On shaping buildings

Building in the twenty-first century is characterised by a number of challenges framed by economic, environmental and social circumstances. Architecture today needs to be financially and environmentally sustainable, and strategies of so-called up-cycling and cradle-to-cradle are employed as ways to decrease ecological damage (see Love, this volume). As cities expand on a global scale and their spaces become inhabited and used in a multitude of ways (Kohn and Dawdy, this volume), there are ever-present expectations of the flexibility and adaptability of architecture, and at the same time a demand for sustainable architecture and planning for the future. Temporality and 'temporary spaces' have become a central theme in contemporary architecture; for instance in the requirements of the metropolis as a creative space that harbours momentary cultural events, refugees camps or buildings occupied by squatters, where people may be staying fleetingly or for a longer - yet often unknown - period of time (e.g. Mehrotra and Vera 2013; Ramadan 2013; Vasudevan 2015; Ziehl et al. 2012)