Remote Practices

As advancements in transportation and technology continue to close the gap between architect, client, builder and site, critique and place, this book considers how architects, designers, theorists, and critics design, describe and critique future and past constructions in absentia. This book engages with remote practice, providing students, academics and professionals with the understanding and tools they need to rethink the role of the distant and disconnected in making, thinking and writing architecture — a skill which is becoming increasingly important in contemporary education and practice.

Bringing together a collection of 16 essays and creative works from a diverse and respected group of scholars and designers, this book reflects upon the challenges and opportunities which remote practices occasion in architecture. Part One: Practice and Pedagogy investigates how a range of technological and economic advancements continue to redefine notions of connectedness in the practice of architecture at a distance and explores what it means to teach and study architecture at a distance from peer and place. Part Two: Critique and Performativity consists of a wide range of questions that unpack notions about situatedness, subjectivity, the body in space, and what occurs when disparate things are suddenly made proximate. The essays and creative works enable thematic as well as historically and culturally contextual understanding of the topic, highlighting important connections and changes across time.