A participative approach to architecture challenges many of the normative values of traditional architecture and, in particular, issues of authorship, control, aesthetics and the role of the user. The book explores how a participative approach may lead to new spatial conditions, as well as to new types of architectural practices and investigates the way that the user has been included in the design process. Where many architectural books concentrate on formal or aesthetic issues, this book explicitly opens up the social and political aspects of our built environment, and the way that the eventual users may shape it. As government policies throughout the world call for more involvement by people in the making of their environment, the issue of participation has become of central concern to architects, clients, funders, users and government officers. However, participation often remains as a token gesture; this book promises to make a major contribution to the field by arguing for a more considered approach to architectural participation. Architecture and Participation brings together leading international practitioners and theorists in the field, ranging from the 1960s pioneers of p

Architecture and Ritual explores how the varied rituals of everyday life are framed and defined in space by the buildings which we inhabit. It penetrates beyond traditional assumptions about architectural style, aesthetics and utility to deal with something more implicit: how buildings shape and reflect our experience in ways of which we remain unconscious. Whether designed to house a grand ceremony or provide shelter for a daily meal, all buildings coordinate and consolidate social relations by giving orientation and focus to the spatial practices of those who use them. Peter Blundell Jones investigates these connections between the social and the spatial, providing critical insights into the capacity for architecture to structure human ritual, from the grand and formal to the mundane. This is achieved through deep readings of individual pieces of architecture, each with a detailed description of its particular social setting and use. The case studies are drawn from throughout architectural history and from around the globe, each enabling a distinct theoretical theme to emerge, and showing how social conventions vary with time and place, as well as what they have in common. Case studies range from the Nuremberg Rally to the Centre Pompidou, and from the Palace of Westminster to Dogon dwellings in Africa and a Modernist hospital. In considering how all architecture has to mesh with the habits, beliefs, rituals and expectations of the society that created it, the book presents deep implications for our understanding of architectural history and theory. It also highlights the importance for architects of understanding how buildings frame social space before they prescribe new architectural designs of their own. The book ends with a recent example of user participation, showing how contemporary user interest and commitment to a building can be as strong as ever.

The experience of movement, of moving through buildings, cities, landscapes and in everyday life, is the only involvement most individuals have with the built environment on a daily basis. Yet this concept of user experience is so often neglected in architectural study and practice. This book tackles this complex subject for the first time, providing the wide range of perspectives needed to tackle this multi-disciplinary topic. Organised in four parts it: documents the architect's, planner's, or designer's approach, looking at how they have sought to deploy buildings as a promenade and how they have thought or written about it. concentrates on the individual's experience, and particularly on the primacy of walking, which engages other senses besides the visual. engages with society and social rituals, and how mutually we define the spaces through which we move, both by laying out routes and boundaries and by celebrating thresholds. analyses how we deal with promenades which are not experienced directly but via other mediums such as computer models, drawings, film and television.The wide selection of contributors include academics and practitioners and discuss cases from across the US, UK, Europe and Asia. By mingling such disparate voices in a carefully curated selection of chapters, the book enlarges the understanding of architects, architectural students, designers and planners, alerting them to the many and complex issues involved in the experience of movement.

Once again, new interpretations are presented of some of the most famous architecture of the period. Work by lesser-known architects, whose influence and role have been overlooked by conventional histories of the subject, is discussed. The case study structure allows each example to be discussed and used as a springboard to explore different theoretical approaches. Filled with beautiful photographs, plans and architect's drawings, this is a clear and accessible discussion on a period of architecture that engages many questions still under debate in architecture today.

A participative approach to architecture challenges many of the normative values of traditional architecture and, in particular, issues of authorship, control, aesthetics and the role of the user. The book explores how a participative approach may lead to new spatial conditions, as well as to new types of architectural practices and investigates the way that the user has been included in the design process. Where many architectural books concentrate on formal or aesthetic issues, this book explicitly opens up the social and political aspects of our built environment, and the way that the eventual users may shape it. As government policies throughout the world call for more involvement by people in the making of their environment, the issue of participation has become of central concern to architects, clients, funders, users and government officers. However, participation often remains as a token gesture; this book promises to make a major contribution to the field by arguing for a more considered approach to architectural participation. Architecture and Participation brings together leading international practitioners and theorists in the field, ranging from the 1960s pioneers of p

The experience of movement, of moving through buildings, cities, landscapes and in everyday life, is the only involvement most individuals have with the built environment on a daily basis. Yet this concept of user experience is so often neglected in architectural study and practice. This book tackles this complex subject for the first time, providing the wide range of perspectives needed to tackle this multi-disciplinary topic. Organised in four parts it: documents the architect's, planner's, or designer's approach, looking at how they have sought to deploy buildings as a promenade and how they have thought or written about it. concentrates on the individual's experience, and particularly on the primacy of walking, which engages other senses besides the visual. engages with society and social rituals, and how mutually we define the spaces through which we move, both by laying out routes and boundaries and by celebrating thresholds. analyses how we deal with promenades which are not experienced directly but via other mediums such as computer models, drawings, film and television.The wide selection of contributors include academics and practitioners and discuss cases from across the US, UK, Europe and Asia. By mingling such disparate voices in a carefully curated selection of chapters, the book enlarges the understanding of architects, architectural students, designers and planners, alerting them to the many and complex issues involved in the experience of movement.

Architecture and Ritual explores how the varied rituals of everyday life are framed and defined in space by the buildings which we inhabit. It penetrates beyond traditional assumptions about architectural style, aesthetics and utility to deal with something more implicit: how buildings shape and reflect our experience in ways of which we remain unconscious. Whether designed to house a grand ceremony or provide shelter for a daily meal, all buildings coordinate and consolidate social relations by giving orientation and focus to the spatial practices of those who use them. Peter Blundell Jones investigates these connections between the social and the spatial, providing critical insights into the capacity for architecture to structure human ritual, from the grand and formal to the mundane. This is achieved through deep readings of individual pieces of architecture, each with a detailed description of its particular social setting and use. The case studies are drawn from throughout architectural history and from around the globe, each enabling a distinct theoretical theme to emerge, and showing how social conventions vary with time and place, as well as what they have in common. Case studies range from the Nuremberg Rally to the Centre Pompidou, and from the Palace of Westminster to Dogon dwellings in Africa and a Modernist hospital. In considering how all architecture has to mesh with the habits, beliefs, rituals and expectations of the society that created it, the book presents deep implications for our understanding of architectural history and theory. It also highlights the importance for architects of understanding how buildings frame social space before they prescribe new architectural designs of their own. The book ends with a recent example of user participation, showing how contemporary user interest and commitment to a building can be as strong as ever.