As the magazine of the Texas Exes, The Alcalde has united alumni and friends of The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 100 years. The Alcalde serves as an intellectual crossroads where UT's luminaries - artists, engineers, executives, musicians, attorneys, journalists, lawmakers, and professors among them - meet bimonthly to exchange ideas. Its pages also offer a place for Texas Exes to swap stories and share memories of Austin and their alma mater. The magazine's unique name is Spanish for "mayor" or "chief magistrate"; the nickname of the governor who signed UT into existence was "The Old Alcalde."
How new conceptions of human–environment interaction became central to design theories and practices in the 1970s At the end of the 1960s, new models of responsiveness between humans and their environments had a profound impact on theories and practices in architecture, design, art, technology, media, and the sciences. The resulting initiatives—design philosophies, art installations, architectural projects, exhibitions, publications, and symposia—sought to bring together insights from biology, systems theory, psychology, and anthropology with modernist legacies of total design. In The Responsive Environment, Larry D. Busbea takes up this concept of environment as an object and method of design at the height of its aesthetic, technical, and discursive elaboration. Exploring emerging paradigms of environmental perception, patterning, and control as developed by Gregory Bateson, Edward T. Hall, Wolf Hilbertz, György Kepes, Marshall McLuhan, Nicholas Negroponte, Paolo Soleri, and others, he shows how living space itself was reimagined as a domain capable of modification through input from its newly sensitized inhabitants. The Responsive Environment intercuts the development of new ideas about environmental awareness with case studies of specific architecture and design projects for responsive environments. Throughout, Busbea connects these theories and practices to the contemporary obsession with “smart” things: responsive technologies, intelligent environments, biomimetic materials, and digital atmospherics.
A refreshingly unconventional look at architecture and the World Wide Web. Using Vitruvius' classical text De Arquitectura as a starting point, De Kerckhove begins a journey into the exciting world of the Internet. On the one hand he explores the architecture of this revolutionary medium, on the other, he considers the wide-ranging opportunities which the IT world offers for architectonic design, revealing how this new medium for communication is as much based on tradition as on innovation. Derrick de Kerckhove is the Director of the McLuhan Institute and Professor at the University of Toronto. His research into the effects of innovative technology on human communication, of new media on traditional culture have gained worldwide recognition.
This book discusses the forerunners, present context, and technology of portable architecture. It documents numerous international examples, organized by areas of application, and offers a broad array of suggestions for practical design.
"This book examines the unique synergy between religion and technology, and explores the many ways that technology is shaping religious expression, as well as ways that religion is coming to influence technology"--Provided by publisher.
Our built environments can affect us in many subtle ways. Simply sensing fresh air and natural light or seeing greenery and open space can uplift our mood and improve our wellbeing. But these healthy environments are increasingly difficult to achieve in practice. The vital collaboration between the many people involved in designing and producing buildings is often not achieved. Then there is the pressing need to reduce waste and pollution. Managing these demands is a challenge, especially in a traditional climate of short-term thinking. Designing Buildings for People explores how we can learn from buildings of the past, vernacular architecture and the natural world around us, while still harnessing the opportunities presented by technology, to think creatively, work collaboratively and exercise a transdisciplinary approach. The book features over 200 images, exhibiting the acclaimed work of internationally recognized and research-led designers from the fields of architecture, engineering and management. It is a prime reference work for professionals and students who want to build the sustainable buildings of the future.
The concept of crisis is a recurrent staple in representations of modern forms of insecurity - from nuclear proliferation to cyber-security, armed conflict, the instability of political institutions, from pandemics to risks of social and financial collapse. Amidst this seeming ubiquity and ever-presence, the onset of climate and ecological emergencies as potential planetary-scale threats to the habitability of the Earth raise particularly urgent questions for how we conceive of and deal with crisis insecurity. How these forms of planetary insecurity come to be known, understood, and managed is thus of pressing importance. Security in Crisis seeks to provide an analysis of the complex combinations of political and technological understandings entailed in what it terms as 'planetary crisis management'. Arguing that the emergence, scope and scale of planetary insecurity and crisis management challenge traditional disciplinary boundaries of the study of International Relations and security, the book adopts an interdisciplinary outlook. It integtrates ideas and approaches from across political theory and anthropology (on conceptions of crisis) including climate science and the wider study of environment and ecology in the 'Anthropocene' (on planetary insecurities and ideas of geoengineering); science and technology studies (on the 'technopolitics' of crisis management and the 'sociotechnical imagination' of planetary futures); and critical security studies (on critical approaches to the international and to security). In the process, the book considers how technopolitical 'fixes' for planetary crisis and emergency are often bound up with vexed questions of who 'we' are, and what it means to imagine and secure a planetary future. ABOUT THE SERIES: Voices in International Relations, published under the auspices of the European International Studies Association (EISA), furthers the development of research at the frontiers of International Relations (IR). It expands the remit of the field by including innovative scholarship that broadens key debates in the discipline, but it is more interested in reconfiguring such debates by approaching them from inside and outside the conventional core. Thematically, we aim to publish research that pushes the limits of IR conventionally defined from within and connects it to debates developing outside the discipline. We are committed to furthering diversity and inclusion in terms of authorship, location, topics and approaches from both inside and outside Europe. We have an inclusive approach to neighbouring disciplines, be it sociology, history, anthropology, geography, economics, political theory or law. Series editors: Debbie Lisle, Tanja Aalberts, Anna Leander, and Laura Sjoberg.
This book presents the current state of knowledge on nanomaterials and their use in buildings, ranging from glazing and vacuum insulation to PCM composites. It also discusses recent applications in organic photovoltaics, photo-bioreactors, bioplastics and foams, making it an exciting read while also providing copious references to current research and applications for those wanting to pursue possible future research directions. Derek Clements-Croome, Emeritus Professor in Architectural Engineering, University of Reading (From the Foreword) Demonstrating how higher energy efficiency in new and existing buildings can help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, this book details the way in which new technologies, manufacturing processes and products can serve to abate emissions from the energy sector and offer a cost-effective means of improving competitiveness and drive employment. Maximizing reader insights into how nano and biotech materials – such as aerogel based plasters, thermochromic glazings and thermal energy adsorbing glass, amongst others – can provide high energy efficiency performance in buildings, it provides practitioners in the field with an important high-tech tool to tackle key challenges and is essential reading for civil engineers, architects, materials scientists and researchers in the area of the sustainability of the built environment.
Design consists of the solution proposals put forward by the designer for the target audience. The changing needs of the target audience cause the designer to change the solutions. Although the act of designing seems to take place in the triangle of mass-object-designer, it is also affected by the period it is in, independently of these components. The changing perception of taste with the change of the period, the adoption of fast consumption, the advancement of technology, the attempt to establish the real world in the virtual with this progress, and the widespread use of social media causes different effects on different user groups. Some users, who feel this effect, adapt to it and try to meet their needs in parallel, while the other part shows a conscious resistance to this effect and prefers to maintain a perception of liking from the past. It is important to share these views to break the resistance and ensure the construction of a new agenda. Contemporary Manifests on Design Thinking and Practice reveals the current problems, practices, and research of the period in design disciplines. It gives readers the opportunity to see the impact of the ever-present change and transformation in design as a whole. Covering topics such as alternative design models, social media interaction, and urban social sustainability, this premier reference source is a dynamic resource for designers, architects, industrial designers, business leaders and executives, students and faculty of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.
