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Architecture, Processes( )Systems, Transdisciplinary, Urbanism

The Place of Architecture The Architecture of Place – Part I: The Identity of Places   

July 20, 2024

In the article The Identity of a Place: Place-Based Interventions Between Land and Society, I argued for the necessity of a place-based document or report—a tool that could assist practitioners working with places (architects, planners, policymakers, social scientists, and others) in making informed decisions whenever the character of a place must be understood from a holistic perspective—or, as I prefer…

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Processes( )Systems, Transdisciplinary, Urbanism

On the Modernity of Patrick Geddes (1854-1932)

July 18, 2024

1. Prologue: A New Vision of Nature ‘Since the mid-nineteenth century, many of the traditional certainties of science began to dissolve under the impact of new discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology… The rigid boundaries separating these disciplines started to blur as a convergence emerged between the physical, biological, and even social sciences. Researchers began to observe striking similarities between…

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Architecture, Transdisciplinary

On Place and Site

June 12, 2024

This article is about a distinction we often tend to overlook: the difference between ‘place’ and ‘site’. Although both terms refer to a territory or land, I argue, as others have before me,[1] that the shift from ‘place’ to ‘site’ involves a loss of meaning, which is not just a matter of scale, as a site is typically a specific…

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Processes( )Systems, Transdisciplinary

The Identity of a Place: Place-Based Interventions Between Land and Society

January 11, 2024

A few weeks ago, I responded to a call issued by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in partnership with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their Multidisciplinary Research Project. This initiative seeks to promote ‘new modes for collective research.’[1] In its sixth edition, the program proposed the theme In the Hurricane, On the Land, inviting participants to explore the…

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Architecture

The Alexander-Eisenman Debate on the Background of Different Spatial Theories

November 22, 2023

In 1982, Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman, renowned architects and theorists, engaged in a witty, biting, and ironic debate on harmony in architecture — ‘Contrasting Concepts of Harmony in Architecture’ — at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The debate was published in the Italian magazine Lotus International n° 40 (1983), and later reprinted in Studio Works 7, by the…

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