Across a range of settings - from the dry river valleys of Yemen to tropical high-rise fabric of Singapore - the projects selected for the 10th cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture match the cutting-edge design with a deep commitment to place. Resolutely contemporary and yet firmly local, they respond to the challenges of their environments with imagination and skill. "Intervention Architecture" brings these works vividly to life through understanding photographs as well as drawings and descriptions. Texts by leading thinkers and practitioners explore the broader issues raised by the projects, from ecological urbanism to cosmopolitanism in architecture.
Across the world, the housing crisis is escalating. Mass migration to cities has led to rapid urbanisation on an unprecedented scale, while the withdrawal of public funding from social housing provision in Western countries, and widening income inequality, have further compounded the situation. In prosperous US and European cities, middle- and low-income residents are being pushed out of housing markets increasingly dominated by luxury investors. The average London tenant, for example, now pays an unaffordable 49 per cent of his or her pre-tax income in rent. Parts of the developing world and areas of forced migration are experiencing insufficient affordable housing stock coupled with rapidly shifting ways of life. In response to this context, forward-thinking architects are taking the lead with a collaborative approach. By partnering with allied fields, working with residents, developing new forms of housing, and leveraging new funding systems and policies, they are providing strategic leadership for what many consider to be our cities’ most pressing crisis. Amidst growing economic and health disparities, this issue of AD asks how housing projects, and the design processes behind them, might be interventions towards greater social equity, and how collaborative work in housing might reposition the architectural profession at large. Recommended by Fast Company as one of the best reads of 2018 and included in their list of 9 books designers should read in 2019! Contributors include: Cynthia Barton, Deborah Gans, and Rosamund Palmer; Neeraj Bhatia and Antje Steinmuller; Dana Cuff; Fatou Dieye; Robert Fishman; Na Fu; Paul Karakusevic; Kaja Kühl and Julie Behrens; Matthew Gordon Lasner; Meir Lobaton Corona; Marc Norman; Julia Park; Brian Phillips and Deb Katz; Pollyanna Rhee; Emily Schmidt and Rosalie Genevro Featured architects: Architects for Social Housing, Shigeru Ban Architects, Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO, cityLAB, Frédéric Druot Architecture, ERA Architects, GANS studio, Garrison Architects, HOWOGE, Interface Studio Architects, Karakusevic Carson Architects, Lacaton & Vassal, Light Earth Designs, NHDM, PYATOK architecture + urban design, Urbanus, and Urban Works Agency
'A Section of Now' aims to re-establish a dialogue between architecture and society that would allow architecture to begin to contend with and address our changed and changing social norms. The publication serves as a meditation on new behaviours, rituals, and values and their spatial implications, and seeks to catalyse urban and architectural interventions that accommodate, influence, and, in some cases, pre-empt our new lived realities. Authors address topics ranging from the safety of digital spaces to how normative life trajectories affect the elderly and the many selves each of us puts forward, while architects present frameworks for, among other things, spaces for blended families, thirty-year-old retirees, and contested monuments. Bringing together analytical essays about the contemporary moment and the direction in which society is moving, projective texts that outline new architectural types to address societal needs, alongside television series, photography, and architecture and design projects, 'A Section of Now' outlines a new relationship between the spaces in which we live and the ways we live within them. Architect, editor, and curator Giovanna Borasi is Director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Occupying Architecture proposes a complete re-working of the relations between design and experience to transform the practices of the architect as well as ways of seeing and using architecture.
Design Intervention: Toward a More Humane Architecture, first published in 1991, intends to demonstrate that interest in social issues is alive and well in architecture, that there is a small but effective cadre of dedicated professionals who continue to commit themselves to solving social problems, and that architecture is being applied to the alleviation of the social ills of our time. The editors and contributors in this book have all grappled with their own definitions of design innovation, and express in practical and useful ways their ideas for contributing to a better and less needy world through the architecture they describe. This book will be of interest to students of architecture.
Design Intervention: Toward a More Humane Architecture, first published in 1991, intends to demonstrate that interest in social issues is alive and well in architecture, that there is a small but effective cadre of dedicated professionals who continue to commit themselves to solving social problems, and that architecture is being applied to the alleviation of the social ills of our time. The editors and contributors in this book have all grappled with their own definitions of design innovation, and express in practical and useful ways their ideas for contributing to a better and less needy world through the architecture they describe. This book will be of interest to students of architecture.
The worldwide use of building envelopes in steel and glass is one of the characteristic features of modern architecture. Many of these pre- and post-war buildings are now suffering severe defects in the building fabric, which necessitate measures to preserve the buildings. In this endeavor, aspects of architectural design, building physics, and the preservation of historic buildings play a key role. Using a selection of 20 iconic buildings in Europe and the USA, the book documents the current technological status of the three most common strategies used today: restoration, rehabilitation, and replacement. The buildings include Fallingwater House by Frank Lloyd Wright, Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Fagus Factory and Bauhaus Building by Walter Gropius.
This book discusses architectural excellence in Islamic societies drawing on textual and visual materials, from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT, developed over more than three decades. At the core of the discussion are the efforts, processes, and outcomes of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA). The AKAA recognises excellence in architectural and urban interventions within cities and settlements in the Islamic world which are continuously challenged by dramatic changes in economies, societies, political systems, decision-making, and environmental requirements. Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies responds to the recurring question about the need for architectural awards, arguing that they are critical to validating the achievements of professional architects while making their contributions more widely acknowledged by the public. Through analysis and critique of over sixty awarded and shortlisted projects from over thirty-five countries, this book provides an expansive look at the history of the AKAA through a series of narratives on the enduring values of architecture, architectural and urban conservation, built environment sustainability, and architectural pluralism and multiple modernities. Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies will appeal to professionals and academics, researchers, and upper-level students in architectural history and theory and built environment related fields.
