A Section Of Now

'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.

The question of nation building has enjoyed currency in the discourse about the general development of countries around the world. Its global importance could be discerned in two different areas; nation-building as applied to efforts aimed at rebuilding a country after a war as in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on; and nation-building with regard to efforts aimed at dealing with the sobering realities of failed or failing countries whose populations have been exploited, abused and mismanaged almost to the point of extinction. As can, and should be expected, Nigeria and Nigerians, at home and abroad, have not been exempt from these discourses especially in the past few years as the countrys nascent and fledging (?) democracy became embarrassingly threatened to the point of abortion within Nigeria and the international community of nations. In ones sober moments, the realisation that Nigeria is fast becoming another failed state procures rather scary thoughts.

Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760–1834) regarded the Précis of the Lectures on Architecture (1802–5) and its companion volume, the Graphic Portion (1821), as both a basic course for future civil engineers and a treatise. Focusing the practice of architecture on utilitarian and economic values, he assailed the rationale behind classical architectural training: beauty, proportionality, and symbolism. His formal systematization of plans, elevations, and sections transformed architectural design into a selective modular typology in which symmetry and simple geometrical forms prevailed. His emphasis on pragmatic values, to the exclusion of metaphysical concerns, represented architecture as a closed system that subjected its own formal language to logical processes. Now published in English for the first time, the Précis and the Graphic Portion are classics of architectural education.

This revised and updated text contains a range of relevant, interesting case law, statutory material, academic extracts and official proposals for law reform. A companion web site featuring web links and case updates ensures students have access to the latest materials.