Total Housing. Alternatives to Urban Sprawl

This book is conceived as evidence supporting the qualities of dense, urban living, and as a hopeful antidote against sprawl. Necessity and investigation are prerequisites for the design of housing: Total Housing refers to the need to understand that social, environmental, and economic factors affect form, and that living space is a base for our increasingly complex and varied societies. This new survey into multi-family housing focuses on the responses proposed by architects who are dealing with the dynamic and diverse demands of contemporary society. Featuring works by Lacaton-Vassal, BIG, + JDS, Sadar Vuga Arhitekti, Ryue Nishizawa, FOA, SHoP, and many emerging new architects, this volume is not a simple catalog, but rather a studied collection of inventive projects.
Necessity and investigation are prerequisites for the design of housing: social, environmental, and economic factors affect the architectural investigation of program, technology, and form. Since the publication of Actar's first volume on housing, "Housing + Singular Housing, 2002," the continued emergence of architectonic tools has generated significant interaction between construction, surroundings, and inhabitant, while simultaneously addressing the complexities of an ever-changing context, shaped by interests outside of the discipline. The discourse of contemporary housing demands a reassessment of the architect's role in the construction of territory, the management of natural resources, the reconfiguration of the city, and the treatment of the necessities of an increasingly diverse and dynamic society.
http://www.actar.com/totalhousing/lookonbook.html
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