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László Moholy-Nagy and Alvar Aalto’s Connections: Between Biotechnik and Umwelt
Full text linkDeparting from the fact that László Moholy-Nagy’s Von Material zu Architektur (1929), had been an important source of inspiration for Alvar Aalto, this article examines the affinities between László Moholy-Nagy and Alvar Aalto’s intellectual positions. The article places emphasis on two particular ideas: how Aalto and Moholy-Nagy conceived the connection of biology with standardization and technology and its relationship to light and perception. Special attention is paid to the notions of “flexible standardisation” and rationalisation in Aalto’s thought, as well as to his belief that nature and standardization should be conceived are closely interconnected. In regard to their shared intellectual development, the article sheds light on the first encounters of the two men including: their meeting at the second Congrès International de l’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in 1929; the June 1931 Finish meeting of Aino Marsio-Aalto, Alvar Aalto, Moholy-Nagy and Ellen Frank; the June 1931 exchanges between Aalto and Moholy-Nagy during the inner circle CIAM meeting in Berlin; and the common stay of the Aaltos and Moholy-Nagy in London in 1933 are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on Aalto’s “The Reconstruction of Europe is the Key Problem for the Architecture of Our Time”, in which he argued that standardization in architecture should draw upon biological models. 
In Search of a Cultural Background: The Recommended Reading Lists of Alfred Lawrence Kocher and the Beauty of Utility in 1920s America
Full text linkThe modernist architect and critic, Alfred Lawrence Kocher, proposed and commented on many bibliographical references in the Architectural Record in the years 1924-25. Recent studies on American architecture of the 1920s and 1930s have recognized the peculiar character of modernism in the United States and have gone in search of its cultural and social roots. However, Kocher’s extensive lists have so far been completely overlooked. They were based for the most part on the correspondence he exchanged with a number of American and British architects and George Bernard Shaw: he had sent to them a circular letter, asking for recommendations on texts on background literature that a young architect should know. The unpublished correspondence that Kocher had with Louis Sullivan and the 19 texts on “Aesthetics and Theory of Architecture” are analyzed in particular by the author.
Although from 1927 onwards Kocher became a passionate supporter of European rationalist architecture, his bibliographies cannot be considered a conscious foundational literature on modernism and modernity. They rather give an idea of the ‘cultural trunk’ on which the discussion on modern European architecture was going to be grafted; they help to illuminate the scene on which American architects moved in the mid-1920s. In some of the texts, the pragmatic notion of utility shines through, as ? sometimes connectedly ? does the concept of a creative act as a free, ‘natural’ act, which derived from American transcendentalism. Independent from Kocher’s will, a line of thought is even identifiable, through which one can explain the apparently contradictory combination of ‘maximum of utility’ and ‘maximum of free creativity’, openly advocated by the skyscraper architect Raymond Hood at the end of the 1920s. Such way of thinking was based on the recognition of the beauty of utility. 
"Urbanistic Architecture" According to Raul Lino: Visions of the Portuguese City in the First Half of the 20th Century (1900-1948)
Full text linkOver a period of nearly one hundred years, Raul Lino (1879-1974) experienced the profound political, social and economic changes that marked the twentieth century in Portugal. Having been born during the Constitutional Monarchy (1822-1910), he lived through the First Republic (1910-1926), the Military Dictatorship (1926-1933), the Second Republic, or Estado Novo (New State, 1933-1974), and died shortly after the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, at the dawning of the Third Republic. He was an architect who published prolifically in Portugal, having become known through his advocacy of the Campanha da casa Portuguesa (Portuguese House Campaign), which provoked a great deal of controversy. The debate peaked with the Polémica da casa Portuguesa (Polemic of the Portuguese house) at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1970, after the inauguration of the retrospective exhibition on Raul Lino. He is less known for the quality of his transversal synthesis conceived between urbanism, architecture, the decorative arts, and its underlying affirmation of an idea of the city, which we conjecture from our analysis of his narrative. This analysis concentrates on eleven case studies that encompasses architectural projects, urbanistic plans and technical advice limited to the first half of the 20th century. The broad, cross-disciplinary position of Lino was defended in the same year as the First National Architecture Congress (1948), whose proposals ratified in Portugal the orthodoxy principles of modern architecture and urban planning for the new universal man-type, established in 1933 by the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Quoting Aristotle, Raul Lino conceived the city as the locus of happiness, shaping forms of consensus between tradition and modernity by means of an architecture at the scale of man and in proportion to his circumstance, consistently outlining a modern possibility of continuity
Architectural Interventions to Mitigate Occupational Stress Among Office Workers
Full text linkStress is one issue that affects the health and well-being of every building occupant. The negative effects of stress are more pronounced in workplaces, where stress can act as a major agent of disease and an impediment to employee productivity and satisfaction. The underlying causes of occupational stress are varied and include job insecurity, extended hours, excessive workload, altercations within the organization, tight deadlines, changes in responsibilities, and lack of autonomy, among others. One of the factors that can contribute to overall occupational stress is the working environment itself—a factor that can be mitigated by design. While occupational stress may arise from a multiplicity of causes, designers have numerous interventions they can employ to decrease it.
The literature on occupational health, well-being, satisfaction, and productivity is broad and multifaceted; however, this paper is limited to exploring stress factors that correlate with the built environment and focuses on employees who are experiencing a high rate of stress in office buildings as the target group. To address these issues, supporting literature was explored to identify environmental interventions that could reduce stress or enhance the stress-coping abilities of workers in offices by improving the environmental quality of the built environment.
This article explores the following questions: How does space cause people to experience mental stress? In what ways can the built environment itself be a generator of stress? What are the main environmental factors in offices that can mitigate the stress levels of employees or help them to recover more easily from work-related stress? To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand the causes and mechanisms of chronic stress, including work-related stressors, and to identify the factors in the built environment that can be associated with occupational stress. The present paper is based on concurrent analyses of supporting literature in the rather different fields of architecture, public health, psychology, management, and environmental studies. The outcome is an identified set of practical strategies that provide solutions for healthier and more productive workplaces. By concentrating on measures that can reduce employee stress levels, these strategies can be used as a source for evidence-based workplace designs
The Outside In: The intensification of landscape in the Anthropocene
Full text linkDegradation of ecosystem services, scarcity of resources and the erosion of the planet's capability to absorb waste is of immediate concern. This situation is novel in its speed, its global and local scale and its threat to the planet and its people. Inspired by the recent discourse of the Anthropocene, this paper explores the convergence of human and nature as they confront generative and destructive forces in two distinctly different settings. Using a case-study approach, this paper adopts the cyborg landscape as a conceptual framework to address the interconnectedness of systems, and scale and poetic brief to accommodate the environment while supporting the needs of our contemporary society. By using nature's generative capacities as well as its destructive tendencies and by blurring the disciplinary boundaries between interior architecture and landscape architecture, this paper considers two different locations in New Zealand: a post-industrial site on Auckland's urban waterfront and a remote active volcanic site located on White Island. It finds opportunity to examine intensified inhabitation through acts of immersion and extraction in the "new normal” where nature's interrelated systems and the artifice of the Anthropocene create innovative and dynamic possibilities. It concludes that the creation of a link between natural processes and responsive technologies can provide solutions to address the complexity of climate change
Exploring Multiple Disciplines in Building Design Practice
Full text linkWhile there are numerous benefits to working in teams comprising multiple disciplines, we do not have sufficient documented information on the functioning of multi-disciplinary teams in the building design context. As functioning impacts project outcomes, an understanding of the operation of building design teams comprising multiple disciplines is important.
To contribute to the body of knowledge that addresses this gap, this paper examines literature on disciplinary types and team performance. Using an analytic framework identified in literature, this paper studies the organizational and social aspects of building design practice in order to shed light on the ways in which the multiple disciplines involved building design work together. Findings presented in this paper suggest that building design teams combine and integrate knowledge, skills and capabilities in a multidisciplinary manner. In addition, this paper discusses four social and organizational characteristics of multidisciplinary building design teams – the project delivery approach, disciplinary roles, preexisting social and professional relationships, and location and geographic proximity – and documents their impacts on team functioning.  
Design Implications of Model-Generated Urban Data
Full text linkThe staggering complexity of urban environment and long timescales in the causal mechanisms prevent designers to fully understand the implications of their design interventions. In order to investigate these causal mechanisms and provide measurable trends, a model that partially replicates urban complexity has been developed. Using a cellular automata approach to model land use types and markets for products, services, labour and property, the model has enabled numerical experiments to be carried out. The results revealed causal mechanisms and performance metrics obtained in a much shorter timescale than the real-life processes, pointing to a number of design implications for urban environments
Data, Data Everywhere, Not a Lot in Sync: Reconciling Visual Meaning With Data
Full text linkUp to 100 billion devices will be seeking to visually map out our existence over the internet by 2020 (UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser 2014). Just as the urban is a forcefield "of spatial transformations... that takes many different morphological forms” (Brenner 2014), this paper explores another underlying forcefield: our visual relationship with data. The most important piece of data, the individual, exists in the city as both prey and predator; having evolved from a "passive aesthetic view of the city” (Appleyard 1979, 144); transformed through shared territory (Evans and Jones 2008); and forged into impressively intricate sets of power relations through collective intentionality (Searle 2011). Through the presentation of self (Goffman, 1969, cited in Appleyard 1979, 146) we inhabit another home: the digital; in which we are simultaneously co-existent and removed by synchronisation of data. Traditionally, the software authoring the physical production of ‘space/hardware' has been value driven (Raban, 1974, 128, cited in Appleyard 1979, 146). In a parallel universe, algorithms drive the data. For Ellis (2012) it is in the software, that meaning resides. What then is the allure of data to the individual? And what is the allure of the individual to data? It lies arguably in the perception of power and control through meaning (Appleyard, Searle et al.). We seek in the new reality to "discover where the real power lies” (Appleyard 1979, 146). Curiously, the power of data appears to increase the irrelevancy of ownership, between "ours” and "theirs” (Appleyard 1979, 152). This paper analyses past, present, and future states of data production. The data we get from data; data produced from objects; and objects produced from data. In closing, a speculative working hypothesis is presented of visual data production, which hopefully encourages further research reconciling data with meaning in the context of visual sustainability
Design Developer Competition in Stockholm: A case study on innovation, architecture, and affordable housing
Full text linkThis case study examines a developer competition held in Stockholm in 2013-2014 organized by the municipal government. The objective was to develop good and affordable housing for young citizens. Fifteen design teams took part in the competition. The jury compared two different proposals in the final evaluation: one with separate rooms linked to a collective space and one that consisted of small housing units. This sorting of design proposals in two main categories had a major impact on the judging in the competition. The jury declared the solution with small housing units as the winner, which reinforced the overall category as the appropriate direction for the design solution.
There are three typical key players in the competition: the organizer, the jury, and the design teams. The organizer was responsible for the objective and terms presented in the brief. The jury was responsible to assign a winner. Architects, builders, and developers responded to the task by organizing design-teams and producing architectural design solutions. They had to understand affordability as both cost (rent level) and architectural design (area-effective apartments).
The competition in Stockholm was investigated in a case study. Research data was collected from archives and through questionnaires answered by jury members and design teams. Methods used for analyzing documents and design solutions were close reading and architectural criticism.
Twenty-two architectural students studied the competition in a course. In this case study, I compare how the professional jury evaluated the proposals to jury reports from the students focusing on innovative solutions. The professional jury and the student juries used the same criteria for judging but appointed different winners. The students preferred the solution with collective living. One explanation for this difference can be found in the structure of the evaluation process.
The results of the study can be summarized in ten conclusions that deal with sorting and ranking of design proposals, criteria for judging, marketing of the competition, uncertainty and knowledge, motives for competing, innovation, and the competition as a tool for the political ambition of the public organizers. The result produced new knowledge. There are few studies focusing on developer competition as the production of design proposals and architectural quality
The Universal Factory: Data Production and Platforms
Full text linkCritical data studies have made great strides in bringing together data analysts and urban design, providing an extensible concept which is useful in visualizing the role of local and planetary data networks. But in the light of the experience of Sidewalk Labs, critical data studies need a further push. As smart cities, algorithmic urbanisms, and sensorial regimes inch closer and closer to reality, critical data studies remain woefully blind to economic and political issues. Data remains undertheorized for its economic content as a commodity, and the political ramifications of the data assemblages remain locked in a proto-political schema of good and bad uses of this vast network of data collection, analysis, research, and organization. This paper attempts to subject critical data studies to a rigorous critique by deepening its relationship to the history thus far of Sidewalk Labs' project in Quayside, Toronto. It is broken into sections. The first section discusses the material reality of Kitchin and Lauriault's (2014) data assemblages and data landscapes. The second section investigates data itself and what its ‘inherent' value means in an economic sense. The third section looks at the way the understanding of data promoted by the data assemblage effects smart city design. The fourth section examines the role of the designer in shepherding this vision, and moreover the data assemblage, into existence