By examining various elements in the living heritage site of Tossi village in Sumba, Indonesia, this contribution explores the question of possible synchronization between Tossi’s built environment and society. Considered as one of Sumba’s oldest villages, Tossi is considered the embodiment of Marapu beliefs through its megalithic burials and its urban planning. However, it is in an existential junction with the threat of abandonment and decay on its urban fabric. The pressure from external influence affected the societal decline of Marapu, and the push of touristification has disrupted the organically established socio-cultural Sumbanese society in Tossi. With its built environment’s immobile nature, Tossi is at a crossroads to adapt to the dynamic socio-cultural evolution of its inhabitants. And as Tossi is inevitably becoming more recognizable and interconnected to its surroundings, through infrastructure and economy, its ability to adjust persists, while maintaining its cultural integrity is being tested.

The paper deals with the construction of architectural competency, starting from the entwinement of the terms competency and competence. Following the etymology of the two words, we define the distinction between them through the problem of time. On the one hand, competence is atemporal in nature, while on the other hand, competency is necessarily directed at the present. The bond with the present is explained by defining competency as the capacity to produce the new, understood as Deleuzian difference, which objectifies time and always puts it in the order of the present. In the discipline of architecture, the concept of competency is defined through the problem of the extensiveness of theory, which obviates the production of the new. In that sense, competency is interpreted as the ability to preserve the (conceptual) unity of the singular new, despite the impossibility of reconstructing the real as a whole.

As a counterpoint to the publication of “Ardeth” Issue 12, this reflective addition supplements the previous issue’s theme, key words, with the support of a builtresearch work, “A House from Another House” (2022-2023).1 The piece draws attention towards a potential category mistake between the occurrences of words before they are related to specific architectural works and words after they are related to specific architectural works. With a contained focus on the sequence and proximity of their occurrences, we might be able to suggest that words before and after works actually exist quite differently and give something quite different in experience for those concerned with them.

Broadly associated with the effects of climate change, the "greenhouse" term designates a building type that gains ground in contemporary design practices and demands architectural, technical, theoretical and aesthetic attention. This article explores the evolution of the greenhouse from a place of plant propagation to nature preservation to a vehicle of experimentation into new ways of inhabiting the city. It focuses on how the incorporation of greenery into buildings, by means of large span glazed envelopes and regulated interiors, has brought forth new forms of togetherness between human and non-human organisms. In so doing, it investigates a new understanding of the nature-culture oppositional relationship, in which the condition of a living together intersects with novel definitions of beauty, calling for a reinterpretation of agency in architecture.

This article aims to shed light on Warsaw’s urban design traditions based on expertise in passive landscape solutions as tested in local conditions. It focuses on the work of designers originating from the Greenery Studio of the Warsaw Reconstruction Office (BOS) from the 1940s to the 1990s. The studio’s designs relied on open space arrangements and the urban microclimate component was treated as equal in importance to buildings. Planned in a modern way, drawing on the principles of the Athens Charter of 1933, Warsaw’s reconstructed urban structure can be approached today not with a focus on hygiene, but in terms of thermal comfort. Post-war solutions demonstrate that empty urban spaces can be designed to prepare the city for the increasingly felt effects of climate warming and extreme meteorological phenomena. Warsaw’s public space and housing estate common spaces ought to serve as areas that readily accommodate microclimates and thus become of benefit to the society. Last but not least, this approach may reduce the number of AC units installed in the city.

This paper argues that the architectural academy is guilty of producing architects who might be competent, but are not effective in putting their training into socially relevant use. It examines what follows then is a set of 7 nested and increasingly institutionally-scaled observations – formalism, design, analysis, curricula, pedagogy, academia, and administrative institutions – about architectural education that attempt to locate the various arenas which require re-thinking for a relevant and empowered discipline. It ends with a call to arms for architecture academics to unite to produce the radical change needed to address our current, crisis-driven world.

This visual essay, “Cannibalism City”, depicts an imaginary city under the attack of Covid-19 in different perspectives. Since January 2020, many cities have been locked down due to the pandemic. Overwhelming news on mass media had been building a thick wall and stuffily enclosing the city. Two significant ensuing policies, quarantine and social distancing, have a profound impact on social urban life and gradually expose the cannibal nature of the city under the painted skin of virtue and morality. The essence of Cannibalism in this city lies beyond this pandemic, composed of even more complicated social issues, including egotism, racial discrimination, class conflict, political disputes, etc.

“Il futuro e gia qui. Solo che non e distribuito in modo molto equo.” William Gibson Questo numero di Ardeth e cominciato in un tempo di viaggi, incontri pubblici, e nel mezzo di una crescente crisi residenziale, allorche abbiamo chiesto agli autori di riflettere sui loro temi di ricerca attraverso la lente della contingenza. La produzione del numero si chiude in tempi di contingenza, quando niente puo offrire certezza e la contingenza, piuttosto che una lente, e nell’aria che respiriamo quot...

If we take seriously the concerns and problematics of decolonizing the mind, we might begin by looking for sources of knowledge in the refugee camp. Camps have long been sites of empirical research: in their darkest form, as sites of detention and concentration, and in a putatively lighter form, as liberatory vehicles for the rescued and their saviours. What if camps did not serve empiricist ends of knowledge, but instead, theoretical ones? If so, then the humanitarian would become the student, the refugee the professor, and the architecture of the camp that of the university. This lecture imagines this architecture. This text draws from the keynote address given on January 25, 2019, at the workshop convened by Somayeh Chitchian, Maja Momic, and Shahd Wari at the Max Planck Insitute for the Study of Religious & Ethnic Diversity: “Inside-Out / Outside-In: Shifting Architectures of Refugee Inhabitation.”

Overlapping jurisdictions and supranational infrastructures generate an increasingly complex topology; the design, management and mapping of interactions is therefore a crucial task.Seiche is a platform that enables the definition and management of techno-legal procedures of information exchange between institutions that regulate such systems and the organisations that operate within. It acts as an interface between legal and data workflows, fostering system synchronisation and mapping dynamic networks of emergent sovereignties.The proposal is applied and tested in the form of a speculative narrative set in Khorgos, Kazakhstan; a logistic enclave between two infrastructural and political realities – the cornerstone of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.