Contrary to the idea that awareness of extinction is quintessentially modern, this article argues that Bernard Palissy conceived of extinct species—what he called “lost species” (“espèces perdues”)—in the sixteenth century. This premodern craftsman knew that human activity caused species to vanish. But how? By retracing his interactions with merchants and fishermen at the French Atlantic ports, I show that Palissy learned about the overfishing of waters from other commercial actors. Rather than paint human-caused extinction as a novel insight, I demonstrate that Palissy drew on common vernacular knowledge about the depletion of the ocean. Palissy's pronouncements, it is further shown, expand his well-known polemic against bookish learning. The artisan championed practical experience against a textual tradition of natural history, exposing the latter's silence on commercially decimated species.

In 2007, the Royal British Institute of Architects (RIBA) commissioned Jeremy Till’s now seminal essay, ‘Architectural Research: Three Myths and One Model’. Till’s essay called out ‘unnecessary antipathy’ between practitioners and academics, arguing for enhanced collaboration to enable a more ‘dynamic system’ of research. This paper presents a pilot study of five large architectural practices engaged in research that seeks to understand what is driving greater research engagement within contemporary architectural practice, what knowledge is being created for what purpose, and the relationship of practice-generated research to that produced within academia. Five semi-structured interviews and three written questionnaires were elicited from practices, each of whom have dedicated research staff or a demonstrated track record of research engagement and/or utilisation. Ultimately, it is suggested, a more honest discussion of the relational dynamics of collaborations between practice and academia is needed. Such discussion requires researchers from both to embrace ethnographic approaches, reporting not just the outcomes of their work together but also revealing the ‘mess’ involved in generating those outcomes.

This article presents the first sustained study of Pietro Perugino's destroyed “Assumption of the Virgin” altarpiece commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV for the Sistine Chapel. My analysis reconstructs the frescoed altarpiece's ritual setting and relates it to imagery associated with Sixtus's promotion of the controversial Immaculate Conception feast. The altarpiece's ties to the Immaculate Virgin intensified during the 1483 Assumption feast, which marked the chapel's inauguration. The Assumption represented a salient event in Rome's liturgical calendar, and I demonstrate how the altarpiece allowed Sixtus to temporarily expand a local communal feast to include an expression of papal privilege and authority.

Andrea Riccio was renowned for making bronze statuettes of classical subjects, especially satyrs. His sculptures have long been associated with humanist culture in Padua, where he worked, but this article reveals how they also engaged regional vernacular traditions in the aftermath of the War of the League of Cambrai. An impactful source was Ruzante's plurilingual comedy “La Pastoral.” Confronting Venetian hegemony, Riccio and Ruzante revitalized Padua's ancient legacy by molding the pastoral around popular concerns. While Renaissance bronze casting and dialect literature have been analyzed independently, their local interchange demonstrates sculpture's potency in addressing interests shared among artisans and writers.

This paper explores the role of parallax in architecture and the so-called ‘parallax gap’ proposed by philosopher Slavoj Žižek in 2009. For Žižek the parallax gap is grounded in psychoanalytic short circuits, prompting a hypothesis about postmodern conflicts within architecture. While the concept of parallax has appeared within architecture at various points historically, Žižek’s parallax gap affords a possibility for the redirection of the viewer’s gaze away from the architectural object to the spaces inflected by, and between, neighbouring urban fabric. Reflecting on the potentialities of interrogating architecture and urban space psychoanalytically, I argue for an expansion of parallax focused on understanding spatial dislocations and disorientations. The result retraces parallax in urban space research, catering for a fertile investigation at the intersection of architecture, culture, politics, and psychoanalysis.

This article comes from a collaboration between the departments of Architecture, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, the College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho (US), and a team from Auburn University’s (US) School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, known collectively as the PrinTimber Group. The focus of this work is to develop an additive manufacturing construction technique that repurpose the 20% of wood waste from wood-product manufacturing and wood construction waste that currently goes to landfills. The idea is to use this material in novel combinations with various additives in order to create a high-performance biobased construction material. This article discusses the challenges inherent to the development of this new building technology, with particular focus on the role of architecture within a multidisciplinary team. The discussion is structured around the thinking of French philosopher of technology, Gilbert Simondon.

In September of 2004, a museum was dedicated to honour the work of Bruno Gironcoli, one of the most idiosyncratic Austrian artists of the twentieth century who developed an unmistakable form of expression. The museum is in the Alpine Foothills and is joined by unexpected neighbours: a zoo, a castle, and historic gardens. The article explores Gironcoli’s relational networks as defined through invitation, transition, opposition, and perspective. The paper highlights the interplay of the physical, imaginative, and visual boundaries between Gironcoli’s work, the zoo, castle, and gardens. Visitors appreciate this unique setting, which enables them to formulate their own vision of Gironcoli’s hybrid sculptural forms.