Architectural Association School of Architecture

Net Works: An Atlas of Connective and Distributive Intelligence in Architecture

Net Works records the modern and contemporary history of connective and distributed intelligence in architecture. The book and exhibition present the ways in which networks and distributed organisations have long operated within architectural practice and culture.

A key objective is to frame and better understand the early modern foundations on which much of current architectural experimentation lies, as a means to reassess the social, cultural and political implications of architectural culture in the early 21st century.

The exhibition displays the work of 4x4 contemporary young offices, schools and emerging forms of practising whose projects openly explore the potential of connective design technologies, distributed material structures, or diffused operational/managerial working approaches in architecture today. Contributors include Atelier d’Architecture Autogerée, AADRL, AA Visiting School, Ball-Nogues, Misuk Cho, Sou Fujimoto, Vicente Guallart, Exyzt, Theo Jansen, Kram/Weisshaar, Achim Menges, Supersudaca, Stalker, Studio-X Global Network Initiative, School of Missing Studies and Talca School of Architecture.

The accompanying monograph, Net Works: An Atlas of Connective and Distributive Intelligence in Architecture (AA Publications, 2011) includes examples selected from the 20th-century history of networks in architectural practise, culture and its discourses, revealing the deep history of conceptual, performative, structural, pedagogical and managerial models.

Compiled as an international catalogue of essential projects and forms of learning and practising in architecture, it is the second volume of a planned trilogy edited by Brett Steele and Francisco González de Canales, exploring changing modern conditions of architectural production in relation to emerging contemporary technologies and radical experimentation.

Photos: Sue Barr