Thomas Walton – författare

How does spirituality enter the education of an architect? Should it? What do we mean by 'spirituality' in the first place? Isn't architectural education a training ground for professional practice and, therefore, technically and secularly oriented? Is there even room to add something as esoteric if not controversial as spirituality to an already packed university curriculum? The humanistic and artistic roots of architecture certainly invite us to consider dimensions well beyond the instrumental, including spirituality. But how would we teach such a thing? And why, if spirituality is indeed relevant to learning architecture, have we heard so little about it?Spirituality in Architectural Education addresses these and many other important philosophical, disciplinary, pedagogic, and practical questions. Grounded on the twelve-year-old Walton Critic Program at the Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning, this book offers solid arguments and insightful reflections on the role that "big questions" and spiritual sensibility ought to play in the architectural academy today. Using 11 design studios as stopping grounds, the volume takes the reader into a journey full of meaningful interrogations, pedagogic techniques, challenging realizations, and beautiful designs. Essays from renowned architects Craig W. Hartman, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Campo Baeza, Claudio Silvestrin, Eliana Bórmida, Michael J. Crosbie, Prem Chandavarkar, Rick Joy, Susan Jones, and Daniel Libeskind open new vistas on the impact of spirituality in architectural education and practice. All this work is contextualized within the ongoing discussion of the role of spirituality and religion in higher education at large. The result is an unprecedented volume that starts a long-awaited conversation that will advance architectural schooling. ACSA Distinguished Professor Julio Bermudez, with recognized expertise on spirituality in architecture, will be the guide in this fascinating and contemplative journey.

Haunted by three thousand years of artists who made pilgrimage to the Eternal City, collaborators Elizabeth Cooperman and Thomas Walton gather impressions from the ruinous streets in and around Rome. The result is a literary mosaic that aligns itself with the ecstatic baroque of Bernini, the concentrated vision of Caravaggio, and the sublime uncertainty of Keats, as it resists the forces of another dark age. Dazzling with image and anecdote, with comedy and cobblestones, with headless statues and the bright robes of street performers, with shadow and cicada and shock of light, The Last Mosaic is an aesthetic call to arms to listen, a battle cry to be impressed, and a plea to get lost.

This is a book of seventeen-word sentences, of aphorisms and otherisms. The aphorisms are in the tradition of Porchia, Blake, The Tao Te Ching, and Wittgenstein. The otherisms find their ancestors in Gertrude Stein, cabaret, Hejinian, haiku, and noir pulp fiction. Arranged thematically to respond to various themes -- politics, love and sex, parenthood, the afterlife, etc. -- both what's lofty and lowly are represented in these wildly imaginative and strangely intimate "seventeens." At times pithy, poetic, surreal or profane, each line is a concise world of wonder. Here is a collection of seventeen-word landscapes, snapshots and found bits of lint, learning and linden leaves that can be nibbled on, a few at a time, or binged in quick succession. The book is illustrated with seventeen etchings and drawings by Douglas Miller and includes an afterword by Elizabeth Cooperman.

In the early days of video games, spatial awareness was limited to exactly what was on the screen. If an enemy was off-screen, it didn't exist until it killed you. Then, arcade classics like 'Defender' introduced a revolutionary concept: a crude, glowing radar at the top of the screen. This tiny UI element, which evolved into the modern mini-map, fundamentally changed how human beings process virtual space and navigate digital worlds. This deep dive into game design architecture explores the psychological impact of the mini-map. It details how real-time strategy games perfected the concept, allowing players to manage massive armies across continents. However, the book also dissects the dark side of this invention: how modern open-world games became so reliant on the mini-map that players stopped looking at the beautifully crafted 3D environments, instead playing the entire game by staring at a small circle of icons in the corner. Discover the friction between convenient navigation and true immersion. Understanding the evolution of the mini-map reveals the delicate psychological balance game developers must strike when guiding players through artificial worlds.