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Title:
Drifting : architecture and migrancy

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$74.95
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Summary:
In an era of globalisation, there is an unprecedented scale and nature of contemporary migrant flows, as well as the flow of goods, capital, ideas, images and technology. This sheer number and mobility of contemporary migrants clearly has massively disruptive effects on traditional modes of dwelling however they were manifest in everyday life. But contemporary migrancy also has important consequences for the way dwelling is conceptualised more generally. This book is concerned with the modes of dwelling that emerge through migrancy; it is also concerned with the effects these modes of dwelling have for dominant conceptions of space and place; and finally, it is interested in the kinds of architectures that become possible if those effects are taken seriously. This book inspects the intersections between architectures of place and flows of migrancy. It does so without seeking to defend the idea of place, nor lament its passing. Rather, this book is an exploration of the often complex and unorthodox modes of dwelling that are emerging precisely from within the ruins of the idea of place. This exploration is informed by post-structuralist analyses of architecture and urbanism, and their representation in media such as film. It focuses on the Pacific Rim as an intensified zone of global flows. Within the Pacific Rim there are complex tensions between the new economies of Asia and the settler nations of Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. These tensions produce difficulties for the narrative of the nation state, and herald conditions that no longer conform to the geo-political norms of the old world.

Title:
Future cities laboratory: Indicia 02

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$45.00
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Summary:
This second volume in the "Future Cities Laboratory Indicia" series focuses on the tools, methods and approaches needed for urban research. In short, following Marshall McLuhan’s famous provocation, the editors focus less on the message and more on the medium of research. This involves retreating from research contents—the topics, themes, questions, hypotheses, insights, ideas, concepts and thoughts—for the moment to consider the materials, methods, tools, techniques and approaches that support them. This change in perspective reveals a rich array of research approaches that include two- and three-dimensional mapping of vegetation, temperature and humidity, in conjunction with point cloud terrestrial and airborne laser-scanning technology; gathering data from sensors and geospatial data and the emergence of “solution spaces” and multi-dimensional complexity science; subject-oriented approaches to behavioral and cognitive decision making in city navigation.

Title:
Future cities laboratory

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$40.00
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Summary:
"Future Cities Laboratory" reports on the same named research program and its mission to shape sustainable future cities through science, by design, in place. It offers a global perspective on cities from the vantage point of the world's most populous and rapidly urbanizing continent: Asia, which also acts as the base of the laboratory. This volume illustrates the richness and diversity of research at the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL). The book, which is the first in a planned series, describes new processes and types of data that are being used both to understand and improve cities. New approaches pioneered by FCL and its partners offer an important method to bridge the gap between knowledge production and action, with the aim of ensuring the sustainability of future cities. To reach this goal, FCL works closely with stakeholders in government, industry and society. The program has developed many simulation tools to help practitioners visualize the social, environmental or economic consequences of particular planning decisions.

Title:
Buildings must die

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$38.95
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Summary:
Buildings, although inanimate, are often assumed to have “life.” And the architect, through the act of design, is assumed to be their conceiver and creator. But what of the “death” of buildings? What of the decay, deterioration, and destruction to which they are inevitably subject? And what might such endings mean for architecture’s sense of itself? In Buildings Must Die, Stephen Cairns and Jane Jacobs look awry at core architectural concerns. They examine spalling concrete and creeping rust, contemplate ruins old and new, and pick through the rubble of earthquake-shattered churches, imploded housing projects, and demolished Brutalist office buildings. Their investigation of the death of buildings reorders architectural notions of creativity, reshapes architecture’s preoccupation with good form, loosens its vanities of durability, and expands its sense of value. It does so not to kill off architecture as we know it, but to rethink its agency and its capacity to make worlds differently. Cairns and Jacobs offer an original contemplation of architecture that draws on theories of waste and value. Their richly illustrated case studies of building “deaths” include the planned and the unintended, the lamented and the celebrated. They take us from Moline to Christchurch, from London to Bangkok, from Tokyo to Paris. And they feature the work of such architects as Eero Saarinen, Carlo Scarpa, Cedric Price, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas and François Roche.