theory

This fully online lecture series focused on the ever-growing need for precision and efficiency within the architectural practice. The goal of this event was to inspire a conversation on different understandings and meanings of the word “exactitude” within the context of contemporary and future architectural practice through lectures and discussions with both academics and practitioners within the field of architecture.

The contrast between living conditions in Paris and its struggling suburbs is unsettling. The studio investigated the potential means to transform the living conditions in the Cites HLM—areas of concentrated housing projects at the outskirts of the Parisian urban agglomeration—by considering two scales of operation: the larger urban/suburban scale and the smaller scale of housing complexes.

The paper looks into the disjointed body of the suburbs that surround the city of Paris in search of markers of public life. The paper presents a hybrid model of research and design that aims at creating better public spaces in those areas through careful, phased operations.

The selection of papers republished in the present volume, which comprises the fourth in the special anthology series of The Journal from the last decade (2004–2013), span from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. They present a diverse set of intentions, methods and visual and verbal evidence by architects and artists testing and redefining the boundaries of architectural representation and architecture itself.

Starting with the broader edges of Francesco’s written work and steadily penetrating the fantastic world of his drawings, the book examines his singular formulation of the act of drawing and its significance in the context of the Renaissance.