Intravention, Durations, Effects defines architecture not as an 'it' but as a process; in that sense, architecture is a verb: to architect. Rather than refer to the (paradoxical) limiting of intervention's 'in-between', it posits a new concept: intravention. Intra's focus on the 'within' establishes intraventions as (already) a part of the spaces and times in which they are 'intravening'.
Alberto Altés Arlandis (eds.) is an architect, researcher and Lecturer at Umeå School of Architecture, in Sweden. His work interrogates the loss of critical and utopian impetus in architecture and explores the possibilities of the moving image as an apparatus of spatial critique and encounter.
Oren Lieberman (eds.) is Professor of Architecture and Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design at the Arts University Bournemouth and a Guest Professor at Umeå School of Architecture.
Together they direct the Laboratory of Immediate Architectural Intervention, exploring architecture as a relational, political, social and ethical practice that unfolds in the making of the world through intraventions.
“As a discipline and practice, architecture needs periodic infusions of wit, generous acts of criticism, and intelligent reformulations of precepts. Alberto Altés and Oren Lieberman have edited just such a volume and then some. The conceptual grounding for ‘immediate interventions‘ is matched by an attention to formal qualities, social agendas, and political implications of design, evident in this richly illustrated book. A range of authors offer formulations of a new agency for architecture, its students, its practitioners, and its publics. Intravention… fundamentally reshapes our ideas about environmental experience.“
Dr Dana Cuff, Director, cityLAB / Professor, Architecture and Urban, Design, School of the Arts and Architecture, UCLA, Los Angeles
“The work of Laboratory of Immediate Architectural Interventions occupies a particular place within the newly created niche of temporary and mobile architecture in contemporary practice in Europe. Beyond the similarities they might share with other contemporary projects, these architectural interventions remind us of the theoretical sophistication of the architectural machines of John Hejduk or Daniel Libeskind in the 1980s, to which they add new urban and civic functions: they are not kept in museums and institutions anymore as objects of contemplation but are brought out to intravene, to mediate encounters, situations, relations in the city. These indeterminate spatial entities, both objects and spaces, pieces of urban furniture and small architectures, show what happens when the intra, the inter, the in-between become the very site of architecture: a disposition for relationality is created. Paradoxically, this mobile architecture invites us to slow down and take time to engage with things, spaces and people. This experiment-experience is even more important when it is framed within an educational programme that promotes active and transformative pedagogy. It points toward a future with optimism and care. I recommend this book to all those interested in the immediate possibilities of architecture.”
Dr Doina Petrescu, Professor of Architecture and Design Activism, University of Sheffield; atelier d'architecture autogéréé (aaa), Paris
"Intravention, Durations, Effects explores key issues of alternative spatial practice in relationship with social change, as well as the consequences of critical pedagogy in architecture. This contribution to the notion of the role of architecture and urban planning in contemporary society made by Alberto Altes and Oren Lieberman is an extremely energizing injection of critical thinking and projective ideas straight into the heart of the stereotypic debate about architectural sustainable production today. The need for a sensitive approach to social, political, and ethical issues has probably never been as urgent as it is right now in architectural theory and practice. A timely mobilizing call."
Ana Betancour, Director Master's in Architecture and Urban Design, Professor Architectural and Urban Design, Chalmers School of Architecture, Chalmers Institute of Technology, Gothenburg
“This book is the first major publication to come out of the LiAi research group at the School of Architecture in Umeå, and it captures the energy and timeliness of this important new network of theorists, practitioners and researchers.”
Jon Goodbun, University of Westminster, London
