The Things Around Us
A selection of books to accompany the exhibition The Things Around Us: 51N4E and Rural Urban Framework, in our main galleries, from 16 September 2020 to 19 September 2021.
RUF and 51N4E work at the seams of urbanization, with projects situated in transitional settlements in Ulaanbaatar, in the new vernacular of rural China, in the transforming centres of Western European cities and in Albania’s shifting public spaces. Comparing their research and design processes, this exhibition and publication question the extents and certainties of architecture against backdrops of indeterminate notions of citizenship, unstable stages of urbanization, and insecure economies and ecologies.
The Things Around Us: 51N4E and Rural Urban Framework
The architectural offices 51N4E and Rural Urban Framework operate at the seams of urbanization, with projects situated in transitional settlements in Ulaanbaatar, in the new vernacular of rural China, in the transforming centres of Western European cities and in Albania’s...
CAD 35.00
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As found houses: Experiments from self-builders in rural China
In rural China, an informal wave of building catalysed by economic and social developments has rendered some villages unrecognisable. This building boom, taking place in a context of limited regulations, has created densities more often found in urban areas. At...
CAD 44.00
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Rural Urban Framework: Transforming the Chinese countryside
Rural Urban Framework is a work group at the University of Hong Kong that not only researches the far-reaching changes of the last thirty years in China's rural areas, but has also realized concrete projects aimed at improving supply and...
CAD 49.95
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How Things Meet: 51n4e, Falma Fshazi, Stefano Graziani
Brussels-based 51N4E deal with matters of architectural design, concept development, and strategic spatial transformations. Headed by Johan Anrys and Freek Persyn, the office was founded in 1998 and aspires to contribute to social and urban transformation. This photo-novel tells the...
CAD 80.00
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Construire Bruxelles: architectures et espaces urbains, 44 projets en Europe
À l’instar de toutes les métropoles européennes, Bruxelles fait face à de grands défis urbains et sociaux : démographie et flux migratoires, économie urbaine, mobilité, équipements publics. De Copenhague à Tirana, de Londres à Madrid, en passant par Milan, Zurich, Lyon...
CAD 62.00
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Homecoming: Contextualizing, materializing and practicing the rural in China
Young Chinese architects are designing compelling alternatives to China's rapid urbanization between tradition and the future. Homecoming presents work by an emerging generation of Chinese architects that uses unique design and working approaches to resist generic mass construction and foreign...
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51N4E: Double or nothing
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51N4E: Double or nothing
51N4E is a Brussels-based architectural practice led by Johan Anrys, Freek Persyn and Peter Swinnen. Founded in 1998, it has drawn increasing attention and renown through projects for the C-mine cultural centre in Genk, the Groeningemuseum and the TID Tower...
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AD Designing the rural: a global countryside in Flux
The rural is not what it used to be. No longer simply a site for agricultural production for the city, the relationship between the rural and urban has become much more complex. Where is the rural, and what role does...
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Terres chinoises : Mutations et défis urbains en milieu rural
Etude du phénomène d'urbanisation massive des territoires ruraux en Chine en cours depuis le début du XXIe siècle, piloté par un plan national d'édification des campagnes socialistes. Les mêmes principes urbains sont ainsi appliqués systématiquement à l'ensemble du pays en...
CAD 52.95
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Vibrant matter: a political ecology of things
In Vibrant Matter, political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of...
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The responsible object: a history of the design ideology for the future
Within the design discipline, calls for sustainability and social responsibility have become some of the most common rallying cries of the past decade, generating countless new products, materials and technologies—all designed to change the course of our future. Adjectives like...
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Civic City : notes pour le design d'une ville sociale, cahiers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Quel est le rôle du design dans la production de l’espace urbain ? Le design souhaite-t-il n’être qu’un élément de la colonisation mercantile des espaces sociaux ? Le design est-il capable de bâtir une ville citoyenne sur les ruines idéologiques...
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A+T: Is this rural? Architecture markers in the countryside
What do we call rural architecture? This new series questions what we recognise as the rural context in architecture, the limits of which are becoming increasingly diffuse today. The first instalment identifies projects consisting of a range of scales, each...
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Waste (object lessons)
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Waste (object lessons)
Though we try to imagine otherwise, waste is every object, plus time. Whatever else an object is, it's also waste-or was, or will be. All that is needed is time or a change of sentiment or circumstance. Waste is not...
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Architecture without architects
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Architecture without architects
Bernard Rudofsky steps outside the narrowly defined discipline that has governed our sense of architectural history and discusses the art of building as a universal phenomenon. He introduces the reader to communal architecture--architecture produced not by specialists but by the...
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Participation is risky: approaches to joint creative processes
Equated with notions of public interaction, the term "participation" is often used very loosely, especially within the contexts of new media and innovation research. Among a recent generation of artists and designers working in new media, there is an increasing...
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The rural
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The rural
An investigation through texts, interviews, and documentation of the complex relationship between the urban, the rural, and contemporary cultural production. What, and where, is “the Rural”? From the rocks that break a farmer's plough on a field in Japan to...
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Hilde Bouchez: A wild thing
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Hilde Bouchez: A wild thing
Everyday objects can have an extra dimension or quality that has no relation to functionality, form, a concept or a trend. So what is it that gives a particular glass an 'aura'? Why should one thing have more shine, passion...
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Rewriting architecture: 10 + 1 actions for an adaptive architecture
Contemporary thinkers from Hito Steyerl to Atelier Bow-Wow explore how architecture can adapt to- rather than replace- the existing built environment. This volume considers existing urban contexts as an opportunity to use the potential of place, and the creativity...
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Reform! Essays on the political economy of urban form Vol. 4
Forget revolution – it’s time for reform. As the authors of this essay collection argue, sometimes the most effective path to meaningful change is to work within existing institutions and slowly, surely, push for it. This is all the more...
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Architects after architecture: alternative pathways for practice
What can you do with a degree in architecture? Where might it take you? What kind of challenges could you address? Architects After Architecture reframes architecture as a uniquely versatile way of acting on the world, far beyond that of...
CAD 47.00