Innovation in Practice (in Theory)

In what is arguably a most crucial time for discourse around issues that are concerned with the political, institutional, and social shape of worlds to come, this book explores the agency of the project of architecture and its processes of innovation by constructing an opportunistic and contingent map of effectual positions.

The book is built around two sets of questions: the first set of questions concerns itself with the distinction between built objects and actions as the focus of observation, and as objects that are susceptible to innovating, or being innovated. The second set of questions concerns itself with the understanding of the relationship between theory and practice and is defined by two positions: one that looks to theory as a result of practice, another that looks to practice as subsequent to theory. These two axes are used to locate and compare different positions, thus allowing the readers to construct their own readings of what it means to innovate the project of architecture.