Archives

  • Time. As content for designing
    No. 14 (2024)

    In the realm of hard sciences, time is seen as moving forward towards the future, providing a framework for navigating the entropy and disorder of systems.
    Time is seen subjectively in the humanities, as Bergson describes it in terms of recursive cycles exposed via sentient experience. From both angles, humanity is inevitably susceptible to time; either they die from entropic dispersion or depersonalizing repetition.
    Much like science, myth reminds us that time ultimately devours life. But it also points to a possible escape: though Cronus eats his offspring, except for the youngest one, Zeus, who is saved by a stratagem “devised” by his mother Rhea – that is, replacing the baby with a stone. The image of the father suppressing the next generation is then replaced by the myth of the future emerging from the past, when all children are regurgitated by means of another of Zeus’ tricks. Thus, the myth implies that intellect (the trick) and intellectual works (the stones) can transcend time: if human beings cannot endure their extreme transience, they can endure the lesser transience of their “constructions” in time. Born to last either physically or as collective memory, the very essence of architecture engages in a (titanic) survival endeavour. Yet, in an era anchored to the myths of perennial youth, shall we also allow the right to be forgotten?

  • Ardeth #6: CONTINGENCY
    No. 06

    Incorporating contingency into our fundamental thinking about architecture contradicts the way we theorize, practice, and historicize the field. Accidents happen, yet architects rarely let chance play a role in their visions. How contingency play a role in architectural design and thinking? How designers incorporate change in their practice? The forward-facing nature of contingency scholarship, if we give it a name, may embed possible worlds that are more just, more compassionate, and more aware of the inequalities that accompany the uneven distribution of the most vital resource i our times: space. This issue began with the aim of exploring contingency thinking, and is completed from within contingent times, when nothing seems certain and contingency is less a lens than the air we breathe.

  • Ardeth#01
    No. 01

    Unlike the many magazines that revolve around the architectural world, Ardeth concerns neither with outcomes (architecture) nor with the authors (architects). Ardeth concerns instead with their operational work, i.e. projects. The shift from subjects (their good intentions, as taught in Universities and reclaimed in the profession) to objects (the products of design, at work within the social system that contains them) engenders an analytical and falsifiable elaboration of the complex mechanisms that an open practice such as design involves. Through a process of disciplinary redefinition, Ardeth explores the falsifiability of design hypotheses as the object that allows the project to scientifically confront errors and approximations.

     

    For the call for paper clic here:
    http://www.ardeth.eu/callforpapers/

  • COMPETENCY. Architecture and situated knowledge
    No. 10-11 (2022)

    Architectural institutions are reviewing modes of learning and practice of architecture to reflect the changing professional landscape. Schools confront the ever-acute tensions between critical thinking and the market. The training of architects who will likely be working in different contexts requires new frames of reference and paradigms. What competencies should the practitioner of architecture possess to bridge technical and managerial specializations in light of competitiveness and nuances of culture? How do the practices and performances of the profession take into account the hybrids and collaborations that define the broad scope of projects? The dilemma of competency lies in the rigorous study of the conditions and processes of architecture, configuring and situating skills and capabilities.

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