Sustainability of a School-University Partnership in Vietnam: Perspectives from the Practice Architecture Theory

The term or concept of realism seems to be recurring in recent theoretical inquiries, from debates in philosophy and aesthetics to those in theory and practice of architecture. Since 2000, the architectural discourse has been concerned with a wide range of related issues coming from its own post-critical debates on utopianism and realism and the possibility of an 'utopian realism', as suggested by Reinhold Martin (2005). The debates on realism resonate in the architectural theory anew as a reflection on the Manifesto of New Realism by the philosopher Maurizio Ferraris from 2011. The questions of realism vs. postmodernism, "new realism" on the ashes of post-modernism, critical and operative notions of realism and the like, have been asked both through practices of contemporary architecture and through reconsideration of the socialist realism in history and theory of architecture. The thematic issue of SAJ: Architecture Utopia Realism aims to further the ongoing discussion on the relations of architecture with realism and utopia

Modern architecture is a high-tech part of the construction industry with extremely high and fierce competition. In such competition, organizations that effectively use top innovations gain maximum advantages. The highest level of architectural and construction innovations includes software products that use artificial intelligence tools. With the rapid development of digital technologies and increasing requirements for environmental friendliness, functionality and aesthetics of buildings, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming not just a trend, but a necessity. Architectural theory and practice are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence as a tool that can revolutionize the way objects are designed, built and managed. Today, technologies have been implemented and successfully used in the analysis, modeling and design of the architectural environment, which optimize the processes of functioning of cities and individual buildings. A large block of programs is devoted to energy saving, resource saving, optimization of planning solutions and transport networks, which help to improve the design while simultaneously increasing the operational characteristics of buildings and many, many others. This article is devoted to the topic of the relationship between the types of activities of an architect and the corresponding software products that use artificial intelligence. As a result of the study, ideas were formed about the goals, objectives, capabilities and features of the work of software complexes equipped with artificial intelligence tools. The relevance of the use of AI in architectural practice, theory and pedagogy was proven. Promising directions for further research were identified. One of the results of the study, which is of certain scientific interest, is the combination of architectural specializations and software products using AI in a single model. The proposed model is considered as a prototype of the site interface, which allows you to quickly and easily select a software product that best matches the type of task being performed through a system of interactive links. A further development of this research is the connection of the proposed site with an active blog that connects the country's universities with global stakeholders.

The theory of practice architectures has been emerging in common parlance in qualitative research investigating the nature and conduct of education (and other) practices since it was first introduced in 2008. The theory was developed to capitalize on “the practice turn” in social life and organizational activity. Since its inception, the theory of practice architectures has become an influential and widely utilized theory, among the broad family of practice theories focused on the social, cultural, and material world. The theory has been taken up in many countries and in many fields—including education, health, agriculture, environmental science, and business—legitimizing it as a robust way to conceptualize the sociality, situatedness, and happeningness of practices associated with participating in the social world. As a basic premise, the theory of practice architectures attests that in everyday life- and system-worlds, practices are existentially dynamic, socially constituted, intersubjective activities that are always influenced by practice architectures. Practice architectures are the enabling and constraining conditions that influence what happens among interlocutors as they encounter one another in practices. Understanding practices means attending to ways the intricately interconnected and simultaneously produced sayings, doings, and relatings “hang together” in a project through individual (or subjective) and intersubjective achievements. It is in intersubjective spaces where • what people can say and think (sayings), in the semantic space shared among interlocutors, is made possible (or difficult or impossible) by the cultural–discursive arrangements found in or brought to a site—that is, by the content and form of shared (or not shared) language and specialist discourses used; • what people can do (doings), in the physical space-time shared with other embodied beings, is made possible (or not) by the material–economic arrangements—that is, by actions, activities, and work done amid the objects that exist in the site; and • how people can relate to others and the world (relatings), in the social space shared with other social–political beings, is made possible (or not) by the social–political arrangements—that is, by the relationships of power, agency, and solidarity. Establishing a deep sense of site is critical for understanding the nature and particularity of practices and practice architectures that shape how education is experienced (produced and reproduced) in the site. The site ontological schematic counters oversimplified or ambiguous perspectives by orienting to the complex linguistic, cultural, interactive, material, temporal, social, and relational constitution of practices as they happen in the local site. By establishing more nuanced site-based understandings, detailed descriptions, and critical explanations about the conditions that prefigure (although do not predetermine) the conduct of practices, transformations to those practices are possible. Consequently, the theory of practice architectures has been described as a transformative resource—because to change education, one must change the practice architectures that enable and constrain its practices. Broadly speaking, therefore, the theory of practice architectures is an integrated theoretical (way of considering), analytical (way of examining), linguistic (way of describing), and transformative (way of changing) resource or frame for studying practices.

Interior design is considered as a concept that accompanied the theory and practice of architecture. It is represented as a form of manifestation of Architecture ,which influenced and affected by the intellectual trends and theory of architecture in their quest for the formation of modern architecture since the beginning of the twentieth century. This paper discusses the historical concept development of interior design in the period, in which modernism and postmodernism was formed. The aim of this paper to detect the most prominent aspects that define the concept of interior design, and down to determine the particularity of each movement with respect to the interior design vision. These aspects were: the nature of the interior design and essence, the goal of the design procedure,the relationship of interior design with interpretation, its sources, and its design determinants. Keywords: interior design, interior, interior space.

The article is devoted to the identification of the features of the modern architectural process and the establishment of actual tasks of architectural activity. Today's society, science, and practice are experiencing phenomena that radically change the approaches and paradigms of the architectural process. The paper highlights the contradictions in the theory and practice of architecture that need to be resolved; considers aspects of the modern ideology of architecture; develops certain provisions of the theory of the environmental approach, namely, the features of "understanding" design, the communicative component of architectural activity; emphasizes the interaction of various actors in the process of architectural activity, the dialogue of the architect with stakeholders. The author emphasizes the decisive role of the architect as an organizer and coordinator of the design process, the interpretation of the architectural process as a component of the overall socio-cultural process. The biggest shifts are taking place in the field of the environmental approach to architectural activity. Environmental issues, which bring people and their lifestyles to the forefront, give impetus to the development of architectural management and marketing. These changes in priorities have led to a problematic situation in the theory of architecture and opened up a new space of work: the identification and recording of environmental experiences and images, the production of these experiences and the management of this process. The environmental approach outlines the future trajectories of architectural work, the essence of which is the inclusion of the designer in the life of the population, the materialization of their own version of life processes, the identification of a set of specialized activities that support the ideology of social progress and cultural development. Scientific research and architectural practice should be based on the achievements of the philosophy of architecture, understanding of new value orientations, taking into account the differences and pace of social change, etc. There is a need to recognize the importance of such a factor as the subject of the architectural process. Changing the basic guidelines of the consumer of an architectural object requires ensuring at the design stage the possibility of transforming an architectural object in the process of its further operation, predicting the emergence of new functions and the formation of their new material shell. The article outlines the contours of scientific innovations in the field of architecture - the theory of architectural activity in the conditions of intersubjective interaction; suggests forms of correct introduction of the concept of "design subject", which is active in the architectural environment, into design practice and theory of architectural activity.

The aim of the paper is to formulate scientific foundations for the effective functioning of communication in architectural design practice. More specifically, communication is considered in the context of the architectural process. Current relevance. The need for establishing interaction or communication between the architect, the customer, the user and other participants of the architectural process has arisen due to the changes in Russian society and modern-day Russian architectural and building construction legislation. The nature of interactions between the architect and authorization agencies has changed, the number of participants in the architectural process has increased, customers in the architectural and building process have become more diverse, and the procedures for obtaining authorizations for the design documentation have changed. Research methods. The article reviews actual design cases in Ekaterinburg and demonstrates essential points of conflict arising in the communication processes. From the perspective of architectural theory, the authors formulate fundamental concepts of communication, communicative processes and communicative space of the architectural and building process. An interdisciplinary approach to the problem helps to formulate the basic vectors of interactions in the architectural process as a communicative space. Main conclusions. The article presents the distinctive features of communication in the design practice of Ekaterinburg. The basic fundamental concepts of communication in the theory of architecture are defined.

This essay examines the role of Marxist concepts in recent architectural theories of ecology using two architecture firms, Estudio Teddy Cruz and Sauerbruch Hutton (SH), as case studies. In their writings, Cruz and SH mobilize the critique of capital, a dialectical materialist understanding of history, and the Frankfurt School’s critique of functionalist culture for the theorization of sustainable design. Their work has two vital ramifications for current sustainability discourses in two different fields which this essay seeks to bridge. For Marxist theorists concerned about ecology but averse to Western Marxism because of its supposed idealism, Cruz and SH show anew the importance of aesthetic concerns to conceptions of the environment. For design scholars accustomed to thinking of Marxism as having been absorbed into broader debates about cultural studies, the architects’ theories have the potential to recentralize the left-wing inheritance through its adaptation to concerns of ecology. In addition, in the essay’s conclusion, I reflect briefly, as a suggestion for further research, on how Cruz’s and SH’s architectural practice and theories might productively be analyzed in light of the terms of the Adorno-Benjamin debate of the 1930s over the political status of the cultural products of capital. Can eighty-year old discussions of the potentially revolutionary and retrograde qualities of mass cultural objects be relevant to radical thought in the age of climate change.

Анализируются разные аспекты и парадоксы современной теории архитектуры. На язык архитектурных форм стали переводить идеи физики, философии, поэзии и теории языка. Отсутствие теории архитектуры иллюстрируется архитектурной практикой авангарда. Рассматривается историческое движение, эпохи во взаимодействии социальной реальности и теории архитектуры, подтверждающие синкретизм практики и теории архитектуры.

In this paper I examine how notions of the surface are being reconstituted in architectural theory and practice. Specifically, I contrast how modernist-influenced theory treated surfaces with how some architectural theorists today are beginning to think about them. Whereas modernist theory saw surfaces as dedicated to the expression of interior volume, recent interactive technologies such as ‘smart walls’ mean that surfaces no longer are fixed but can, instead, be changed in ways that are beyond the control of the architects who designed the structures of which they are a part. This means that surfaces are much less predictable and much more subject to transformation by individual users than in the past. Such a technological revolution, I argue, is ‘de-authorizing’ architecture as it is understood in conventional, professional, and disciplinary terms, and is bringing about new conceptions of time and space in architectural practice.

The research has two main objectives: rst, expand the knowled- ge of the sources of the theory and practice of Brazilian modern architecture and, second, contribute to the consolidation of the cultural history of architecture in Brazil. Studying the structural rationalism as source of the Brazilian modern architecture does not only mean to deepen the knowledge already in progress on the latter, but also to apply the cultural history method to the stu- dy of the history of architecture in Brazil. For the recent research about the structural rationalism bene ted from the cultural history method and is part of the new architectural history of the XIX century, elaborated since 1990, approximately. In this context, the very de nition of structural rationalism is ampli ed and dee- pened. Instead of simply meaning a relation of cause and e ect between structure and architecture in which the structure is one of the architecture’s purposes, the structural rationalism is now understood as part of the new dynamic and organic conception of the architecture that emerges in the XIX century, for which, particularly, the structure is the means capable to fully generate the organic unity of the form. In this perspective, demonstrate that the structural rationalism is one of the sources, and more precisely one of the greatest sources of Brazilian modern architec- ture, not only permit to deepen the knowledge of the theoretical assumptions, but also the formal qualities of this architecture. As well as, consequently, the more general matters as the composi- tion method and the architecture’s cultural role that are relevant today and ever to the theory and the practice of the architecture.

The chapter focusses on how practices are understood in the theory of practice architectures. It begins by introducing the notion of ‘intersubjective space’—the three-dimensional space in which people encounter one another: in language in semantic space, in activity and work in physical space–time, and relationships of solidarity and power in social space. It discusses the kinds of arrangements found in these dimensions of social space—respectively, cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements—that enable and constrain practices as they unfold. These arrangements combine to form practice architectures that enable and constrain practices. The theory of practice architectures is an example of a site-ontological theory: it views practices as grounded in the sites where they are enacted. The purpose of the theory of practice architectures, it is suggested, is to discover the conditions of possibility for practices. The chapter employs the ecological notion of the ‘niche’ to explore the situatedness of practices in the particulars of the places, the sites, where they are enacted. The chapter also briefly introduces the notions of ‘practice landscapes’ and ‘practice traditions’ before presenting a summary diagram that encapsulates the main elements of the theory.

Amidst constant waves of research seeking to understand and improve pedagogical practices in schools, this chapter positions pedagogy as social practice rather than a more commonly held view of pedagogy as method. It is a view of pedagogy that is centrally interested in the sociality, situatedness and happeningness of practices, and thus requires a theory of practice that treats it as socially, dialogically, ontologically and temporally constituted. Capitalising on the ‘practice turn’ in education, the chapter utilises the theory of practice architectures to consider the relationship between pedagogy, practice and practice architectures. It will be argued that pedagogical practices as they happen in lessons cannot be understood without a theory of practice that explains (especially for teachers) how practices unfold discursively through language and sequences of time, and how they are interwoven (enmeshed or entangled) with sites, not just ‘set’ in them. Empirical material from recorded primary school lessons will be used to illustrate particular practice architectures or cultural-discursive, the material-economic and the social-political arrangements that influence the conduct of pedagogical practice as it happens in classrooms. The chapter seeks to address these three broad questions: (1) how does the theory of practice architectures enhance understandings of pedagogy? (2) in what ways does this theory help us to understand pedagogy as social practice? and (3) what influences pedagogical decision making as it happens in the flow of instruction?

In this chapter, a view of praxis and practice is outlined that allows us to re-imagine the work of teaching, learning and leading. It does so, first, by reconnecting with a lifeworld perspective on practice as a human and social activity with indissoluble moral, political and historical dimensions. Practice always forms and transforms the one who practices, along with those who are also involved in and affected by the practice. On a second meaning of praxis, praxis is always ‘history making action’ that transforms the world in which the practice is carried out. The chapter introduces our theory of practice and practice architectures, showing how the sayings, doings and relatings that constitute practices are made possible by (respectively) cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements found in or brought to the sites where practices are carried out. Taken together, these arrangements—the preconditions for practices—are the practice architectures that enable and constrain practices. Finally, the chapter shows how the theory of practice architectures offers a way of theorising education. By doing so, it reconnects practice with individual and collective praxis as a way of expressing the double purpose of education: to help people live well in a world worth living in.

This article reports on the experiences of 104 doctoral candidates who participated in six offerings (2008–2015) of an intensive 5-day course for doctoral candidates associated with the research programme of an international research network. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate how higher education practices, like those of this course, can be understood through the lens of a particular form of practice theory, namely the theory of practice architectures. The analyses show how the practice architectures of the course enable and constrain candidates’ academic practices such as presenting and discussing their own research, chairing seminar presentations and being discussants for research papers whose authors are present. The candidates entered some new academic practices in the course but sometimes contested these practices, for example by requesting greater structure in some sessions, perhaps reflecting their expectations that the course would be more similar to other doctoral courses they had attended. Using the lens of the theory of practice architectures, the analyses shows how these new practices were enabled and constrained by specific arrangements built into the design of the course that served both as practice architectures for learning in the course and for the academic practices being learned.

This chapter asks how the theory of practice architectures is travelling, in terms of the way it has been used, primarily in this volume. The chapter (1) clarifies some key terms in the theory including (a) the relationship between practices and practice architectures, (b) the ideas of ‘enabling’ and ‘constraining’, and (c) the relationship between the theory of practice architectures and the theory of ecologies of practices. The chapter also addresses (2) the ubiquity of contestation and variation in the formation, conduct, reproduction, and transformation of practices and practice architectures to dispel the perception of ‘seamless’ harmony between practices and the practice architectures that sustain them. It examines (3) the question of agency and how it is evident in the formation and conduct of practices. Finally, the chapter addresses (4) the centrality to the theory of the notion of intersubjective spaces. The chapter concludes with some remarks encouraging critical use of the theory.