This book is an approachable guide for students and professionals to learn parametric modeling through the lens of architectonics, allowing readers to pair fundamental ideas about architecture with parametric thinking. Architectonics and Parametric Thinking begins by clearly positioning the potentials of parametric design through a series of chapters written by leaders in their respective industries. This helps to situate the vast potential of parametric softwares, allowing the reader to understand the full range of what is made possible by working computationally. Following this theoretical introduction, the book presents a manual that walks readers through the step-by-step construction of parametric modeling scripts built through an architectonic lens using clear, compelling diagrams. Each of these diagrams provide textual accompaniment that describes how each new portion of the script is transforming the algorithm as a whole, as well as diagrams that show the physical transformation that is taking place as a result of the script’s evolution. Parametric modeling is radically transforming the design disciplines and will become the primary way designer’s generate new products moving forward. Written and expertly designed for architecture students and professionals, this book provides an interactive approach to teaching the basics of parametric thinking in relation to architecture and design.

This book is an approachable guide for students and professionals to learn parametric modeling through the lens of architectonics, allowing readers to pair fundamental ideas about architecture with parametric thinking. Architectonics and Parametric Thinking begins by clearly positioning the potentials of parametric design through a series of chapters written by leaders in their respective industries. This helps to situate the vast potential of parametric softwares, allowing the reader to understand the full range of what is made possible by working computationally. Following this theoretical introduction, the book presents a manual that walks readers through the step-by-step construction of parametric modeling scripts built through an architectonic lens using clear, compelling diagrams. Each of these diagrams provide textual accompaniment that describes how each new portion of the script is transforming the algorithm as a whole, as well as diagrams that show the physical transformation that is taking place as a result of the script's evolution. Parametric modeling is radically transforming the design disciplines and will become the primary way designer's generate new products moving forward. Written and expertly designed for architecture students and professionals, this book provides an interactive approach to teaching the basics of parametric thinking in relation to architecture and design.

Pulsation in Architecture highlights the role of digital design as the catalyst for a new spatial sensibility related to rhythmic perception. It proposes a novel critical reception of computational architecture based on the ability of digital design to move beyond mere instrumentality, and to engage with core aspects of the discipline: the generative engine of digital architecture reinvigorates a discourse of part-to-whole relationships through the lens of rhythmic affect. There is a paradigm shift in spatial perception due to the intense use of computational techniques and the capacity to morph massive amounts of data in spatial patterns; rhythm plays a pivotal role in the articulation of the topology of buildings, generating the atmospheric character that induces moods and throbbing sensations in space. Pulsation introduces the fundamental animate capacity of living form and reshapes our perception of architectural space across the multiple scales of a project, from digital inception to fabrication. An emerging thread of rhythmic sensibility loosely binds a survey of contemporary design practices, including contributions by Peter Eisenman, Jeff Kipnis, Greg Lynn, UNStudio, Preston Scott Cohen, Reiser + Umemoto, Asymptote, Ali Rahim, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Ruy Klein, Gage / Clemenceau, NOX, Evan Douglis Studio, kokkugia, and MONAD Studio.

Digital technology and architecture have become inseparable, with new approaches and methodologies not just affecting the workflows and practice of architects but shaping the very character of architecture. This compendious work offers a wide-ranging orientation to the new landscape with its opportunities, its challenges, and its vast potential. Contributing Editors: Ludger Hovestadt, Urs Hirschberg, Oliver Fritz Contributors: Diana Alvarez-Marin, Jakob Beetz, André Borrmann, Petra von Both, Harald Gatermann, Marco Hemmerling, Ursula Kirschner, Reinhard König, Dominik Lengyel, Bob Martens, Frank Petzold, Sven Pfeiffer, Miro Roman, Kay Römer, Hans Sachs, Philipp Schaerer, Sven Schneider, Odilo Schoch, Milena Stavric, Peter Zeile, Nikolaus Zieske Writer: Sebastian Michael atlasofdigitalarchitecture.com

This informative and engaging book uses a variety of inventive infographics to take an unusual look at architecture in a way that would not be possible with words and images alone. Through a variety of different infographics it compares, for example, the range of materials and colours used by different architects, the relative locations of their buildings, who influenced who, and which architects are the most discussed. It also approaches architecture from more unconventional angles with spreads that show the kinds of architecture favoured by dictators, the networks of love affairs that architects got entangled in; the defining facial features of famous architects and so on. Irreverent and entertaining, this book will appeal to all those with an interest in architecture or infographics.

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.

This book shifts the frame of reference for today’s network- and structure oriented discussions from the applied computational tools of the 20th century back to the abstractness of 19th century mathematics. It re-reads George Boole, Richard Dedekind, Hermann Grassmann and Bernhard Riemann in a surprising manner. EigenArchitecture argues for a literacy of the digital, displacing the role of geometrical craftsmanship. Thus, architecture can be liberated from today’s economical, technocratic and bureaucratic straight jackets: from physicalistic optimization, sociological balancing, and ideological naturalizations. The book comprises a programmatic text on the role of technology in architecture, a philosophical text on the generic and on algebraic articulation, and six exemplary projects by postgraduate students in 2012 at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

From the myth of Arcadia through to the twenty-first century, ideas about sustainability – how we imagine better urban environments – remain persistently relevant, and raise recurring questions. How do cities evolve as complex spaces nurturing both urban creativity and the fortuitous art of discovery, and by which mechanisms do they foster imagination and innovation? While past utopias were conceived in terms of an ideal geometry, contemporary exemplary models of urban design seek technological solutions of optimal organisation. The Venice Variations explores Venice as a prototypical city that may hold unique answers to the ancient narrative of utopia. Venice was not the result of a preconceived ideal but the pragmatic outcome of social and economic networks of communication. Its urban creativity, though, came to represent the quintessential combination of place and institutions of its time. Through a discussion of Venice and two other works owing their inspiration to this city – Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital – Sophia Psarra describes Venice as a system that starts to resemble a highly probabilistic ‘algorithm’, that is, a structure with a small number of rules capable of producing a large number of variations. The rapidly escalating processes of urban development around our big cities share many of the motivations for survival, shelter and trade that brought Venice into existence. Rather than seeing these places as problems to be solved, we need to understand how urban complexity can evolve, as happened from its unprepossessing origins in the marshes of the Venetian lagoon to the ‘model city’ that endured a thousand years. This book frees Venice from stereotypical representations, revealing its generative capacity to inform potential other ‘Venices’ for the future.

As a beginning design student, you need to learn to think like a designer, to visualize ideas and concepts, as well as objects. In the second edition of Diagramming the Big Idea, Jeffrey Balmer and Michael T. Swisher illustrate how you can create and use diagrams to clarify your understanding of both particular projects and organizing principles and ideas. With accessible, step-by-step exercises that interweave full color diagrams, drawings and virtual models, the authors clearly show you how to compose meaningful and useful diagrams. As you follow the development of the four project groups drawn from the authors’ teaching, you will become familiar with architectural composition concepts such as proportion, site, form, hierarchy and spatial construction. In addition, description and demonstration essays extend concepts to show you more examples of the methods used in the projects. Whether preparing for a desk critique, or any time when a fundamental insight can help to resolve a design problem, this new and expanded edition is your essential studio resource.

The Visual Biography of Color is a first chance at a second look at color, which is so often overlooked in every day living. While other books discuss the phenomenon of color from a cultural perspective, The Visual Biography of Color reveals color through time by using information graphics and other forms of data visualization to visually describe color's cultural role. The book moves the reader through the visible spectrum, as they turn the pages they exist inside of red, then orange, then yellow. In red, they encounter the evolution of red states in the U.S., the compilation of every red subway line in every major world city collapsed onto a single page, and they see a radiant wheel that displays every major song that has red in its title. As they continue to move through the book they'll read about how artists, musicians, and other great thinkers have considered individual colors. Color is vital as a communicating cultural mechanism. Instead of a pure revelation of conceit, the book embraces what one might consider high-brow and low-brow culture, embracing colloquialisms and idioms that reveal how deeply embedded the idea of color is in our color full world.