Thinking About Architecture

Featuring four essays by Peter Zumthor, this volume exhibits the essence of Zumthor's architectural ideas.

The aim of the book is to provide teachers, students, practising architects and curious readers with a set of ideas that will enrich their conversation, their writing, and above all their thinking about architecture. It's divided into eight chapters, each covering a particular aspect of architecture, and introduces difficult concepts gradually.

More than a decade in the making, this is a textbook of architecture, useful for every architect: from first-year students, to those taking senior design studio, to graduate students writing a Ph.D. dissertation in architectural theory, to experienced practicing architects. It is very carefully written so that it can be read even by the beginning architecture student. The information contained here is a veritable gold mine of design techniques. This book teaches the reader how to design by adapting to human needs and sensibilities, yet independently of any particular style. Here is a unification of genuine architectural knowledge that brings a new clarity to the discipline. It explains much of what people instinctively know about architecture, and puts that knowledge for the first time in a concise, understandable form. Dr. Salingaros has experience in the organization of the built environment that few practicing architects have. The later chapters of this new book touch on very sensitive topics: what drives architects to produce the forms they build; and why architects use only a very restricted visual vocabulary. Is it personal inventiveness, or is it something more, which perhaps they are not even aware of? There has not been such a book treating the very essence of architecture. The only other author who is capable of raising a similar degree of passion (and controversy) is Christopher Alexander, who happens to be Dr. Salingaros’ friend and architectural mentor. “Surely no voice is more thought-provoking than that of this intriguing, perhaps historically important, new thinker?” From the Preface by His Royal Highness, Charles, The Prince of Wales “A New Vitruvius for 21st-Century Architecture and Urbanism?” Dr. Ashraf SalamaChair, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar “Architecture, Salingaros argues, is governed by universal and intuitively understood principles, which have been exemplified by all successful styles and in all civilizations that have left a record of themselves in their buildings. The solution is not to return to the classical styles… the solution is to return to first principles and build within their constraints… ” Dr. Roger Scruton Philosopher, London, UK “A fundamental text, among the most significant of the past several years.” Dr. Vilma Torselli Architect and Author, Milan, Italy “A Theory of Architecture demonstrates how mathematics and the social sciences offer keys to designing a humane architecture. In this brilliant tome Salingaros explains why many modern buildings are neither beautiful nor harmonious and, alternatively, how architects and patrons can employ scale, materials and mathematical logic to design structures which are exciting, nourishing, and visually delightful.” Duncan G. Stroik Professor of Architecture, University of Notre Dame, Indiana “Salingaros explores ways to clarify and formalize our understanding of aesthetic forms in the built environment, using mathematics, thermodynamics, Darwinism, complexity theory and cognitive sciences. Salingaros’ remarkable observations suggest that concepts of complexity and scale can someday provide a full-bodied explanation for both the practice and the appreciation of architecture.” Kim Sorvig Architecture & Planning, University of New Mexico See this book’s Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Architecture Nikos A. Salingaros is an internationally known urbanist and architectural theorist who has studied the scientific bases underlying architecture for thirty years. Utne Reader ranked him as “One of 50 visionaries who are changing your world”, and Planetizen as 11th among “The top 100 urban thinkers of all time”. He is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Drawing on cultural theory, phenomenology and concepts from Asian art and philosophy, this book reflects on the role of interpretation in the act of architectural creation, bringing an intellectual and scholarly dimension to real-world architectural design practice. For practising architects as well as academic researchers, these essays consider interpretation from three theoretical standpoints or themes: play, edification and otherness. Focusing on these, the book draws together strands of thought informed by the diverse reflections of hermeneutical scholarship, the uses of digital media and studio teaching and practice.

Revealing how architects can use human rights as powerful tools for better, fairer urban planning - to create livable, sustainable cities of the future.

Habitat became a hotly debated topic in architecture in the 1950s, when this ecological term was introduced in the avant-garde circles of CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne) and Team 10. Next to rethinking the housing question the notion of habitat brought a profoundly new way to conceive architecture and urban planning. No longer could one consider cities and buildings as discrete, isolate objects but instead they were to be understood as part of a larger whole, an environment or habitat. In light of contemporary environmental awareness Habitat: Ecology Thinking in Architecture offers a transhistorical perspective to reflect on design principles from the recent past, reinvigorate current debates while offering suggestions for future architectural research. The publication contains contributions by Frits Palmboom, Erik Rietveld, Hadas Steiner, Georg Vrachliotis, and Leonardo Zuccaro Marchi, combined with generous visual documentations of the work of renowned architects Aldo van Eyck, Alison and Peter Smithson, Van den Broek & Bakema, and many more.

An innovative examination of how material practices and constructed environments have shaped cultures.

Conditional design is the sequel to Operative Design. This book will further explore the operative in a more detailed, intentional, and perhaps functional manner. Spatially, the conditional is the result of the operative. It is not a blind result however. Both terms work together to satisfy a formal manipulation through a set of opportunities for elements such as connections and apertures.