Design for London is the product of a unique experiment in urban planning, design and strategic thinking. Set up in 2006 by then-Mayor Ken Livingstone and his Architectural Advisor Richard Rogers, the brief for the team was “to think about London, what made London unique and how it could be made better.” At the time, large-scale state investment was often not an option, and political consensus was fragmented. In addition, cities, by their nature, are fashioned through complex negotiation and deal making that involves many different stakeholders with different agendas. All of these factors complicated the assignment—and made the resulting projects and ideas more interesting. This book aims to provide an engaging account of the strategic approaches and work of Design for London. It outlines how key projects such as the London Olympics, public space programmes, high street regeneration and greening programs were managed.
 

A powerful statement about the repercussions of discrimination and the benefits of diversity in architecture

Providing hard data for trends that many perceive only vaguely and some deny altogether, Designing for Diversity reveals a profession rife with gender and racial discrimination and examines the aspects of architectural practice that hinder or support the full participation of women and persons of color.
Drawing on interviews and surveys of hundreds of architects, Kathryn H. Anthony outlines some of the forms of discrimination that recur most frequently in architecture: being offered added responsibility without a commensurate rise in position, salary, or credit; not being allowed to engage in client contact, field experience, or construction supervision; and being confined to certain kinds of positions, typically interior design for women, government work for African Americans, and computer-aided design for Asian American architects.

Anthony discusses the profession's attitude toward flexible schedules, part-time contracts, and the demands of family and identifies strategies that have helped underrepresented individuals advance in the profession, especially establishing a strong relationship with a mentor. She also observes a strong tendency for underrepresented architects to leave mainstream practice, either establishing their own firms, going into government or corporate work, or abandoning the field altogether.

Given the traditional mismatch between diverse consumers and predominantly white male producers of the built environment, plus the shifting population balance toward communities of color, Anthony contends that the architectural profession staves off true diversity at its own peril. Designing for Diversity argues convincingly that improving the climate for nontraditional architects will do much to strengthen architecture as a profession. Practicing architects, managers of firms, and educators will learn how to create conditions more welcoming to a diversity of users as well as designers of the built environment.

Precision is necessary in the field of architecture, and new technologies have increased demands for accuracy, particularly when the smallest errors can have outsized consequences. However, the importance of precision, or exactitude, has not received the consideration it merits. While themes of sustainability, performance, and formal innovation have been at the forefront of architectural scholarship for the past twenty years, this book moves beyond these concerns to explore the theoretical and practical demands exactitude makes on architecture as a field.

The eleven essays collected here investigate the possibilities and shortcomings of exactitude and delve into current debates about the state of contemporary architecture as both a technological craft and artistic creation. Featuring new work by leading theorists, historians, editors, architects, and scholars, this volume brings theory and practice into insightful and productive conversations. In addition to the editors, contributors include Mark Wigley, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Eric Höweler, Christopher Benfey, Sunil Bald, Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano with Thomas de Monchaux, Alicia Imperiale, Francesca Hughes, Teresa Stoppani, and Cynthia Davidson.

Integrating the Islamic faith with modern psychotherapy is at the forefront of the spiritually integrated psychotherapy movement. To bring this work to wider attention and to promote its continuation, Dr. Carrie York Al-Karam has brought together the present volume of nine essays, each of which is written by a Muslim clinician who practices Islamically integrated psychotherapy (IIP)—a modern approach that unites the teachings, principles, and interventions of the faith with Western therapeutic approaches.

As delineated in the Introduction, IIP has emerged from a variety of domains including the psychology of religion and spirituality, multicultural psychology and counseling, transpersonal psychology, Muslim Mental Health, and Islamic Psychology. The individual chapters then describe a variety of ways IIP is practiced by Muslim clinicians in their service provision with Muslim clients.

The contributors discuss a wide range of topics, such as how Islam can be viewed as a system for psychological wellbeing, or a “science of the soul”; what marital counseling can look like from an Islamically-integrated perspective; Prophet Mohammed as a psycho-spiritual exemplar in a new approach called The HEART Method; the use of Quranic stories in family therapy; as well as using Islamic teachings when working with Muslim children and adolescents.

A description of the various approaches is supplemented with discussions of their theoretical underpinnings as well as research-based recommendations for advancing clinical application. What emerges is a vital resource for Muslim and non-Muslim clinicians alike as well as the lay Muslim reader wanting to know more about how the Islamic faith and psychotherapy are engaging with each other in a modern clinical context.

Today, the field of architecture faces a reckoning. While there is no longer consensus on what defines an architectural work, theorists, historians, and practitioners are grappling with urgent issues—among them the impact of climate change, the dynamics of power and race in relation with the built environment, and the technological, practical, and ethical dimensions of architecture. As established practices, academic objectives, and professional expectations come under scrutiny, architecture is in search of new definitions, identities, and voices.

Inspired by Italo Calvino’s memos about literature in the twenty-first century, this volume—the second in a series— situates architecture within a broad framework, exploring its complex interactions with environmental, cultural, political, social, artistic, and technological forces. The editors’ objective is to spur conversation across the boundaries that divide architecture’s theorists and historians from practitioners. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Sanford Kwinter, Aleksandra Jaeschke, Jennifer Mack, Rahul Mehrotra, Charles Waldheim, Kristi Cheramie, Jesse Reiser, Julian Harake, Jenny E. Sabin, Charles Davis, Esra Akcan, and David Karmon.

A London-based architect offers a self-reflexive account of a communal building they designed in rural Britain.

Rethinking the Pavilion comprehensively investigates one unique project by Walters & Cohen Architects, the Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat Centre in rural Suffolk, completed in 2018. The book describes how shared experience defines a new way of working towards an architecture that rediscovers and enriches its communal purpose. In addition to setting out a theoretical framework that examines the architectural history and theory of pavilions, the book provides a complex discussion of the details and meanings of the design research process itself.

This book, encouraging more effective collaboration between professional architects and social scientists, outlines how social science research can aid the design process, detailing how physical environment relates to behavior. With a foreword by Hugh F. Cline.