Bøker utgitt av Birkhauser

Grading is one the most important aspects involved in landscape architecture, and, together with planting and vegetation, the most important tool in designing landscape. Landscape architects must be able to design using contour lines, as well as rapidly develop alternatives and consider options regarding design, ecology, economy, and technology. Knowledge of grading is an indispensable prerequisite.The book explains the basic aspects of grading such as land forms, scales, interpolation, elevation points, contour lines, earth mass calculation, and also introduces the topics of slope protection systems, rainwater management, or onsite grading.In the second edition, these basics have been updated to comprise new technologies including landscapingSMART, digital terrain modeling (DTM) and 3D machine control, as well as grading for roads and parking lots, and other terrain modeling construction machines. Numerous practical examples complement the theoretical foundations, and there is a section for exercises aimed at applying what has been learned.

In The Digital, a Continent?, the author argues in favor of a way of thinking about digital technology that draws on the new materialism. She uses photosynthesis and nuclear fission as examples of processes that are as artificial as they are natural to explain how digital technology can be viewed within the paradigm of a "communicative physics" in which poetics interacts with mathematical thinking. The author concludes that we can better understand ourselves and digital technology by developing notions of the multifaceted ways energy, form, and intellect interact in global architectonics. Theoretical consideration of digital technology Visual language and science New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

In his 1979 essay The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge philosopher Jean-François Lyotard noted that the advent of the computer opened up a stage of progress in which knowledge has become a commodity. Modernity and postmodernity appear as two stages of a process resulting from the conflict of science and narrative. As science attempts to distance itself from narrative, it must create its own legitimacy. This paper takes up this challenge with a focus on the question of imagery. The image is precisely what modern science seeks to free itself from in its quest for absolute transparency. This transparency is examined from the perspective of architecture, drawing on arguments from philosophy, quantum mechanics, theology and information theory. Natural science in the context of postmodernism Quantum mechanics and information theory New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

In this book, the editors focus on architecture and communication from various different perspectives - taking into account that the term "architecture" is used for buildings as well as in the context of computer software. Data and software also impact on our cities; raw data, however, do not convey any information - in order to generate information and communication they have to be organized and must make sense to the reader. The contributions avoid clear separation of the various communication spheres of their disciplines. Instead, they use the wide range of approaches to explore meanings - an ambitious aim that leaves the destination wide open; the reader is invited to share in this adventure.

Free thinking, unconstrained by facts The book is based on the thesis that we live in a world of abundance, full of natural riches and cultural artifacts, full of human intellect and powerful technologies. Our thinking, however, is dominated by the opposite, the notion of scarcity. The limits of nature act as an inevitable necessity. In his book, David Schildberger adopts a novel approach to the subject of resources, with the help of intelligent instruments that introduce new foods, such as chocolate made from cocoa cell cultures, and even a fruit-bearing vine raised far from a vineyard. With his imagined scenarios, the author invites the reader to dare stretch their intellectual imaginations and ultimately presents nature as a contingent. Conceptual models on the subject of nature and alternative ways of producing food Recommended reading for architectural IT specialists New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

Stadtentwicklung für alle Mischung: Possible! bietet Basiswissen über die Implementierung von Nutzungsmischung im konkreten Anwendungsfall einer Stadtteilentwicklung. Das Buch basiert auf einer vierjährigen experimentellen Intervention zur nachhaltigen innerstädtischen Stadtteilentwicklung durch Nutzungsmischung auf dem Areal des ehemaligen Nordbahnhofs, eines der größten Entwicklungsgebiete Wiens. Die Umsetzung der Nutzungsmischung beinhaltet die Szenarien Mobilität, Sorge- und Pflegearbeit, Nullemission, Sharing, kreative Cluster, Fair Business, vernetzte Dienstleistungen und urbane Produktion. Die Ziele sind sowohl der kollektive und individuelle Mehrwert für die Nutzer:innen als auch die Schaffung innovativer Gebäudemaßnahmen im ¿Stadtsockel¿ für eine langfristige Nutzungsmischung: Vorbilder für eine nachhaltige Stadtplanung. Vademecum für Stadtteilentwickler:innen Vorbilder für urbanen Nutzungsmix Studie der TU Wien mit namhaften Partnern

Recent developments in computer science, particularly ”data-driven procedures" have opened a new level of design and engineering. This has also affected architecture. The publication collects contributions on Coding as Literacy by computer scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, cultural theorists, and architects. The main focus in the book is the observation of computer-based methods that go beyond strictly case-based or problem-solution-oriented paradigms. This invites readers to understand Computational Procedures as being embedded in an overarching ”media literacy" that can be revealed through, and acquired by, ”computational literacy", and to consider the data processed in the above-mentioned methods as being beneficial in terms of quantum physics. ”Self-Organizing Maps" (SOM), which were first introduced over 30 years ago, will serve as the concrete reference point for all further discussions.