Every contributor to arq is sent a number of free copies of the issue by the publisher. Recently, some complimentary copies were despatched to Gunnar Asplund (the author of the ‘document’ paper in arq 5/2) at the Weslch (sic) School of Architecture in Cardiff. They were, of course, meant for Simon Unwin and Christina Johnsson, the introducer and translator of Asplund's inaugural lecture. It may happen again …

The environmental analysis in Rob Marsh, Michael Lauring, and Ebbe Holleris Petersen's paper ‘Passive solar energy and thermal mass: the implications of environmental analysis’ (arq 5/1, pp.79–89) is an important example of how important analysis is in identifying the design issues.

The new Jersey Archive is superbly designed and beautifully crafted. It is also one of the largest repositories in the world to use a passive environmental control system. Here, one of the architects, David Prichard, describes the design and its development and the services engineer, Chris Twinn, concludes with an account of the physics behind the building design.

Theory is usually assumed to precede practice but ‘Practice preceding theory’ is the telling sub-title to Patrick Hodgkinson's essay on Leslie Martin on p. 297 of this issue. It is a full year since we published an extended celebration of Martin's work together with his essay ‘The grid as generator’ (arq 4/4). Kenneth Frampton's subsequent Postscript (arq 5/1) placed Martin in a historical perspective. Spurred by Frampton's assessment, Hodgkinson now reminds us how Martin's later theoretical work can be said to have had its origins in the studio's early work.

This thought-provoking reminder comes at a time when, in the UK, architecture's standing as a research-led university discipline remains as low as ever. Once again in the government's recent Research Assessment Exercise no architecture school achieved the highest rating. This was unremarked upon both by the professional press (which was much more interested in the upsets at the top end of the league-table) and by the RIBA (which probably hasn't even noticed and has certainly never grasped the significance of university research). It seems that neither much of the ‘theory’ which so many architecture academics expound nor the odd bit of practice that they manage to undertake is highly rated by the assessors.

This, of course, is not the outcome intended by the 1958 Oxford Conference on Architectural Education (master-minded by Martin) which determined that in future all architects should be educated within the research-led university system. But does the RAE debacle matter? It certainly does. Research-rich schools are better resourced — and that benefits both teaching and practice. We need to take a hard look at why architecture fares so badly — and to question its grouping with construction management and surveying. We must also consider the very nature of university-based architectural research. Hodgkinson is right when he concludes, ‘much thought still needs to be given to architectural theory if it is to raise itself from being purely academic — and therefore practically useful.’

But take a look, too, at the articles on pp. 305 and 312 of this issue. The first, by occasional practitioner and academic Peter Blundell Jones, sets out the case for ‘Working with the given’. In the second, ‘New meanings from old buildings’, Blundell Jones and another practitioner/academic, John Sergeant, appraise three very modest house conversions and extensions designed by them and by David Lea. These architects have evolved their position over many years — developing, through building, discussion and writing, a genuinely sustainable approach to the use of resources. Their buildings may be modest but, together with their writing, they eloquently encapsulate an approach or theory that is increasingly relevant — and utterly practical.

Last time I was in Glasgow, I met the architect Isi Metzstein in the street and his first words to me were: ‘It's you! I don't know how you can show your face here!’ My book on Mackintosh had just been published, and local papers were carrying headlines like ‘MACKINTOSH AUTISTIC!’

Computers have come to play an important role in architectural practice. Nonetheless, the promise of computation as a creative partner in practice, and a means to better understand and support the design process has yet to be realized. This article considers aspects of computation, and alternative ways that these have been approached in order to make computation useful in architecture and other areas of spatial design.

Andres Duany's critical sketch of architectural fashions rampant in US schools (arq 5/2, pp.105–106) carries a well-aimed barb, thrown from the right of stage. Duany's amusing categories call out for a post-modern Osbert Lancaster to illustrate them (as Lancaster did in Pillar to Post), except that the job is done monthly in the journals without comment. Anyone who has endured the Jencksian categorymania will enjoy this report from the zoo. The last comparable inventory was made by Aldo Van Eyck with his Rats, Posts and Pests speech.

As an architect involved in the design of many shopping centres in the UK and Europe over the past 25 years, I feel moved to respond to the interview with Rem Koolhaas in your last issue (arq 5/3). Regrettably, as I write, the Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping is not yet available: I can therefore only comment on the interview.

The urgent need for new housing in south-east England is likely to be met by development on what are often ‘brownfield’ sites. Buschow Henley's scheme was the winning entry for an ideas competition to stimulate new ideas leading to the exemplary development of such a site. With the exception of the opening statement and the competition background, this is a much shortened version of the original submission.

In this conversation with Rem Koolhaas, arq probes some of the issues raised by his research into shopping, the subject of his latest book, The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping. He argues that architects have largely ignored this dominant form of urban activity, which has prohibited us from having an effect on its quality. Maintaining a critical but open-minded position, he offers insights of value to every architect.

The celebration of Leslie Martin's life and work in arq 4/4 has provoked a steady stream of correspondence about the nature and quality of his contributions to architectural practice, education and research. However, so far absent from this debate has been the voice of any of those who worked in Martin's Shelford studio. Spurred by the issue of the relation of practice to (academic) research, PATRICK HODGKINSON, Martin's first assistant, reflects on some of the projects with which he was involved. This most revealing contribution to the debate raises the whole issue of the nature of architectural research.

Does Giles Oliver (letters, arq 5/3) mean to connect the success of the Tate Modern in ‘sucking in huge crowds’ with the success of architectural education? Both in his view seem suspect achievements. The Tate is not proper architecture — it is too brutish and poorly lit — while current architectural education avoids all that is proper to architecture. His message is that both public and consumer opinion counteth for nought in these matters. But what else have professionals ever said? Particularly the generations brought up to believe that unpopularity was architecture's native condition. Frankly I am rather encouraged by the popularity of supposedly arcane subjects like modern art, modern architecture and architectural education. At least we seem to be getting one thing right. Not that I am advocating complacency. Keeping anything alive in our management sodden culture is tricky, particularly the kind of creative team spirit required to make projects work.

Air conditioning is now recognized as a significant factor in global warming and climate change. In the search for alternatives, passive downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC) is proving to be both technically and economically viable in different parts of the world. Brian Ford describes the principles and current practice of this innovative approach to cooling in the hot dry regions of the world.

The growth of formalized research has been one of the most important developments in architectural education in the last half-century. It is now axiomatic that most, if not all, faculty members in schools of architecture will undertake some measure of research. In this the academic architect stands alongside, and is indistinguishable from, colleagues in the other disciplines. But in the middle decades of the last century the case for the development of a research culture in architecture was not so clear cut. Two of the central figures in the debate about the establishment of research were Serge Chermayeff in the United States and Leslie Martin in the United Kingdom. DEAN HAWKES compares and contrasts their pioneering work.

Paolo Tombesi's paper (arq 5/2) managed to be both entertaining and thought provoking.

As the tenth anniversary of the death of Sir James Stirling approaches, Michael Spens considers the relative significance of aspects of his work, both in terms of a sequence of key designs and in the light of contemporaneous critiques. What emerges is a confirmation of the architect's underlying extension of a progressive, enriching modernity. The best work is seen as a rare consummation of the Sublime, as opposed to the Picturesque, within the general continuity of Modernism.