For the modern architect, the programme for the church was fraught with the dangers of excessive individualism of style or, alternatively, a merely superficial updating of tradition. To escape from both, the architect was, by the early 1960s, being exhorted to study the church's functions. Aware of the difficulties of placing ancient rituals in the same category as the sociology of education or the productivity of offices, architects and like-minded clergy saw the church as a building not only to house certain actions and communications, but also capable of lending these a relevant meaning. The church architect had to discard his preconceptions about the building type, and begin with a new analysis of ritual, and had also, therefore, to find out what the ritual meant by questioning the client and developing a brief. In this research the architect would therefore act as a ritual anthropologist; like the anthropologist, he would encounter some significant methodological problems.

A significant development in urban history was the emergence of the Garden City movement at the end of the nineteenth century, inspired by the writings and actions of Ebenezer Howard. The movement would generate a broad range of urban typologies and various visionary models of the city during the twentieth century. The Garden City was a direct response to what were perceived to be the evils of large industrial cities and attempted to reunite country and town, particularly through the residential garden and the act of gardening. Using Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's assemblage theory I examine gardens and gardening, and the agencies inherent to these. By evoking the early history of the first Garden City at Letchworth, we can ask what role can gardens and gardeners play in addressing contemporary urban issues? [1].

A classical church portico – say, St Paul's in London – implies a rite of passage and mediation between the city and the interior rituals of the institution; it beckons the street, while offering shelter to those who want to observe the crowd. In contrast, the spectacular interiors of Modernist churches are often entered without theatre – the plain outer door [1], for example, of Jørn Utzon's Bagsværd Church (Copenhagen, 1973), provides little hint of the magical cloud-like movement of vaulted space within. This is not simply a matter of the changing formal language of architecture (namely, interior space taking priority over exterior shell), but also how the church might be defined in wider civic and historical contexts. Here the Classical theory of decorum remains helpful, for Vitruvius proposed that identifying a building's theme (statione) – that is, the social and institutional destination of the building – was the first step in determining appropriate form, the prerequisite one before considering the related determinates of decor, namely stylistic coherence (consuetudine) and site (natura). The issue of thematic appropriateness is above all important for the front, which announces the building like a frontispiece does a text. Yet as the church portico demonstrates, a thematic motif was rarely the straightforward application of a code, for in the period when architectural decorum prevailed – loosely speaking the fifteenth to nineteenth century in Italy, France and England among other places – how a genre was defined and what constituted the repertoire of appropriate form were contested.

The prompt circulation of images and representations of buildings has not only expanded the audience for architecture, but has also become a critical tool which – quite beyond the architect's reach – is more influential than the ideas, concepts and buildings they represent. Images have become such an important element that they are not only the primary medium through which most architectural works first engage an audience, but their circulation has come to precede the act of building. The mass dissemination of architectural imagery has enabled a consumption of architecture which has not only transformed buildings into culture, but also ensured a significant displacement in architectural reception. While in prior years the dissemination of images took place after the built object, recently, the diffusion of imagery not only precedes the building, but also conditions its reception.

There is little question that we live in an age of images, in a mediated environment in which the image is ever-present – with its effects nevertheless still growing [1]. This essay – as an introduction to the four papers that follow – examines aspects of the complex questions surrounding the image and those that accompany the shift from print to pixel.

What is a ‘Smartcity’? [1] The Smartcity differentiates itself from the ‘Eco-city’ by embracing new paradigms of programme, form and sociological interaction. It is neither a fixed place nor a singular approach but rather a manifesto for the production of a space relevant for the twenty-first century.

The Smartcity is not a creation from a blank slate, but an evolution of long-standing sustainable principles that intertwine with contemporary desires for a healthier physical, mental and social existence in an increasingly alienating world. It aims to preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources, expand the range of eco-transportation, employment and housing choice, and values long-term regional sustainability over short-term focus. The currency of an ‘eco-’ prefix has become devalued through overuse and abuse, and ‘sustainability’ is a blanket expression – clearly, some aspects of our lifestyle are worth sustaining and others are not. Deciding and acting on which category they fall into, however, is not as straightforward as it appears. Conservation of energy and the environment are key priorities, but so too is the conservation of heritage, tradition and human interaction. Each generation is the proprietor of its own values, and the current zeitgeist has reacted against the mass-produced and anodyne, whether in the guise of housing, jobs and clothing or fruit and vegetables. Without ignoring technological advances, the Smartcity embraces leanness and the low-tech by adopting an operating system that filters out excess and reboots our social space. Smartcity living does not ask for ‘more’ but determines how to use less in the creation of a healthier mental and physical existence [2].

What is low-energy architecture? What at first glance would seem to be a simple question turns out to be rather more complex. Architectural practice does not exist in a vacuum, but responds to society's wider demands. In this way, low-energy architecture can be seen as developing in relation to the regulative framework that exists at any given time and which sets the boundaries for what is accepted as low-energy, or not.

The definition of research quality is directly linked to public funding access in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands. Architecture, as a design discipline, faces the problem that it has limited access to these resources. It experiences a so-called evaluation gap. Its research performance does not easily fit the conventional moulds commonly used to assess quality. Assessments are increasingly based on the analysis of indexed journals, while indexes (such as the ISI) have, so far, mostly neglected the arts and humanities to which architecture may be assumed to belong. Schools of architecture have to face this matter head-on if they want to survive in times of austerity, and they need to do so sooner rather than later. They have to decide whether they want to continue to push for the acceptance of discipline-specific performance indicators or whether they would rather adapt to the standards and dissemination practices that characterise more established fields of scientific research. The direction they choose will inevitably shape future research in architecture.

In his introduction to Form Matters, the catalogue accompanying his Design Museum exhibition, which began in London in October 2009 and culminated its tour in Italy earlier this year, David Chipperfield is at once very clear to state that ‘the work of an architect is measured by built work’; but he also emphasises that the body of work shown is ‘the consequence not of individual genius, but of the collaborative efforts of our office and our partners, unified in the belief that architecture can pursue ideas, concern itself with its physical potential and maintain the economic criteria that make these projects possible’. It is a tribute that also implies the organisational structure required to run offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai and to design and build projects in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.

For architects, intellectual property (IP) law is vital. Without it plans, building designs and models would have no value as others could copy them without payment. But what are an architect's rights and how are those rights retained in order to avoid commercial exploitation?

The legislation for this area of law comes from the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), the Registered Designs Act 1949, the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the Patents Act 1977. IP itself is divided into those rights that are registrable at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and those that are not. Rights that must be registered before the work is protected include trademarks, patents and registered designs; IP rights that cannot be registered include copyright and unregistered design rights.