Reconstructing Architecture

Reconstructing Architecture
Author: Thomas A. Dutton
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 1996
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0816628092

Reconstructing Architecture was first published in 1996. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. To create architecture is an inherently political act, yet its nature as a social practice is often obscured beneath layers of wealth and privilege. The contributors to this volume question architecture's complicity with the status quo, moving beyond critique to outline the part architects are playing in building radical social movements and challenging dominant forms of power. The making of architecture is instrumental in the construction of our identities, our differences, the world around us-much of what we know of institutions, the distribution of power, social relations, and cultural values is mediated by the built environment. Historically, architecture has constructed the environments that house the dominant culture. Yet, as the essays in Reconstructing Architecture demonstrate, there exists a strong tradition of critical practice in the field, one that attempts to alter existing social power relations. Engaging the gap between modernism and postmodernism, each chapter addresses an oppositional discourse that has developed within the field and then reconstructs it in terms of a new social project: feminism, social theory, environmentalism, cultural studies, race and ethnic studies, and critical theory. The activists and scholars writing here provide a clarion call to architects and other producers of culture, challenging them to renegotiate their political allegiances and to help reconstruct a viable democratic life in the face of inexorable forces driving economic growth, destroying global ecology, homogenizing culture, and privatizing the public realm. Reconstructing Architecture reformulates the role of architecture in society as well as its capacity to further a progressive social transformation. Contributors: Sherry Ahrentzen, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Bradford C. Grant, California Polytechnic State U, San Luis Obispo; Richard Ingersoll, Rice U; Margaret Soltan, George Washington U; Anthony Ward, U of Auckland, New Zealand. Thomas A. Dutton is an architect and professor of architecture at Miami University, Ohio. He is editor of Voices in Architectural Education (1991) and is associate editor of the Journal of Architectural Education. Lian Hurst Mann is an architect and editor of Architecture California. A founding member of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, she is editor of its bilingual quarterly Ahora Now and a coauthor of Reconstructing Los Angeles from the Bottom Up (1993).

Scope of Total Architecture

Scope of Total Architecture
Author: Walter Gropius
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1000530019

Originally published in 1956, this book provides a non-technical analysis of contemporary building by on the of the world’s greatest architects. Published a few years after the end of WW2, it was an inspiring and constructive picture of what kind of living could lie ahead for Western industrial society. This book, the result of many year in the forefront of architectural experiment and achievement by the author, outlines in practical terms the road to improved existence through science, mass production in building and renewed emphasis on the individual.

Designing Social Architecture

Designing Social Architecture
Author: Fuyuki Makino
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-05-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793649529

Drawing on qualitative research conducted in the impoverished areas of Manila, Philippines, Fuyuki Makino examines how experimental methods in modern architecture have helped form micro-relationships, social networks, and social structures among the inhabitants and considers whether the architects’ aim to promote certain social behaviors was successful or not.

HLM50+ Towards a Social Architecture

HLM50+ Towards a Social Architecture
Author: Tony Monk
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2017-07-06
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317121473

Since its sudden and dramatic formation upon winning the competition to design Paisley Civic Centre in 1963, Hutchison, Locke and Monk (HLM Architects) has consistently served and adapted to the changing requirements of Britain’s welfare state, and has instinctively dedicated its professional services to community architecture. Conceived from the perspective of founding partner Tony Monk, this book reveals the inside story of how the partnership has grown over 50 years to become a leading UK national practice. It sets out the early influences and progressive design philosophy of HLM Architects and analyses how they developed their design ethos from late-modern through contextual post-modern architectural styles by the early 1980s, and then matured into producing its own contemporary designs, explaining why these changes took place over that period. As well as reflecting the transformations in the social and political landscapes and in aesthetic approaches, it also inevitably records the changing social history of the architectural profession from labour-intensive manual presentations using drafting pens and drawing boards, through to the slick mass-produced computer modelling that accompanied the digital revolution, and the fundamental adjustments needed to meet the realities of managing an efficient modern commercial business. Working with the HLM Board, the authoritative contributors are Directors who have used their knowledge and experience in responding to government legislation with innovative architectural solutions in their specialist fields. HLM Chairman Christopher Liddle is a leading exponent of defence and custodial procurement, alongside Caroline Buckingham in education and Leslie Welch in healthcare. Their award winning projects now help formulate current policy. The critical Introduction by Dr Edward Denison re-examines the practice’s philosophy and contribution to the evolving welfare state during the second half of the twentieth century. The conclusion is a perceptive assessment of the future direction of the architectural profession and a statement of HLM’s continuing commitment to improving our society. The complex relationships described shed new light on previous architectural theories and, in doing so, this book adds to the knowledge of post-war British architecture.

Practice and Progress in Social Design and Sustainability

Practice and Progress in Social Design and Sustainability
Author: Siu, Kin Wai Michael
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-07-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1522541845

Designers provide creative solutions for user problems and identify the needs of users in a given environment. However, it is often difficult to understand the social design of a product or service. Practice and Progress in Social Design and Sustainability is a critical scholarly resource that provides groundbreaking research on social contributions to design. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as rural sustainability, ecological farmhouse designs, and community public spaces, this book is geared towards architects, designers, program planners, entrepreneurs, and engineers seeking information about design for resolving social issues.

Community Architecture (Routledge Revivals)

Community Architecture (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Nick Wates
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2013-09-05
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1134618891

First published in 1987, this title was one of the first to explore the emerging popular movement of Community Architecture, championed by Prince Charles, which gained momentum throughout Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. The conceptual framework rests fundamentally on the principle that the built environment is most effective when those who live in a particular area are actively engaged with its creation and daily administration. A work that has influenced policy makers and planning legislation, Community Architecture remains one of the key reference works for student architects and planners.

The Social (Re)Production of Architecture

The Social (Re)Production of Architecture
Author: Doina Petrescu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2017-07-14
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317509234

The Social (Re)Production of Architecture brings the debates of the ‘right to the city’ into today’s context of ecological, economic and social crises. Building on the 1970s’ discussions about the ‘production of space’, which French sociologist Henri Lefebvre considered a civic right, the authors question who has the right to make space, and explore the kinds of relations that are produced in the process. In the emerging post-capitalist era, this book addresses urgent social and ecological imperatives for change and opens up questions around architecture’s engagement with new forms of organization and practice. The book asks what (new) kinds of ‘social’ can architecture (re)produce, and what kinds of politics, values and actions are needed. The book features 24 interdisciplinary essays written by leading theorists and practitioners including social thinkers, economic theorists, architects, educators, urban curators, feminists, artists and activists from different generations and global contexts. The essays discuss the diverse, global locations with work taking different and specific forms in these different contexts. A cutting-edge, critical text which rethinks both practice and theory in the light of recent crises, making it key reading for students, academics and practitioners.

The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory

The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory
Author: C. Greig Crysler
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 777
Release: 2012-01-20
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1848600399

"Offers an intense scholarly experience in its comprehensiveness, its variety of voices and its formal organization... the editors took a risk, experimented and have delivered a much-needed resource that upends the status-quo." - Architectural Histories, journal of the European Architectural History Network "Architectural theory interweaves interdisciplinary understandings with different practices, intentions and ways of knowing. This handbook provides a lucid and comprehensive introduction to this challenging and shifting terrain, and will be of great interest to students, academics and practitioners alike." - Professor Iain Borden, UCL Bartlett School of Architecture "In this collection, architectural theory expands outward to interact with adjacent discourses such as sustainability, conservation, spatial practices, virtual technologies, and more. We have in The Handbook of Architectural Theory an example of the extreme generosity of architectural theory. It is a volume that designers and scholars of many stripes will welcome." - K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, Harvard University The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory documents and builds upon the most innovative developments in architectural theory over the last two decades. Bringing into dialogue a range of geographically, institutionally and historically competing positions, it examines and explores parallel debates in related fields. The book is divided into eight sections: Power/Difference/Embodiment Aesthetics/Pleasure/Excess Nation/World/Spectacle History/Memory/Tradition Design/Production/Practice Science/Technology/Virtuality Nature/Ecology/Sustainability City/Metropolis/Territory. Creating openings for future lines of inquiry and establishing the basis for new directions for education, research and practice, the book is organized around specific case studies to provide a critical, interpretive and speculative enquiry into the relevant debates in architectural theory.

The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement

The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement
Author: Farhan Karim
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 581
Release: 2018-05-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317495705

Socially engaged architecture is a broad and emerging architectural genre that promises to redefine architecture from a market-driven profession to a mix of social business, altruism, and activism that intends to eradicate poverty, resolve social exclusion, and construct an egalitarian global society. The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement offers a critical enquiry of socially engaged architecture’s current context characterized by socio-economic inequity, climate change, war, increasing global poverty, microfinance, the evolving notion of professionalism, the changing conception of public, and finally the growing academic interest in re-visioning the social role of architecture. Organized around case studies from the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Thailand, Germany, Australia, Taiwan, and Japan the book documents the most important recent developments in the field. By examining diverse working methods and philosophies of socially engaged architecture, the handbook shows how socially engaged architecture is entangled in the global politics of poverty, reconstruction of the public sphere, changing role of the state, charity, and neoliberal urbanism. The book presents debates around the issue of whether architecture actually empowers the participators and alleviates socio-economic exclusion or if it instead indirectly sustains an exploitive capitalism. Bringing together a range of theories and case studies, this companion offers a platform to facilitate future lines of inquiry in education, research, and practice.