The Architecture of Transgression / Architectural Design (PDF)

Transgression suggests operating beyond accepted norms and
radically reinterpreting practice by pushing at the boundaries of
both what architecture is, and what it could or even should be. The
current economic crisis and accompanying political/social unrest
has exacerbated the difficulty into which architecture has long
been sliding: challenged by other professions and a culture of
conservatism, architecture is in danger of losing its prized status
as one of the pre-eminent visual arts. Transgression opens up new
possibilities for practice. It highlights the positive impact that
working on the architectural periphery can make on the mainstream,
as transgressive practices have the potential to reinvent and
reposition the architectural profession: whether they are
subverting notions of progress; questioning roles and mechanisms of
production; aligning with political activism; pioneering urban
interventions; advocating informal or incomplete development;
actively destabilising environments or breaking barriers of taste.
In this new dispersed and expanded field of operation, the balance
of architectural endeavour is shifted from object to process, from
service to speculation, and from formal to informal in a way that
provides both critical and political impetus to proactively affect
change.

Contributors: Can Altay, Edward Denison and Guangyu Ren, Kim
Dovey, Chris Jenks, David Littlefield, Silvia Loeffler, Alistair
Parvin, Louis Rice, Patrik Schumacher and Robin Wilson

Featured architects: atelier d'architecture
autogérée, Lina Bo Bardi, Construire/La Machine, EXYZT,
Didier Faustino/Bureau des Mésarchitectures, Lacaton &
Vassal, N55, Catie Newell/*Alibi Studio, Wang Shu, Superflex and
Bernard Tschumi