Architecture in an Age of Uncertainty 不稳定期的建筑

在过去的二十年中，经济泡沫膨胀，全球建筑支出达到高潮。在两个完善的资本积累和偏远地区的中心，大胆的建筑项目兴起，而迄今为止更常见的与美国资本主义相关的摩天大楼似乎可以收拾并搬迁到迪拜和上海。当然，在过去几年里，情况发生了很大变化。在以前自由消费的迪拜，世界上最高的建筑现在以阿布扎比总统的名字命名，他在最后一刻提供债务融资。在美国各个城市，住房价格已经下跌，并且已经准备好进行商业重建，这可能不会再持续十年。许多其他国家也不难发现类似的故事。在繁荣时期膨胀的建筑公司正在以惊人的速度抛弃员工。在经济不稳定的背景下（及其伴随的社会和政治后果），这一编辑的卷汇集了学者，评论家和建筑师，以讨论当前的不确定状态。建筑的实践和纪律。这些章节分为三个主要的研究领域：经济学，实践和技术。在这个更大的框架内，作者探讨了安全，生态设计，灾难架构，建筑实践的未来以及社会设计实践的道德义务等问题。在这样做时，它认为这一时期实际上为建筑提供了一个有价值的自我反思时刻，可以探索建筑理论和实践的替代方向，而不是继续采用资本主义繁荣和富裕所培育的方法。
In the past two decades economic bubbles inflated and architectural spending around the globe reached fever pitch. In both well-established centers of capital accumulation and far-flung locales, audacious building projects sprang up, while the skyscraper, heretofore more commonly associated with American capitalism, seemed as if it might pack up and relocate to Dubai and Shanghai.Of course, much has changed in the past couple of years. In formerly free-spending Dubai, the tallest building in the world is now is named after the president of Abu Dhabi after he stepped in with last-minute debt financing. In cities across the United States, housing prices have nose-dived and cleared lots sit ready for commercial redevelopment that likely won't take place for another decade. Similar stories are not hard to find in many other nations. Architecture firms that swelled in flush days are jettisoning employees at a startling rate.In the context of economic instability (and its attendant social and political consequences), this edited volume brings together scholars, critics, and architects to discuss the present state of uncertainty in the practice and discipline of architecture. The chapters are organized into three main areas of inquiry: economics, practice, and technology. Within this larger framework, authors explore issues of security, ecological design, disaster architecture, the future of architectural practice, and the ethical obligations of the social practice of design. In doing so, it argues that this period has actually afforded architecture a valuable moment of self-reflection, where alternative directions for both the theory and practice of architecture might be explored rather than continuing with an approach which was so nurtured by capitalist prosperity and affluence.