Our ideas about architecture -- how to do it, who can do it, and what it can do -- cannot be extracted from a social and technological context. In this book, Yanni Loukissas examines contemporary explanations of architecture in the context of a new culture of simulation developing around information technologies. The book is organized around the accounts of professional designers engaged in a high-stakes competition to redefine architecture in the context of computer simulation. Designers of a range of architectural systems, including facades, acoustical treatments, mechanical systems, and fire safety measures are challenging traditional practices in order to accommodate increasingly sophisticated simulation tools as well as new professional spaces for themselves. By illustrating how practices of simulation inform the social relationships and conceptual distinctions that define the way contemporary architecture is both designed and experienced, the book examines the cultural transformations taking place in architectural practice today.