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Ugly, Useless, Unstable Architectures

Phase Spaces and Generative Domains
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Ugly, Useless, Unstable Architectures explores the intersections of architecture with Post-Structuralism and New Materialism, challenging traditional concepts of Beauty, Utility, and Stability in architectural assessment. Miguel Paredes Maldonado presents an alternative framework influenced by Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda, proposing architecture as a dynamic and generative continuum rather than fixed ideals.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for academics, students, and readers interested in architectural theory, design, and contemporary philosophy, this book offers critical insights into evolving architectural values and practices.

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Ugly, Useless, Unstable traces productive intersections between architecture and the discourses of post-structuralism and new materialism.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Ugly, Useless, Unstable Architectures traces productive intersections between architecture and the discourses of Post-Structuralism and New Materialism. It investigates how their unique ‘ontological regimes’ can be mobilised to supersede the classical framework that still informs both the production and the evaluation of architecture.

Throughout its three main chapters, this enquiry challenges one of the most prevalent tropes of architectural assessment: Beauty, Utility and Stability. Author Miguel Paredes Maldonado critically unpacks the spatial and operational qualities of these three idealised concepts, before setting out an alternative framework of spatial practice that draws from Gilles Deleuze’s post-structuralist take on the production of the real and Manuel DeLanda’s model-based branch of New Materialism.

This book reads and situates a series of spatial works through the lens of this critical methodology to contest the conceptual aspects traditionally underpinning architectural ‘value’. It posits that architecture can operate as a continuous, generative spectrum encompassing a broad range of potential configurations.

Written for academics and students in architectural theory, design and contemporary philosophical thought alike, this book should appeal to a wide audience.

Series: Routledge Research in Architecture

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781032085203

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 30 June 2021

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Routledge

Illustration: 30 Line drawings, black and white; 30 Illustrations, black and white

Audience: Tertiary education

DIMENSIONS

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 540g

Pages: 230

About the Author

Miguel Paredes Maldonado is a lecturer in Architectural Design at the University of Edinburgh, a chartered architect in the UK and a partner in award-winning research and design studio Cuartoymitad Architecture & Landscape. He taught at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid before relocating to Edinburgh in 2013. In the recent past he has been visiting faculty at the Università degli studi di Cagliari, the School of Architecture at Taliesin and the Technische Universität Graz. Miguel’s research is articulated through writing, speculative design and architectural practice. His enquiries operate at the intersection of computational media, the development of contemporary urban commons, and New Materialism as applied to design theory. As a body of design research, his work has been published and exhibited internationally, most notably at the 11th and 16th editions of the Venice Biennale.

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