The editors of this themed issue of SPOOL place the discussion on the possibilities and impossibilities of criticism within the field of the design disciplines at centre stage. We are especially interested in how criticism can make an active contribution to taking a position vis-à-vis what we have called, in earlier issues of SPOOL, the contemporary condition of 'the landscape metropolis'. Criticism is an important means of reflection on the creative processes and interventions that are part...

Anne Lacaton has been a visiting professor at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment during the Fall Semester 2016-2017, hosted by the Chair of Heritage & Design. In the professional field of Heritage & Design the starting point for design is not just a functional brief and a blank sheet of paper but the challenge of an existing spatial setting and cultural-historical context. It is a dynamic and innovative field in architecture that deals with the architectural re-int...

Since the economic shifts of the 1990s, New Towns have become an increasingly popular approach to urban development across the African continent. While New Towns are not a new development model, their contemporary materialisation often targets middle- and high-income buyers, leaving no space for low-income residents. Strict regulations in these exclusive developments often impede spatial appropriations by the informal sector such as fresh markets, unregulated housing, street kiosks and ‘pub...

Recently, Chinese Public Rental Housing (PRH) provision has witnessed a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’: policy making shifted from government steering to mixed forms involving government, market and civic actors to pursue effective and fair policies. In the meantime, this new-era PRH governance is credited with mixed results. However, the existing studies fail to describe the mechanisms underlying this new-era governance of PRH with the rising involvement of market actors and...

This dissertation focuses on architectural education and practice as a collective experience, examining the particular case of the PUCV School of Architecture and Design and Ciudad Abierta in Chile. The study asks whether the culture of collectivity that characterises the school has served as a supporting structure for its artistic and pedagogical project and if so, which elements configure the collective ways of studying and practising at this school. The dissertation delves into these quest...

An evocative photo book with three essays documenting the careful transformation of the nineteenth-century Fort Hoofddorp, part of the Amsterdam Defence Line. The strategic interventions of architect Serge Schoemaker are captured in the photos of Max Hart Nibbrig and described in the contributions of Kirsten Hannema, Hans Ibelings, and Jolanthe Kugler.

Difficult problems do not always require far-fetched solutions, but in order to arrive at the solution a change of perspective may be in order. The City as a System advocates such a change of perspective in the study of the urban environment. It posits that designers who wish to truly improve the functioning of the city and solve tricky urban problems cannot afford to only focus on the spatial manifestation of the city, but should also conduct thorough research into the underlying system, int...

The Thinking Foot is a study of history and associations. In method and form it claims to be no more (nor less) than an illustrated essay on the architectural expression of surface. It concentrates on the Earth on which we walk: not the Earth in depth (the underground world) nor the geological Earth, but simply the Earth as visible crust, as surface. The Thinking Foot is indeed about surface and in particular about how this surface was made into a ‘civilized’ theatre of communal existence...