived into outer space and exploration is the plaything of superrich technology billionaires, who plan to privatise the mineral wealth for themselves. Are other worlds really possible? Bringing these figures and ideas together reveals a completely different story of our relationship with outer space, as well as the dangers of our current direction of extractive capitalism and colonisation.

The Fabric of Place

The Fabric of Place
Author: Bob Allies
Publisher: Artifice Incorporated
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2014
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781908967381

Cities are the product of a myriad of forces. Their forms and structures evolve over centuries and articulate the relationships between us, their citizens--how we live, work and connect. Although constantly changing, they are also remarkably fragile, particularly in these times of rapid expansion and consequent pressures for increased density. Cities need careful cultivation by all involved in making proposals for their growth, if new projects are to support the continuity of existing city fabric, reinforce the particular identity of place and provide new workable living environments. Through their urban design work in many cities, Allies and Morrison have participated in ongoing discussions around many current issues. This book combines insights about how cities work with observations on how development plans can help, or hinder, their further evolution. Written by people in the practice, it draws together the rich ideas, theories, precedents and explorations that have informed their work and illustrates them with case studies of individual projects. The Fabric of Place: Allies and Morrison reflects on work-in-progress, as continuing conversations between theory and realisation.

Outer Space and Cyber Space

Outer Space and Cyber Space
Author: Annette Froehlich
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2021-08-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030800237

The book analyses a broad range of relevant aspects as the outer space and cyber space domain do not only present analogies but are also strongly interrelated. This may occur on various levels by technologies but also in regard to juridical approaches, each nevertheless keeping its particularities. Since modern societies rely increasingly on space applications that depend on cyber space, it is important to investigate how cyberspace and outer space are connected by their common challenges. Furthermore, this book discusses not only questions around their jurisdictions, but also whether the private space industry can escape jurisdiction by dematerializing the space resource commercial processes and assets thanks to cyber technology. In addition, space and cyberspace policies are analysed especially in view of cyber threats to space communications. Even the question of an extra-terrestrial citizenship in outer space and cyberspace may raise new views. Finally, the interdependence between space and cyberspace also has an important role to play in the context of increasing militarization and emerging weaponization of outer space. Therefore, this book invites questioning the similarities and interrelations between Outer Space and Cyber Space in the same way as it intends to strengthen them.

The Politics of Space Security

The Politics of Space Security
Author: James Moltz
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2011-06-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804778582

The past five decades have witnessed often fierce international rivalry in space, but also surprising military restraint. Now, with an increasing number of countries capable of harming U.S. space assets, experts and officials have renewed a long-standing debate over the best route to space security. Some argue that space defenses will be needed to protect critical military and civilian satellites. Others argue that space should be a "sanctuary" from deployed weapons and military conflict, particularly given the worsening threat posed by orbital space debris. Moltz puts this debate into historical context by explaining the main trends in military space developments since Sputnik, their underlying causes, and the factors that are likely to influence their future course. This new edition provides analysis of the Obama administration's space policy and the rise of new actors, including China, India, and Iran. His conclusion offers a unique perspective on the mutual risks militaries face in space and the need for all countries to commit to interdependent, environmentally focused space security.

Space Warfare in the 21st Century

Space Warfare in the 21st Century
Author: Joan Johnson-Freese
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2016-11-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315529157

This book examines the recent shift in US space policy and the forces that continually draw the US back into a space-technology security dilemma. The dual-use nature of the vast majority of space technology, meaning of value to both civilian and military communities and being unable to differentiate offensive from defensive intent of military hardware, makes space an area particularly ripe for a security dilemma. In contrast to previous administrations, the Obama Administration has pursued a less militaristic space policy, instead employing a strategic restraint approach that stressed multilateral diplomacy to space challenges. The latter required international solutions and the United States, subsequently, even voiced support for an International Code of Conduct for Space. That policy held until the Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2013, which demonstrated expanded Chinese capabilities. This volume explores the issues arising from evolving space capabilities across the world and the security challenges this poses. It subsequently discusses the complexity of the space environment and argues that all tools of national power must be used, with some degree of balance, toward addressing space challenges and achieving space goals. This book will be of much interest to students of space policy, defence studies, foreign policy, security studies and IR.