Being and Making Architecture

Ecological Thinking Across Scales
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-01763-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 212 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Research in Architecture

Far removed from techno-heroic narratives, Being and Making Architecture demonstrates how ecological consciousness in architecture is built "within reach." The themes organizing its content—matter, garden, workshop, kitchen, pedagogy, and collective practices—unfold across various scales through a transdisciplinary lens, linking materials and domestic spaces to planetary ecological systems.

Thus, the book offers not only a theoretical framework for navigating contemporary challenges but also a practical exploration of how architectural design is reinventing itself, under the impetus of ecological thinking. Although the relative autonomy of the chapters allows for non-linear reading, all the research topics—rooted in a French cultural context—progress across scales in a spiral movement, characteristic of the emergence of ecological thinking. Moreover, the structural elements—whether material or spatial—share a common ethos advocating a hybrid mode of being and making architecture.

As a journey of wonders, Being and Making Architecture weaves connections between sensible narratives, architectural theory, anthropology, sociology, political ecology, material and environmental history, philosophy, art, and science. In doing so, the volume equips designers—from academia to professional practice—with a multi-scale method that turns ecological thinking into a catalyst for architectural transformation.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mantz, Ophélia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction - From Being to Making Architecture 1. From Matter to Society - The Art of Doing More with Less 2. From the Garden to the Forest - Praise for Temporal and Technical Ecologies 3. From the Workshop to the City - The Construction of a Design Thinker 4. From the Kitchen to the Territory - The Metaphysics of Flows 5. From Aula to Landscapes - Matterscapes for a Material Ethics 6. From the Flâneur to the Ecological Class - On Idling, Cartography, and Commoning as Modes of Resistance 7. Last Journey - Ecological Thinking across Scales

Über Autor(innen)

Ophélia Mantz is co-principal of Z4A Architects, and Assistant Professor and Director of the Material Research Collaborative at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, University of Houston. She holds an Architect DPLG from the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville and a Master in Bioclimatic Architecture and Sustainability from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. Her research on the construction of ecological thinking in architecture and the city has appeared in JAE, Assembly, Materia Arquitectura, SAJ, PPA, ARQ, and RA, among others. Together with Rafael Beneytez-Duran, she leads Z4Z4/Z4A Architects, an architecture and design practice based in Houston/Madrid. Z4A/Z4Z4 understands architecture at the intersection of disciplines and scales. Their practice work received the 2025 and 2023 Texas Society of Architects Award, the ACSA Design Faculty Award Honorable Mention in 2026 and Winner in 2019, the S.ARC H Award in 2018, and was a finalist for the Architectural Review Award in 2016.