The book explores the relationship between the shrinking process and architecture and urban design practices. Starting from a journey in former East Germany, six different scenes are explored in which plans, projects, and policies have dealt with shrinkage since the 1990s. The book is a sequence of scenes that reveals the main characteristics, dynamics, narratives, reasons and ambiguities of the shrinking cities’ transformations in the face of a long transition. The first scene concerns the demolition and transformation of social mass housing in Leinefelde-Worbis. The second scene deals with the temporary appropriation of abandoned buildings in Halle-Neustadt. The third scene, observed in Leipzig, shows the results of green space projects in urban voids. The scene of the fourth situation observes the extraordinary efforts to renaturise a mining territory in the Lausitz region. The fifth scene takes us to Hoyerswerda, where emigration and ageing process required a reduction and demolition in housing stock and social infrastructures. The border city of Görlitz, the sixth and last scene, deals with the repopulation policies that aim to attract retirees from the West.

Working in Mumbai is a critical reflection on thirty years of the practice of RMA Architects. Rahul Mehrotra weaves a narrative to connect his multiple engagements in architectural practice, including teaching, research, documenting, writing and exhibiting since the establishment of the practice in 1990. The book is structured around the subjects of interior architecture, critical conservation, and work and living spaces that straddle the binaries of the global and the local as well as the rural and the urban. While the book is a portfolio of the selected works of RMA Architects, the projects are curated so as to unravel and clarify the challenges faced by architects in India and in several parts of the ?majority? world where issues related to rapid urbanization and the impacts of global capital are among the many that dispute conventional models of practice. Working in Mumbai is used emblematically to interrogate the notion of context and understand how the practice evolved through its association with the city of Bombay/Mumbai.

Homelessness--the state of having no home--is a growing global problem that requires local discussions and solutions. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, it has noticeably become a collective concern. However, in recent years, the official political discourse in many countries around the world implies that poverty is a personal fault, and that if people experience homelessness, it is because they have not tried hard enough to secure shelter and livelihood. Although architecture alone cannot solve the problem of homelessness, the question arises: What and which roles can it play? Or, to be more precise, how can architecture collaborate with other disciplines in developing ways to permanently house those who do not have a home? Who's Next? Homelessness, Architecture, and Cities seeks to explore and understand a reality that involves the expertise of national, regional, and city agencies, nongovernmental organizations, health-care fields, and academic disciplines. Through scholarly essays, interviews, analyses of architectural case studies, and research on the historical and current situation in Los Angeles, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, São Paulo, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo, this book unfolds different entry points toward understanding homelessness and some of the many related problems. The book is a polyphonic attempt to break down this topic into as many parts as needed, so that the specificities and complexities of one of the most urgent crises of our time rise to the fore.

This book investigates the social, economic, environmental and formal characteristics of today's built environment, providing a better understanding of this new type of urban form and argues for a change in planning sytems.