Exit-Architecture. Design Between War and Peace: With a Foreword by Heiner Mühlmann and a Project

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“First we shape things, then they shape us”, was Churchill’s view. What kind of architecture can be said to shape? Who does it shape? And by what means does it shape? The author’s answers to these questions are a surprise. Through war and proximity to stress. After a tour d’horizon through Roman temples, Washington’s corridors of power and Mecca’s anti-panic architecture it becomes clear that architecture is anything but in the background. Instead it is situated in the hot spot of transmission dynamics and is capable of altering cultures, empires and even religions.

About the Author
Stephan Trüby. Architect, theoretician and curator. Studied architecture at the AA School, London where he also lectured. Since 2001 he has been assistant professor for architectural theory and design at the Institut Grundlagen moderner Architektur, at the University of Stuttgart. He is the director of Exit Ltd. a firm specialized in architectural and design consulting. His numerous works have been published as books and in magazines.

Modular Ontologies: Concepts, Theories and Techniques for Knowledge Modularization

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This book constitutes a collection of research achievements mature enough to provide a firm and reliable basis on modular ontologies. It gives the reader a detailed analysis of the state of the art of the research area and discusses the recent concepts, theories and techniques for knowledge modularization.

The 13 papers presented in this book were all carefully reviewed before publication. They have been organized in three parts: Part I gives a general introduction to the idea and issues characterizing modularization and offers an in-depth analysis of properties, criteria and knowledge import techniques for modularization. Part II describes four major research proposals for creating modules from an existing ontology either by partitioning an ontology into a collection of modules or by extracting one or more modules from the ontology. Part III reports on collaborative approaches where modules that pre-exist are linked together through mappings to form a virtual large ontology.

Intermediate Natures: The Landscapes of Michel Desvigne

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Michel Desvigne is no doubt the most high-profile French landscape architect working today. He collaborates with architects like Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Ieoh Ming Pei, Herzog and de Meuron, and Jean Nouvel, and his projects are synonymous with a strong strategic and conceptual component, influenced by insights from geography. Traffic projects also play an important role in his work – they underscore the competence of landscape architecture in matters of city planning.

This thematic monograph documents the key elements of Desvigne’s work in individual chapters: processes of transformation, geography, territory, urban structures, and public squares. Each of these themes is vividly illustrated by selected projects, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, the French Ministry of Culture in Paris, and Keio University in Tokyo.
About the Author
Gilles Tiberghien is a philosopher and an author in the field of Land Art.

James Corner is an internationally known landscape designer and theorist and professor for landscape architecture at the Pennsylvania University, USA.

Light Zone City: Light Planning in the Urban Context

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The face of the nocturnal metropolis is marked decisively by light, and the number and variety of the light sources is increasing to the point of “light terror.” A well-lit urban space can be very inviting, giving residents and visitors a sense of well-being and security. A successful lighting design can also give the city at night an identity of its own and accentuate architectural qualities.

In this book, the author embodies her many years of experience as a practitioner and teacher of lighting design. In preparation, she visited ten European cities — including Paris, Brussels, Berlin, London, Budapest, Vienna, and Amsterdam — with different urban situations. This has enabled her to present different planning and design tasks systematically and to illustrate specific solutions. In addition to articulating basic planning rules for the outdoor lighting of buildings, traffic routes, and squares, she presents and elucidates new artificial lighting systems and outdoor lamps with the help of examples.