This book explores aspects of the historical and theoretical basis for temporary and transportable environments and provides an insight into the wide range of functions that they are used for today, the varied forms they take and the concerns and ideas for their future development. Themes in the book range from wide-ranging topical issues like the ecological implications of building to more focused investigations such as shelter after disaster. The book will be of interest to both students and practising architects, engineers and those involved in the creation of the built environment. It will also be of value to those involved in areas of product design, design history, building component manufacture and urban design.

An overview of structures designed to be mobile, their uses, and the principles involved in their design including a consideration of the wide range of applications in which they can be found.

Transportable Environments explores aspects of the historical and theoretical basis for portable architecture and provides an insight into the wide range of functions that it is used for today, the varied forms that it takes and the concerns and ideas for its future development. Written by a team of international commentators, this volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of this specialist area and will be of interest to a wide range of professionals across the construction and design industries.

Architects write a lot, especially now when conceptual aspects have become central in the advanced reflections and narrative forms increasingly intersect the quest of design practices far an ultimate legitimation. In the growing mass of the publishing offer, these keywords try to highlight recurrent issues, tracking synthetic paths of orientation between different critical positions, with particular attention to what happens in the neighbouring fields of the arts and sciences.

The idea that architecture can be portable is one that grabs the imagination of both designers and the people who use it, perhaps because it so often forecasts a dynamic and creative solution to the complex problems of our contemporary mobile society, while at the same time dealing with issues of practicality, economy and sustainability. Architecture in Motion examines the development of portable, transportable, demountable and temporary architecture from prehistory to the present day. From familiar vernacular models such as the tent, mobile home and houseboat, to ambitious developments in military and construction engineering, all aspects of portable building are considered. Building on his earlier works Portable Architecture and Houses in Motion, Robert Kronenburg compares traditional forms of building, current commercial products and the work of innovative designers, and examines key contemporary portable buildings to reveal surprising, exciting and imaginative examples. He explores the philosophical and technological issues raised by these experimental and futuristic prototypes. By understanding the nature of transitory architecture, a new ecologically aware design strategy can be developed to prioritise buildings that 'tread lightly on the earth' and still convey the sense of identity and community necessary for an established responsible society. This book provides a unique insight into this pivotal field of design.

This book is the first comprehensive overview of the pioneering works, events, and people that contributed to the paradigm shift defined by computation in architecture. Only recently has computation fostered profound new ways of designing, fabricating, constructing, and thinking about architecture. While the profession sits at the end of the beginning of this historically transformative shift, it is now possible to look back upon the rapidly maturing landscape of projects, influencers, and tools that have finally begun to catch up with the visionary thinking of the past. Readers are guided through the fascinating and fast-paced historical timeline of the development of computation in architecture. Beginning with an account of the pioneering futuristic thinkers, the authors then guide the reader through the birth of computation, the appropriation of tools and the impact of experimentation on the profession, leading into the legitimacy of research and how paradigms have been expanded. The examples and influences are presented in a way that they can be understood and built upon. This book is a must-read for students of computation in architecture as well as researchers and practicing architects thinking about how the tools we use and the ways we design our buildings and environments with them can truly impact our lives.

This book investigates the architectural, product design, and urban typology of the capsule which, beginning in the 1960s, broadened the concept of the basic building blocks of architecture to include a minimal living unit, called the "capsule." Here it is presented with regard to the continuity of the development of the Modern Movement, its revisionist criticism, pioneering examples, as well as contemporary examples and uses. The typology of the capsule allows us to consider this theme in terms of the architecture of resistance, with the potential to search for an "other" architecture that is embedded in our contemporaneity (manifested in small dwellings, composite structures, and container units; shelters and mobile homes in nature and the urban environment; technology transfer in high-tech designs; devices, additions, and extensions etc.). The concept of the capsule as a building element of architecture, as well as a spatial element, can therefore be regarded as having a generative potential for an architecture of personal space for the individual, forcing us to reflect on our existing living and dwelling conditions.