The Space Reader provides a highly pertinent and contemporary understanding of space for a new generation of students and architects. It espouses a definition of space that is heterogeneous (an object or system consisting of a diverse range of different items). An example of heterogeneous space, for instance, is Manhattan where complex and multiple social and technological conditions are overlaid. (This is to be contrasted with highly centralised and ordered Modernist cities.) With the onset of globalisation and the Web, heterogeneneous space, with its emphasis on differentiation, is more relevant to the contemporary condition, which encourages the mixing of space, than a much more static conception of Modernist space.

This book foregrounds spatial issues and the potential of heterogeneous space through a threefold strategy:

1) Its compilation of seminal essays on the discourse of heterogeneous space. These are to include previously published key texts by Reyner Banham, Andrew Benjamin, Robin Evans, Jeff Kipnis and Henri Lefebvre, as well as new texts by important contemporary commentators, such as Mark Cousins, Werner Durth and Anthony Vidler.

2) By commenting on these seminal texts and drawing links between them.

3) By distilling from the first two efforts a contemporary outlook on a discourse of heterogeneous space that is of future significance.

Michael Hensel is Director of the EmTech Master Program at the Architectural Association and Professor for Research by Design at AHO the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. He is a member of the OCEAN Research and Design Network and board member of BIONIS the Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability.

Christopher Hight is Assistant Professor at Rice University, School of Architecture, Houston.

Achim Menges is Professor for Computational Design and Director of the Institute for Computational Design at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Stuttgart University and Studio Master of the EmTech Master Program at the Architectural Association in London. He is a member of the OCEAN Research and Design Network.