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This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative policy-decision schemes - "decentralization" and "centralization" - when "knowledge" consists of unverifiable information and the quality of communication depends on the conflict of interests between the government levels. It is shown that, depending on which level of policy decision-making controls the degree of decentralization, the extent of misaligned interests and the relative importance of local and central government knowledge affects the optimal choice of policy-decision schemes. The empirical analysis shows that countries ́choices depend on the relative importance of their private information and the results differ significantly between unitary and federal countries.

This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative policy-decision schemes decentralization' and centralization' when knowledge' consists of unverifiable information and the quality of communication depends on the conflict of interests between the government levels. It is shown that, depending on which level of policy decision-making controls the degree of decentralization, the extent of misaligned interests and the relative importance of local and central government knowledge affects the optimal choice of policy-decision schemes. The empirical analysis shows that countries' choices depend on the relative importance of their private information and the results differ significantly between unitary and federal countries.

This article presents the initial findings of the design research carried out during the last semester by the master of architecture students at Wollega University, Ethiopia. The research goal is the creation of new knowledge to improve the design process. The dissatisfaction with the outcomes of the conventional design approach has led to rising concern and growing awareness of the need to evaluate design outcomes and to learn from the failure. That inadequate understanding of design problems leads frequently to design failure suggests that the evaluation of design outcomes can be made by assessing the way architects develop understanding of design problems, and how they use that understanding for developing knowledge base of the design process. The assumption is that architects' understanding of design problems can be assessed by examining the way data is used for developing the knowledge base of the design process. The students surveyed the architects' views in order to produce knowledge, which can be used to develop methods for discovering how inadequate data contributes to miss-informed design decisions; and methods for assessing the architects' understanding of design problems. In this article the survey findings are analyzed and documented; and, the way the insight drawn from the inquiry can be used in future research for developing design theory, is discussed.Keywords: design outcomes, failure, evaluation, questionnaire, analyze

Is architecture relevant for political theory? That is the key question that structures this excellent collection Political Theory and Architecture, although a number of essays fit a broader formulated theme better, namely, concerning the political relevance of the organization and design of our built environment more generally, including architecture but also spatial planning and urban design. The collection demonstrates that our build environment is not merely a passive backdrop to a political community, but actively shapes aspects of our common political life. This constitutive nature of our built environment figures in many different guises throughout this volume. In this review article, I discuss some of these and conclude that concerns about the 'common good' and hence about the discipline of political theory should take reflections on urban design, planning, and architecture into account.

A software architecture manifests the major early design decisions, which determine the system's development, deployment and evolution. Thus, making better architectural decisions is one of the large challenges in software engineering. Software architecture knowledge management is about capturing practical experience and translating it into generalized architectural knowledge, and using this knowledge in the communication with stakeholders during all phases of the software lifecycle. This book presents a concise description of knowledge management in the software architecture discipline. It explains the importance of sound knowledge management practices for improving software architecture processes and products, and makes clear the role of knowledge management in software architecture and software development processes. It presents many approaches that are in use in software companies today, approaches that have been used in other domains, and approaches under development in academia. After an initial introduction by the editors, the contributions are grouped in three parts on "Architecture Knowledge Management", "Strategies and Approaches for Managing Architectural Knowledge", and "Tools and Techniques for Managing Architectural Knowledge". The presentation aims at information technology and software engineering professionals, in particular software architects and software architecture researchers. For the industrial audience, the book gives a broad and concise understanding of the importance of knowledge management for improving software architecture process and building capabilities in designing and evaluating better architectures for their mission- and business-critical systems. For researchers, the book will help to understand the applications of various knowledge management approaches in an industrial setting and to identify research challenges and opportunities.

"Die soziologische Theorie hat in einer historisch plausiblen 'antiästhetischen und antitechnischen Haltung' (W. Eßbach) zwei Dimensionen des Sozialen aus ihrer Handlungstheorie entfernt, die sich für eine soziologische Analyse der Architektur der modernen Gesellschaft als zentral erweisen könnten. Zum einen handelt es sich um Artefakte, um die vielfältigen Dinge, die als hybride 'Quasi-Subjekte' (Latour) fungieren. Die soziologische Theorie hat keinen Begriff, der die suggestiven Wirkungen der Materialität der Architektur, ihre Positivität zu analysieren erlaubte. Wenn Architektur als 'Anzeiger gesellschaftlicher Strukturen', als 'symbolische Verkörperung' des Sozialen, als 'soziale Morphologie' angesprochen wird, ist sie als dem Sozialen nachhinkend konzipiert. Sie wird soziologisch nicht in ihrem zuweilen zwingenden Charakter ansprechbar, in ihren vorgängigen Möglichkeitsräumen für Bewegung, Interaktion, Wahrnehmung und Denken, den suggestiven Effekten eines körperräumlichen, nonverbalen Mediums des Sozialen. Zum anderen hat die soziologische Theorie das kreative Handeln vergessen: neben dem zweck- und wertrationalen, affektuellen und traditionalen Handeln bezeichnet dies eine Handlungsdisposition, die der Kontingenzkultur, dem gewachsenen Möglichkeitsraum der Moderne spezifisch entspricht, von besonderen Gruppen kultiviert wird und den konstruktivistischen und produktivistischen Charakter der urbanen Gesellschaft ermöglicht und vorantreibt. Architekten sind in ihrer zur massenwirksamen Avantgardepraxis avancierten Disziplin mindestens in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts wesentliche Träger dieser Disposition. Sie begreifen sich entsprechend als Gesellschaftsdemiurgen, in ausgesprochen anti-traditionaler, kreativistischer Haltung. Mit der gesellschaftlichen Funktion dieses Selbstverständnisses einer Intellektuellengruppe ist auch die Funktion architektonischer Utopien für die moderne Vergesellschaftung bisher kaum reflektiert. Soll das Phänomen Architektur in seiner Komplexität und Relevanz soziologisch fruchtbar werden, ist die soziologische Theorie in beiden Hinsichten zu ergänzen. Der Beitrag versucht, die 'Soziologie der Artefakte' um die (Kunst und Technik synthetisierende) Architektur zu erweitern und dabei die lebensphilosophische Denkfigur des 'Schöpferischen' einzusetzen. Es geht um das soziologisch keineswegs uninteressante Potential von Architektur, Gesellschaft zu gestalten." (Autorenreferat)

Architecture Depends presents an original thesis that brings social theory, including that of Zygmunt Bauman and Bruno Latour, to bear on architectural theory and practice. Drawing on theories of critical pedagogy, contingency, and reflective practice, it presents a new paradigm for architectural thinking, recognised by the 2009 RIBA President's Award for Research (prize for outstanding university-based research). Reviews include Blueprint, Architects' Journal; the Times Higher Education Book of the Week; features on Nightwaves (BBC R3), Thinking Allowed (BBC R4). Publisher's text about the volume: Architecture depends — on what? On people, time, politics, ethics, mess: the real world. Architecture, Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself. Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect's best-laid plans—at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy. Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Mixing anecdote, design, social theory, and personal experience, Till's writing is always accessible, moving freely between high and low registers, much like his suggestions for architecture itself. The everyday world is a disordered mess, from which architecture has retreated — and this retreat, says Till, is deluded. Architecture must engage with the inescapable reality of the world; in that engagement is the potential for a reformulation of architectural practice. Contingency should be understood as an opportunity rather than a threat. Elvis Costello said that his songs have to work when played through the cheapest transistor radio; for Till, architecture has to work (socially, spatially) by coping with the flux and vagaries of everyday life. Architecture, he proposes, must move from a reliance on the impulsive imagination of the lone genius to a confidence in the collaborative ethical imagination, from clinging to notions of total control to an intentional acceptance of letting go.

The tradition, from its antique strain, has considered that architecture needs to be thought out, in order to avoid the contingencies of the moment, which is most often the result of power ratios. The theory, which properly understands this requirement, must be accompanied by the architecture, which is understood as a logical practice ordered by the community in order to ensure its destiny. ; La tradition, depuis sa souche antique, a considéré que l'architecture exigeait d'être pensée, pour se soustraire à la contingence du moment qui, le plus souvent, est la résultante de rapports de force. La théorie, à bien comprendre cette exigence, se doit d'accompagner l'architecture, saisie comme pratique logique commandée par la collectivité pour assurer son destin.