The old opposition between a digital culture of sensuous, ephemeral images and a tectonic culture of pragmatic building has given way to a new collaboration between the two domains, a 'digital tectonics'. Computer linked fabrication techniques of many kinds have become an integral part of the design process, while new digital tools are allowing engineers and architects to understand in far more detail the behaviour of load carrying surfaces, and to generate new architectural forms. Digital and computer-linked design techniques is one of the hottest topics in architecture and in an ever-expanding world of digital technology this book tackles the practical elements of the field.

Guest-edited by Neil Leach What is the impact of digital technologies on the design and analysis of cities? For the last 15 years, the profound impact of computer-aided techniques on architecture has been well charted. From the use of standard drafting packages to the more experimental use of generative design tools and parametric modelling, digital technologies have come to play a major role in architectural production. But how are they helping architects and designers to operate at the urban scale? And how might they be changing the way in which we perceive and understand our cities? Features some of the world’s leading experimental practices, such as Zaha Hadid Architects, R&Sie(n), Biothing and Xefirotarch. Takes in exciting emerging practices, such as moh architects, kokkugia and THEVERYMANY, and work by students at some of the most progressive schools, such as the AA, Dessau Institute of Architecture and RMIT. Contributors include: Michael Batty, Benjamin Bratton, Alain Chiaradia, Manuel DeLanda, Vicente Guallart and Peter Trummer.

In 2007, a jury composed of Greg Lynn (Greg Lynn FORM), Marcos Novak, Jacob van Rijs (MVRDV), Birger Sevaldson (Ocean North), and other celebrated architects will confer the Far Eastern International Digital Design Award (or FEIDAD Award) for the seventh time. Once again this volume presents the prizewinning projects in detail and probes the innovative potential that digital media hold in store for designers. Documented with texts and color illustrations, the projects presented provide an outstanding overview of the international state of the art in digital design. Im Jahr 2007 wird die Jury, die aus Greg Lynn (Greg Lynn FORM), Marcos Novak, Jacob van Rijs (MVRDV), Birger Sevaldson (Ocean North) und anderen renommierten Architekten besteht, den Far Eastern International Digital Design Award (The Feidad Award) zum siebten Mal ausloben. Der Band stellt die pr mierten Projekte wieder ausf hrlich vor und lotet so das innovative Potential aus, das digitale Medien f r Gestaltende bereithalten. Die vorgestellten Projekte, die durch Texte und Farbabbildungen dokumentiert werden, bieten einen hervorragenden berblick ber den internationalen "State of the Art" im Bereich des digitalen Designs.

Digital Poetics celebrates the architectural design exuberance made possible by new digital modelling techniques and fabrication technologies. By presenting an unconventional and original ’humanistic’ theory of CAD (computer-aided design), the author suggests that beyond the generation of innovative engineering forms, digital design has the potential to affect the wider complex cultural landscape of today in profound ways. The book is organised around a synthetic and hybrid research methodology: a contemporary, propositional and theoretical discursive investigation and a design-led empirical research. Both methods inform a critical construct that deals with the nature, forms, and laws of digitality within a contemporary architectural discourse that affects practice and academia. The chapters spiral at, from, towards, around, outside-inwards and back inside-out digitality, its cognitive phenomena, spatial properties and intrinsic capabilities to achieve, or at least, approach Digital Poetics. The book presents speculative and small-scale constructed projects that pioneer techniques and experiments with common 3D and 4D software packages, whereby the focus lies not on the drawing processes and mechanics, but on the agency and impact the image (its reading, experience, interpretation) achieves on the reader and observer. The book also features a preface by Frédéric Migayrou, a philosopher and curator, and one of the most influential cultural engineers of the contemporary international architectural scene. The book is linked to a website, which contains a larger selection of images of some featured projects.

Introducing Architectural Tectonics is an exploration of the poetics of construction. Tectonic theory is an integrative philosophy examining the relationships formed between design, construction, and space while creating or experiencing a work of architecture. In this text, author Chad Schwartz presents an introductory investigation into tectonic theory, subdividing it into distinct concepts in order to make it accessible to beginning and advanced students alike. The book centers on the tectonic analysis of twenty contemporary works of architecture located in eleven countries including Germany, Italy, United States, Chile, Japan, Bangladesh, Spain, and Australia and designed by such notable architects as Tadao Ando, Herzog & de Meuron, Kengo Kuma, Olson Kundig, and Peter Zumthor. Although similarities do exist between the projects, their distinctly different characteristics – location and climate, context, size, program, construction methods – and range of interpretations of tectonic expression provide the most significant lessons of the book, helping you to understand tectonic theory. Written in clear, accessible language, these investigations examine the poetic creation of architecture, showing you lessons and concepts that you can integrate into your own work, whether studying in a university classroom or practicing in a professional office.

Digital Architecture is a particularly dynamic field that is developing through the work of architecture schools, architects, software developers, researchers, technology, users, and society alike. Featuring papers from the First International Conference on Digital Architecture, this book will be of interest to professional and academic architects involved in the creation of new architectural forms, as well as those colleagues working in the development of new computer codes of engineers, including those working in structural, environmental, aerodynamic fields and others actively supporting advances in digital architecture. Expert contributions encompass topic areas such as: Database Management Systems for Design and Construction; Design Methods, Processes and Creativity; Digital Design, Representation and Visualization; Form and Fabric; Computer Integrated Construction and Manufacturing; Human-Machine Interaction; Connecting the Physical and the Virtual Worlds; Knowledge Based Design and Generative Systems; Linking Training, Research and Practice; Web Design Analysis; the Digital Studio; Urban Simulation; Virtual Architecture and Virtual Reality; Collaborative Design; Social Aspects.

these days a computer is as much a part of every household's standard equipment as a refrigerator, and yet the explosion of computer technology in the last several decades has transformed the daily life of every member of society far more than even utopians would ever have allowed themselves to dream. No wonder, then, that from design to production, architecture too is becoming more and more subject to digital influences. The range of those influences stretches from the classical computer programs used in design and presentation to media-supported design processes all the way to computerized production techniques, to say nothing of industrialized bricklayer "robots." From measurement to planning and production, architecture is the product of a closely coordinated digital process chain. What influence do digital design digital design and production methods have on contemporary architecture? How are these methods changing architecture and the way it ist created? Where does the potential of digital media for architecture lie? What are the areas in which every individual firm can begin to use them? What are the advantages of working electronically? How and at what cost can these methods be integrated into the day-to-day work of the professional architect? This publication offers answers to these and many other questions on all aspects of the digital design and construction process.

Exercises and Solutions in Statistical Theory helps students and scientists obtain an in-depth understanding of statistical theory by working on and reviewing solutions to interesting and challenging exercises of practical importance. Unlike similar books, this text incorporates many exercises that apply to real-world settings and provides much more thorough solutions. The exercises and selected detailed solutions cover from basic probability theory through to the theory of statistical inference. Many of the exercises deal with important, real-life scenarios in areas such as medicine, epidemiology, actuarial science, social science, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, environmental health, and sports. Several exercises illustrate the utility of study design strategies, sampling from finite populations, maximum likelihood, asymptotic theory, latent class analysis, conditional inference, regression analysis, generalized linear models, Bayesian analysis, and other statistical topics. The book also contains references to published books and articles that offer more information about the statistical concepts. Designed as a supplement for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, this text is a valuable source of classroom examples, homework problems, and examination questions. It is also useful for scientists interested in enhancing or refreshing their theoretical statistical skills. The book improves readers’ comprehension of the principles of statistical theory and helps them see how the principles can be used in practice. By mastering the theoretical statistical strategies necessary to solve the exercises, readers will be prepared to successfully study even higher-level statistical theory.

Focusing on six leading contemporary architects: Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Bernard Tschumi, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Steven Holl, this book puts forward a unique and insightful analysis of "neo-avant-garde" architecture. It discusses the spectacle and excess which permeates contemporary architecture in reference to the present aesthetic tendency for image making, but does so by applying the tectonic of theatricality discussed by the 19th-century German architect Gottfried Semper. In doing so, it breaks new ground by opening up a dialogue between the study of the past and the design of the present. The work of each discussed architect is seen as addressing a historiographical problem. To this end, and this is the second important aspect of this book, the chosen buildings are discussed in terms of the thematic of the culture of building (the tectonic of column and wall for example) rather the formal, and this through a discussion that is informed by the latest available theories. Having set the aesthetic implication of the processes of the digitalization of architecture, the book's conclusion highlights "strategies" by which architecture might postpone the full consequences of digitalization, and thus the becoming of architecture as ornament on its own right.

The Tectonics of Structural Systems provides an architectural approach to the theory of structural systems. The book combines: structural recommendations to follow during the architectural design of various structural systems and the tectonic treatment of structural recommendations in architecture. Written expressly for students, the book makes structures understandable and useful, providing: practical and useful knowledge about structures a design based approach to the subject of structures and a bridge in the gap between structures and the theory of design. Good architectural examples for each structural system are given in order to demonstrate that tectonics can be achieved by applying technical knowledge about structures. Over 300 illustrations visually unpack the topics being explained, making the book ideal for the visual learner.