Architektúra & urbanizmus 3 – 4 /2018

In the world today, it is hard to think of an area where computing technology does not play a crucial role, and architectural design is no exception. Computers influence all stages of architectonic creation, from the design up to construction optimisation. The development of computer technologies and the digitisation of architectonic tools has radically shifted architectural practice and architectural research. Concentration of the process of design, analysis, simulation and fabrication into a jointly shared digital platform offers the potential of stronger feedback, more effective cooperation and thus a more innovative and creative architectural solution. The new technologies of design and production are changing the form of the discipline, and bringing in a greater role for experiment, testing, prototype formulation and development. This change increases the standing of architectural research, which can no longer be imagined in isolation but needs to be linked up with other fields in the humanities, sciences and engineering. Architectural research in the age of computer designing is a multidisciplinary, systematic and creative search for processes, materials and geometry, and its outcome is an architecture emerging from the interaction of flows of material, energy and information.

The first paradigm shift brought by digitalisation to the field of architectural design was the possibility of working with complex geometries; registering, transmitting and materialising organic shapes; and expanding the notation character of the architectural record with new, virtual 3D models. Architectural research and cutting-edge practice at the turn of the century can, in formalist terms, be described as the architecture of fluid curves, or in mathematical terms free curves, which architects assumed from the automotive and aviation industries. Current accessibility of greater information capacities and processing power has brought yet another paradigm shift, where notation or indeed any other methods of information compression are no longer necessary. This change is already influential in industry, and its implementation in architecture is a significant current in present-day architectural research, which we can observe not only in leading academic platforms but also in international architectural practice. 

Even in the Slovak-Czech academic environment, there has been in recent years strong interest in computerised design in architectural departments such as VŠVU in Bratislavě, or UMPRUM and ČVUT in Prague. In 2017, UMPRUM played host to the exhibition ‘Academic Platforms of Computerised Design’, presenting research architectural prototypes from Bartlett UCL, ICD Stuttgart, IAAC Barcelona, CITA Copenhagen, TU Vienna or ETH Zurich, and several architectural symposiums were also organised on current tendencies (EAB # 3, Meetup Prague ...). In 2018, the publishing house of UMPRUM will issue its first longer publication mapping both new and previously printed texts in this area. The present call for papers from the journal Architektúra & urbanizmus has the ambition of providing the latest results of architectural research in the age of computerised design. 

Architektura & Urbanismus would like to welcome contributions addressing architectural research in the area of computerised design. Contributions can address both specific research projects and the wider evaluation of the processes in current architectural research. 

Editors of the thematic issue: 
Imrich Vaško and Shota Tsikoliya

Deadlines and Conditions:
Please send your contributions no later than: 30 April 2018

Other details and technical parameters of the manuscript can be found on the journal’s website