Hace algunos meses, la revista Volume publicó su número Unsolicited Architecture, en un momento más que oportuno para la profesión del arquitecto. Un momento en el que todos [o la gran mayoría] nos cuestionamos las diversas vías del hacer arquitectónico, ya que a raíz de las dificultades económicas que atraviesa el planeta, ha surgido una tendencia reflexiva en torno a nuestra profesión: ¿cuáles son los lineamientos a seguir para un arquitecto? ¿cuál es el papel del arquitecto en la sociedad?

El post completo en Arkinet.

“What defines the Internet is its social architecture. It’s the living environment that counts, the live interaction, not just the storage and retrieval procedure.” -Geert Lovink, 2005

Networking is revealed as the new way to explore the world. The ties in between users from different places help to create a new cartography, where new portions of terra incognita can be used to create new fields for data and information that can help to reduce the gap between developed and undeveloped countries. In this scenario, it is mandatory to invent new methods, fitting with the singular nature of this undiscovered new world. Internet is the new territory where people can innovate and be visionary and endlessly experimental. Andrew Maynard in one of their projects talks about “Architecture as an art form where people are forced to interact”. And one of the new forms of interaction is Web 2.0.

The complete post can be read here.

“Architecture is something different from building. So what makes it different? [...] And there is something else. The more concepts and ideas formulated by the architect have an immediacy for contemporary conditions of living, thinking, working, the higher we will value it as architecture. We want architecture to participate in the crucial changes affecting our lives, and not simply form a backdrop to them.”

Lebbeus Woods in What is Architecture?

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“It seems odd that in order to make a point, one often has to drag out historic precedents such as Cedric Price in order to illustrate the importance of critical, open source planning. Cedric’s Fun Palace description still, today, feels highly contemporary: “The varied and ever ever-changing activities will determine the form of the site. To enclose these activities the anti-building must have equal flexibility. Thus the prime motivation of the area is caused by the people and their activities and the resultant form is continually dependent on them.”

-Markus Miessen