Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

'Instead of tuning the consumer to the machine we can now tune the machine to the consumer' This edited collection of essays, now in its second edition, brings together the author's key writings on the cultural, technological and theoretical developments reshaping Modern architecture into a responsive and diverse movement for the twenty-first century. Chris Abel approaches his subject from a wide range of knowledge, including cybernetics, philosophy, new human science and development planning, as well as his experience as a teacher and critic on four continents. The result is a unique global perspective on the changing nature of Modern architecture at the turn of the millennium. Including two new chapters, this revised and expanded second edition offers radical insights into such topics as: the impact of information technology on customized architecture production; the relations between tradition and innovation; prospects for a global eco-culture, and the local and global forces shaping the architecture and cities of Asia. Chris Abel is an architectural writer and educator, based in Malta. He has taught at major universities in the UK, North and South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and is a contributor to numerous international journals and other publications. He currently holds visiting appointments at the University of Malta and the University of the Phillippines.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword (p. vii)
• Preface to second edition (p. xi)
• Preface to first edition (p. xiii)
• Acknowledgements (p. xv)
• Part 1 Science and Technology (p. 1)
• 1 Ditching the dinosaur sanctuary (p. 3)
• 2 Urban chaos or self-organization? (p. 15)
• 3 Design method and new science (p. 27)
• 4 Return to craft manufacture (p. 37)
• 5 Visible and invisible complexities (p. 48)
• 6 The Bio-Tech Architecture Workshop (p. 68)
• Part 2 Critical Theory (p. 79)
• 7 Architectural language games (p. 81)
• 8 Role of metaphor in changing architectural concepts (p. 97)
• 9 Function of tacit knowing in learning design (p. 106)
• 10 The essential tension (p. 114)
• 11 Tradition, innovation and linked solutions (p. 131)
• Part 3 Regionalism and Globalization (p. 139)
• 12 Architecture as identity (p. 141)
• 13 Living in a hybrid world (p. 151)
• 14 Regional transformations (p. 163)
• 15 Prime objects (p. 178)
• 16 Localization versus globalization (p. 190)
• 17 Towards a global eco-culture (p. 198)
• 18 Asian urban futures (p. 211)
• Notes and references (p. 235)
• Index (p. 263)