Architecture has always been intimately intertwined with its social, political, and economic contexts; major events in world history have had correspondingly dramatic effects on the discipline. The Great Depression, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Hurricane Katrina, for example, were all catalysts for architectural response and resulted in a diversification of the architect’s portfolio. Yet far too often, architects simply react to changes in the world, rather than serving as agents of change themselves. This issue takes a broader view, using the concept of agency to explore the future of architecture. The retreat from liability, the barricade of theory, and the silos of specialization have generated a field that is risk-averse and reactive, rather than bold and active. Instead of assuming that architects can only throw up their hands in despair, the editors invite them to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

Perspecta 45: Agency

‘A Conversation South of the Border’

Publications

This edited volume presents contributions from a variety of disciplines, including architecture, engineering, and related fields. Due to the ever-increasing focus on sustainable technologies, alternative energy sources, and global social and urban issues, interest in the energy systems for cities of the future has grown in a wealth of disciplines. The book includes new findings on the city of the future from the macro to the micro level, ranging from urban sustainability to indoor urbanism, and from strategies for cities and global climate change to material properties.

Cities for Smart Environmental and Energy Futures

‘Urban Parangolé’

This publication seeks to enlarge the conventional definition of ‘social design’ by introducing a series of practices, tactics, and speculations presented by international experts in the field. The book reviews the contributions to the ‘Social Design: Public Action’ international symposium held at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2013, which questioned the transformational power of new forms of the social, political, and cultural within the urban realm. The editors aim to connect artistic research and scientific knowledge with hands-on spatial production, interweaving the discourse into the very fabric of society.

Social Design - Public Action: Arts as Urban Innovation

‘Smart Options for the Informal City’

To be a radical is to inspire both admiration and contempt. Radical change is by definition far-reaching and fundamental. In other words, it offers a prospect equally liberating or terrifying depending on your vantage point and stake in the prevailing system. In the expanded field of architecture, the radical repertoire – provocation, agitation, infiltration, subversion, emancipation – is a cyclically recurring phenomenon. Urbanization generates a shifting landscape of winners and losers, and this dichotomy inevitably gives birth to alternative modes of practice, thought, and action.

Title	UABB 2015 Volume II: Radical Urbanism
Authors	Alfredo Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner & Alexis Kalagas
Release	February 2016
Editor	Gideon Fink Shapiro
Publisher	Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture
Pages	166

‘Free Radicals’

UABB 2015 Volume II: Radical Urbanism