This essay examines architectural histories of Bologna from 1962–77 focusing on inhabitant involvement in collective housing production. ‘Red Bologna’ in this period has been cited as a politically progressive example of participation in urban administration and planning. This dominant architectural narrative is indeed compelling, and has contemporary relevance, due to Bologna’s concerted city-scale attempts to limit economic speculation and provide low-cost dwellings at a time of extreme housing crisis. We offer new perspectives by analysing three sites of participation which, while concurrent, have not previously been addressed together. This essay re-reads these cases, drawing on Anarchist perspectives – a tradition present in Italy but often overlooked in favour of official Marxist or autonomous Marxist currents of the day – to explore questions of sociality, social hierarchy and property. It therefore contributes to contemporary debates around the democratisation of housing and the possibilities offered for self-organisation and wider urban engagement.

At a time when digital culture touches on all aspects of life, it is surprising that its relationship to vernacular architecture has so far not been subject to much research. A common perception is that vernacular architecture is not made with or by computers but is rather ‘built by hand’, the result of the interplay between the human mind, traditional craft skills, and materials. In this essay I will argue that this perception is outdated and that the vernacular and digital realms in fact do come together in dynamic and often creative ways. Based on a review of the limited publications that are available, the essay outlines a number of ways in which both these realms converge all around the world. I conclude that this convergence should be high on the agenda of the field of vernacular architecture studies in an increasingly more interconnected, challenging, and unpredictable world.

Practice-based design research methods developed internationally in postgraduate architecture programmes aim towards a more conscious and critical design approach. The question asked in this essay, however, is how such research methods can be adapted for undergraduate architectural students, using the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg as the testbed. Two practice-based design research methods at Wits University were thus adapted from the RMIT University and former Adapt-R programmes. The changes for South Africa addressed the disparities between postgraduate and undergraduate students in that country, as well as its complex post-colonial, post-Apartheid, and post-#FeesMustFall institutional context. These undergraduate students were encouraged to unearth their personal and local ways of seeing and knowing through collaborative social reflection, thereby developing a more self-aware form of practice. Conversely, at a contextual level, the students interrogated institutional influences and questioned established notions of mastery within a slowly decolonising university, critically situating themselves within this culture.

The rural Chinese dwelling is undergoing a radical mutation, breaking from its traditional vernacular typology instigated by changes in its structural gene, vis-à-vis the arrival of reinforced concrete. This paper investigates how the Dong minority timber house can mitigate this transformation by developing a hybrid concrete and timber design. The research is based on design iterations defined as prototypes, abstract and built, that generate different modes of habitation while concurrently prompting discussions around contemporary forms of practice. In conclusion, we propose the prototype as a vehicle for a new way of learning that blurs the distinction between teaching, research and practice.

Shenzhen is famous as China’s urban laboratory and birthplace of world-leading digital technologies and electric vehicle companies. However, in 1979, a year before Shenzhen was launched, the nearby Shekou Industrial Zone was founded as the first ‘test-tube’ for reform. Yuan Geng of the China Merchants Group used Shekou for socio-economic and spatial experiments after visits to Hong Kong. Whereas the latter’s influence on Shenzhen and Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Open Door’ policy is widely acknowledged, Shekou in fact went further because the Hong Kong that Yuan studied in the late-1970s was undergoing significant transformation under Governor Murray MacLehose. The essay focuses on Crystal Garden Community, Shekou’s first major development, which Yuan presented personally to Xiaoping in 1984. Hong Kong not only offered new spatial typologies to China but also new lifestyles. MacLehose and Yuan operated in opposing political systems yet today their experiments have resulted in common benefits which are worth remembering.

This essay explores the relationship between point of view and spatial perception in the context of architecture, architectural design and cognitive neuroscience. An account is given of body coordination and movement when managed from a quasi-allocentric position which questions the often-stated view that architects can mentally ‘walk themselves’ through the buildings that they have designed. In order to explore this topic, we devised a series of Virtual Reality games which used a labyrinthine arrangement to observe the reactions of invited participants while they were using either a perspectival viewpoint or axonometric projection on their headsets. Their performance was also further analysed by holding debriefing discussions with participants after each exercise. Conclusions are then drawn from the study that make wider references to neural plasticity, modes of representation during the design process, and also pointing to the need for further research in this and associated areas of study.

Following the Second World War, German society sought to comprehensively reform itself. Children – through what, where and how they learned – were central to this process, and the occupying Allied powers regarded the transformation of schools as the best way for young Germans to alienate themselves from the Nazi past and to support a new democratic state structure. This essay explores architecture’s role in this reorientation by focussing on the Geschwister-Scholl school in Lünen, one of two schools designed by Hans Scharoun in the late-1950s. There is an evident compatibility between Scharoun’s design philosophy, including giving architectural form to pedagogical process, and aspects of German educational reform, particularly in his emphasis on spatial configuration as a determinant of social behaviour. The essay therefore investigates educational reform in both West Germany and the German Democratic Republic, where curriculum reform was also pursued with radically different means, to radically different ends.

This article traces the ever-shifting and often contradictory nature of what it calls Adolf Loos’ architectural parallax. Parallax, the effect whereby an object’s position appears to differ when viewed from different positions, is suggested to encapsulate a key quality of experiencing Loos’ spatial compositions. Centrally, the article uses a set of 1901 photograph capturing the parallactic qualities of a Loos-designed, mirror-lined Viennese tailor shop as an unintended source for its digital photogrammetric reconstruction. The photographic evocation of Loos’ architecture’s immeasurability is turned against itself and misused to take its measure. The resulting three-dimensional point-cloud model recuperates the enigmatic shop’s geometry as well as the position of the photograph’s carefully staged protagonists. Yet the photogrammetric reconstruction also prompts the emergence of new elements of the immeasurable. It is this persistent off-screen, this ongoing personal/photographic/architectural reference to a difficult-to-grasp ‘Other’ that is finally proposed to constitute an expanded understanding of Loos’ parallax.

This article sheds new light on an essential component of Aldo van Eyck’s architectural theory: the concept of the ‘in-between’ and how this concept becomes manifest in and determines his architectural work. First, I argue that the concept of the in-between includes three complementary levels: two (socio-) spatial levels directly related to the dimension of Raumbildung [space formation] and one level tied to Van Eyck’s concept of ‘twin phenomena’. Second, this clarification leads to a new interpretation of Van Eyck’s architecture which focuses on the practical implementation of the in-between in connection with the particular kind of Raumbildung and demonstrates how his focus on the socio-spatial meaning of architecture and a formal-compositional way of designing are interconnected. Finally, the article aims to verify the fundamental significance that Van Eyck attributes to the in-between, concluding that this significance is intrinsically tied to the in-between’s immediate connection with the dimension of Raumbildung.

The urban fabric of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (PMA) is becoming inhospitable. Contributing factors are: low population density, dependence on automobiles and air conditioning, Urban Heat Island effect, uncertain water supply, lack of sustainable policies, and low community connectivity. Failing to adapt could spell the end of the PMA’s life cycle. This paper highlights the Indigenous Akimel O’Otham as key agents of sustainable change in this region, on account of their espousal of sustainable values; and their water rights reclamation allocating resources for agricultural development, of which the tribe has already undertaken the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project (P-MIP). The design presented offers a possible avenue for the tribe to complement P-MIP’s ambitions with urban-agrarian development, diversifying the uses of their water supply. The proposal is accompanied by a speculative financial plan to ensure their independence from external investment. This could contribute to fostering urban change and promoting a more resilient future.