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Themes of scarcity

Goodbun is the lead guest editor of this issue of the international journal Architectural Design, and the primary author of the substantial introduction to this edition. In addition, he is the sole author of an article in it entitled 'Flexibility and Ecological Planning: Gregory Bateson on Urbanism', and is co-author of an article (with Karin Jaschke) on 'Architecture and Relational Resources: Towards a New Materialist Practice'. The publication is related to a £1 million EU HERA funded research project 'Scarcity and Creativity in the Built Environment' (SCIBE) (see www.scibe.eu), led by the University of Westminster (Goodbun a co-investigator), and including the Technical University Vienna and Oslo School of Architecture.

Scarcity, whether conceived of as an actual limit on resources, or as a socially constructed condition of uneven social or global distribution of resources, has been largely absent as a critical concept in mainstream architectural discourse. This issue of Architectural Design examines ways in which architects and designers may respond to scarcity by means of a change in their design practices and their design thinking.

The publication includes work by leading thinkers and designers, including the design theorist Ezio Manzini; architectural theorists and practitioners Winy Maas, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Michael Sorkin, and MUF; ecological philosophers Tim Morton and Kate Soper, and geographers Erik Swyngedouw and Maria Kaika.