Infrastructural architecture is integral to the shape and form of cities, and is one of the most prominent architectural typologies to emerge in todays increasingly urbanised world. However, as a typology in its own right, it remains almost completely unexplored in existing architectural theory. Infrastructural Architecture is the first book to fully explore this new territory.
Our world is saturated by infrastructures and networks, whether visible or invisible - from road and rail networks, to the hidden systems of water and power that serve cities, to communications networks, cloud-based data systems and the internet. These networks and flows exist multi-layered in the city, and, while they are often mistakenly construed as intangible and ethereal, this book shows how they are given tangible built form through the hardware of infrastructural architecture.
Exploring how infrastructures have evolved in relation to technology, the work reveals how infrastructural architecture has long been embedded in urban form and discourse - from medieval street/bridges, via ports, urban transport hubs and Reyner Banhams Megastructures to giant data-centres and the todays shedscape of distribution centres and operation hubs. In the contemporary and near-future contexts, the authors examine the relationship between architecture and the infrastructure of digital networks, looking at the large-scale ordering of urban space and architecture, the impact of big data on city and building form, and the role of infrastructural architecture for the 21st century.
Bringing together the theory and history of architecture with clear discussions of the sociology of networked societies, this book reveals a new type of architecture distinct to the late 20th and early 21st centuries, providing a complete picture of how architecture is formed in the networked digital age.
About the Author
Richard Brook is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture, UK.
Nick Dunn is Professor of Urban Design at Lancaster University, UK.
