Professor Pia Ednie-Brown

The bald desire to innovate is not sufficient in itself. To go beyond mere technical invention and make a positive difference, innovation requires an engagement with overall ethical intent. Here, Guest-Editor Pia Ednie-Brown espouses a design ethos that values an open-ended approach to architectural innovation. She illustrates the ethical impact of implementing new technologies with two opposing paradigms - one dark and one affirmative - as exemplified by two classic films from 1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barbarella. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An event and exhibition space opening on to the sidewalk of New York City's SoHo, Storefront is dedicated to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture and design. It seeks 'to simultaneously shake and question the current state of affairs'. Guest-Editor Pia Ednie-Brown discusses with the Catalan architect, Eva Franch i Gilabert, her role as Director of Storefront, and specifically how she has promoted active, generative engagement through humour, disruption and innovation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Guest-Editor Pia Ednie-Brown provides a foil to Mario Carpo's discussion of digital innovation. She argues for an emerging 'strange vitality' in contemporary computational design that is highly innovative: being disruptive rather than incremental in the manner in which it seeks out innovation. She specifically describes how MOS (Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample) and New Territories/R&Sie(n), led by François Roche, are reinventing digital design in architecture by reconnecting it through a variety of media to broader cultural and social issues. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Architectural innovators often work on the cusp of what is feasible, acceptable and convincing. Practising futuristically can also mean risking going down a blind alley. Over the last two decades, Greg Lynn has been one of the leading figures in innovative practice, demonstrating an instinct for the meaningfully inventive. One of his major contributions has been cross-fertilisation of technologies, introducing the likes of animation and robotics from other disciplines into architecture. Having interviewed Lynn in April 2012, Guest-Editor Pia Ednie-Brown reflects on the specific characteristics of his work and mode of operation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the last decade, biotechnical architecture has become one of the most fertile areas for speculative architecture. Guest-Editor Pia Ednie-Brown traces the recent lineage of this field, highlighting the work of Ginger Krieg Dosier and Michael Dosier of Vergelabs, which has pushed biotechnical architecture further towards actualisation; their company bioMASON specialises in the biomanufacture of building material and its architectural applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Theories of emergence are intrinsically concerned with how things are generated or created. Such a theoretical model would seem clearly relevant to creative design practices and questions of aesthetics, but the discourse on emergence has been predominantly held within frameworks belonging to modern science. Implicit, historical connections between emergence and both architectural composition and aesthetics become indicators of other potential, with Greg Lynn as a key historical reference point regarding how architectural composition might offer important insight into the aesthetics of emergence. This article argues, drawing on Manuel DeLanda's keynote essay, that the potential of these connections has been hidden behind the mystical glow surrounding missing causal explanations. By connecting emergence and aesthetics through the concept of affect, they can become productive, mutually transformative allies. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.