The Oxford Conference

Fifty years after the 1st Oxford Conference on Architectural Education, the 2008 Conference assembled some 500 international participants to share best practices and discuss the teaching of architecture now and in the future. Eighty-five papers are organized into 12 sections: plenary papers, buildings and the environment, sustaining studio education in a climate of changes, human habitat and social responsibility, refurbishment and evidence-based education, research into teaching courses, urban design and sustainable cities, materials and renewable energy, virtual building and generative design, design research, and courses and curricula. A sampling of topics: reasserting the architect's position in pursuit of sustainability, the carbon neutral design project, the role of student self-regulation in design studios, the case for real building with real budgets, integrated household solar system, and topics for online architectural design teaching. No subject index. The U.S. office of WIT Press is Computational Mechanics. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)