An introduction to design as core competence in Architecture

Christian Gänshirt eBook:

RRP *€ [D] 34.95 / *US$ 48.95 /

Tools for Ideas

*GBP 32.00
PDF ISBN 978-3-0346-0924-1

Introduction to Architectural Design

Date of Publication: October 2012

Language of Publication: English

255 pages | 100 Figures (bw) Subjects:

Architecture > Professional Practice

Of interest to: Professional/practitioner

Architects today must position themselves within an extremely wide-ranging field of Order now! orders@degruyter.com
qualifications. This makes it all the more important to have a fresh introduction to the
field that makes up one of their core competences, the field of design.

This introductory presentation describes and analyzes the theories, strategies, and
tools of creative design for the purposes of practical work. With thoughtfulness and
expertise, it opens the reader’s eyes to the processes that underlie design and
demonstrates different ways of communicating about complex design work.

The first section focuses on the much-discussed relationship between design and
research, between architecture and the sciences. The second section describes basic
design approaches, from Vitruvius and Alberti through Erwin Panofsky and Wolfgang
Kemp to Otl Aicher and Vilém Flusser. The third and largest section presents the
elementary tools of design, from gestures and words through drawings, models, and
simulations to critique, all as instruments of creative design in architecture and its
related fields.

Dipl-Ing. Christian Gänshirt is an independent architect in Berlin. He studied

architecture with Jo Coenen and others at the Technische Universität Karlsruhe
(Research University Karlsruhe) and with Luigi Snozzi at the École Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne. He has worked for many architects as a cost planner and
construction supervisor (including Alvaro Siza at Vitra’s production hall). Since 1998 he
has been working to impart knowledge of the theory and practice of design, including as
an assistant professor in the Design Department of the Technische Universität Cottbus
(Cottbus Technical University). He is co-editor of the Internationale Zeitschrift für
Theorie und Wissenschaft der Architektur Wolkenkuckucksheim (International Journal
of Architectural Theory Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, a web journal).

Comprehensive introduction to a fundamental subject of architectural training and

practice

Provides the student with a solidly didactic, consistent, and easily readable
presentation of the material

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