Design Construction Networks

This visual essay diagrams a global design construction network that connects architects to migrant construction workers in a direct line. A hypothetical stadium construction site lies in the center; one side maps the movement of a steel truss from design to fabrication to a building site; the other side charts the path of migrant workers as they travel from villages to this construction site. Detailed scenarios outline the work of different actors on both sides, and additionally highlight challenges faced by migrant construction workers and where solutions might intervene. By connecting architects and workers the essay points to visible as well as sometimes hidden economies of architecture, and asks: What are the architects’ ethical responsibilities towards those who erect their buildings around the world? The essay further opens up a theoretical trajectory that seeks to understand the underlying and often unequal systems that structure today’s architecture and construction

L'Institut de France et les anciennes Académies, par Léon Aucoc.

Bonnassieux Pierre. L'Institut de France et les anciennes Académies, par Léon Aucoc.. In: Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes. 1889, tome 50. pp. 464-465

Money

The discussion of architecture, with all the visibility of its objects, tends to downplay the invisible flows of money that sustain its production. It is as if the dependency on economic forces is too much to face up to; better then to celebrate the catalytic genius of the architectural hero and then the glorious outputs, and try to ignore everything else that goes on in between. This issue intends to probe the in-between space of the operations of architecture, examining the intersection of the projects of architecture with economies, and with it their associated social and political contexts and implications. It is only through a better understanding of the way that contemporary economics cut across architectural operations that one can learn to deal with these dominant forces in a resistive and transformational manner