As Found Houses is a guide to the surprising design decisions found in the domestic architecture of rural China and a resource for thinking about contemporary design.

Almost all texts of this anthology revolves around this same topic: drawing. There are subtle variations in the inception and focus of each of the seventeen texts but, as a whole, the book can be read as a continuous monologue that keeps going back to that same core idea, almost compulsively. Flores & Prats believe in the capacity of drawing by hand to generate multiple and complex strata of knowledge about a space or a place, so they use it to guide the successive steps in their design p...

The Sonneveld House in Rotterdam is one of the best preserved examples of Dutch Functionalist domestic architecture. It was built in 1933 to a design by Brinkman and Van der Vlugt, an architectural practice that acquired international fame with its designs for the Van Nelle Factory, the Van der Leeuw House and Feyenoord Stadium, all three in Rotterdam. The Sonneveld House, now a museum, was originally built for one of the Van Nelle directors, A.H. Sonneveld.

An unusual feature of the Sonnevel...

Migration is one of the most pressing and complex spatial urban challenges in Europe today. Observing how newcomers, such as labour migrants, refugees, border crossers sans papiers, and asylum seekers are accommodated, we must conclude that at present not a single urban strategy convincingly enables us to receive new arrivals at the heart of our societies and cities. People are being stored in overcrowded refugee settlements on Greek islands, in squalid basement apartments in central Athens, ...

For English see belowEuropa kwam zwaar gehavend uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Nederland pakte, ondanks de omvang, de armoede en aanzienlijke oorlogsschade, de wederopbouw voortvarend op. Gebombardeerde steden en dorpen herrezen uit het puin en dankzij centrale sturing werd Nederland ruimtelijk opnieuw ingericht. Ook in economisch en sociaal-maatschappelijk opzicht vonden ingrijpende vernieuwingen plaats.Het gevoel van optimisme leidde tot een verrassend grote diversiteit in architectuur, steden...

The Chinese metropolis has developed into the world's most successful urban scheme. Combining bottom-up energy with top-down force, it pushes cities and their inhabitants towards progress, fast-forward.China's megacities are efficient, with well-functioning infrastructures, top-notch public transport, proper housing, steady economic growth, a low crime rate, an attractive climate for foreign investors, and a glitzy skyline to boot.Can this metropolis be the blueprint for cities worldwide?With...

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With (w)EGO: Tailor-Made Housing, The Why Factory investigates participatory processes applied to housing design. These processes establish a negotiation among the desires of each of the residents of a housing slab and help determine the design of their apartments. To achieve this, Wegocity manifests a particular interest in the development of a gaming process. This game leverages the specificities of each resident and transforms them into spatial needs. This way, unexpected hous...

Japan: Nation Building Nature is the first book to map out the views of nature that have shaped the widely acclaimed but often misunderstood modern architecture of Japan.

By connecting the dots between philosophy, design, geopolitics, and an earnest quest for a greener tomorrow, this book explains how Japanese culture can shed new light on our understanding of ecology, and vice-versa.

Using a distinctive blend of academic research and personal experience, Joachim Nijs draws on architectural h...