Architectural Affordances – Typologies of Umbau
Andreas Lechner/Gennaro Postiglione/Maike Gold/Francesca Serrazanetti (eds.)
Naples: Thymos Books, 2024
English, 320 pages, paperback
ISBN 978-88-32072-56-3
EUR 34.00

The book Architectural Affordances: Typologies of Umbau is the result of perennial research and teaching by Andreas Lechner and Gennaro Postiglione at Politecnico di Milano. Edited in collaboration with Francesca Serrazanetti and Maike Gold, it investigates thirty international “Umbau” projects—architectural transformations—through three temporal scales: those spanning centuries, those exceeding a hundred years, and those occurring within a single century. Each project’s material and functional transformation history is illustrated with detailed floor plans, sections, and elevations, alongside specific yellow-red diagrams that trace the stages of change within these three life-cycle categories and thus make affordances comprehensible as design-conditioned spaces for change. At the core of the book are architectural drawings, which function not only as records of transformation but also as essential generative tools within the discipline, bridging historical precedents with future architectural paradigms. By uncovering the affordances embedded within built forms, the book develops a contemporary, “drawn” theory of transformation, offering nuanced perspectives on some of the most pressing issues in architectural practice today. Supplemented with essays and with Hermann Czech’s seminal text “Der Umbau” (Transformation) from 1997, the book Architectural Affordances is an essential resource for architects, scholars, and students. It encourages rethinking adaptation and reuse as vital strategies within contemporary architectural practice.