Capsules: Typology of Other Architecture Typology of Other Architecture

This book investigates the architectural, productdesign, and urban typology of the capsule which, beginning in the 1960s, broadened the concept of the basic building blocks of architecture to include a minimal living unit, called the "capsule." Here it is presented with regard to the continuity of the development of the Modern Movement, its revisionist criticism, pioneering examples, as well as contemporary examples and uses. The typology of the capsule allows us to consider this theme in terms of the architecture of resistance, with the potential to search for an "other" architecture that is embedded in our contemporaneity (manifested in small dwellings, composite structures, and container units; shelters and mobile homes in nature and the urban environment; technology transfer in high-tech designs; devices, additions, and extensions etc.). The concept of the capsule as a building element of architecture, as well as a spatial element, can therefore be regarded as having a generative potential for an architecture of personal space for the individual, forcing us to reflect on our existing living and dwelling conditions.

1. Frame(work). 2. Development:Pioneers and Contemporaries. Subsistence Minimum (Existenzminimum). CIAM and the New Generation. From Buckminster Fuller to Counterculture 1960. British Techno-Utopia and Experiments for the Immediate Future. Japanese Metabolism and the Philosophy of Change. 3. Catalog: Typology and Its Manifestation. Autonomous Cells. Connective Cells. 4. Medium: Typology and Image. Envelope: Protection and Representation (Exterior). Envelope: Comfort Equipment and Feedback Simulation (Interior). Prefabricated Integrity (Structure, Function, Representation). Temporariness (Time and Space). Mobility (Movement). 5. Coda: In Pursuit of Other Architecture. SelectBibliography. Index.

Peter Šenk is Assistant Professor of Architecture and Spatial Planning at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Architecture at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. He is a researcher and writer in the field of architecture, urban planning, and visual culture, an architect(co-founder ofStudio Stratum), and a curator (at the House of Architecture, Maribor).