Economic, ecological, and social crises not only become manifest as interruptions in societal development, but also as spatial phenomena. A key example of these are urban wastelands such as abandoned factory sites, large-scale unoccupied residential buildings, and unused spaces at street level. They are the visible results of urban change, highlighting challenges for disciplines such as architecture and urban design.
This book explores urban transformation using the concept of urban voids. Wastelands hold manifold possibilities for urban development, as it is here that the strategies of planners meet the collective and self-managed tactics employed by local residents. The author analyses case studies from Latin America in order to open up future angles for space-shaping disciplines in Europe.

Venice presents particular challenges for the construction of new residential neighborhoods. When additional living space was required between the First and Second World Wars, the needs of a modern city expansion project were confronted with the lagoon city’s unique urban landscape. To accommodate the unusual geography, small, independent neighborhoods were developed in Venice’s inner periphery, each of which had to work around local idiosyncrasies. This volume explores the creation of eight of these neighborhoods, which were established during a period in which construction was becoming increasingly industrialized. The ways in which their traditional, craft-focused design was harmonized with the requirements of modern residential building is still relevant to contemporary professional discourse within the discipline.

From early modernist designs like Hans Poelzig’s archetypal gas station to the Stuttgarter Schule standardized filling stations on the Reichsautobahn, and through to Lothar Götz’s modular post-war constructions—which paved the way for the standardized corporate designs that flourished later—gas stations have been a key element of our surroundings since the 1920s. While the design and construction of gas stations has since become a significant area of work for well-known architecture and engineering firms, this type of building has thus far received barely any attention in academic discourse. Franz Arlart examines and systematizes the development of gas stations in Germany with reference to the architects that designed them. Taking into account functional, technical, and symbolic considerations, this book presents the architectural development of the building type from 1920 to 2020 and outlines the trends that will shape gas station design going forward.