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The influential Dutch architect's long-awaited manifesto on the everyday environment as the first and best ground for establishing the significance and coherence of architecture. According to N. J. Habraken, intimate and unceasing interaction between people and the forms they inhabit uniquely defines built environment. The Structure of the Ordinary, the culmination of decades of environmental observation and design research, is a recognition and analysis of everyday environment as the wellspring of urban design and formal architecture. The author's central argument is that built environment is universally organized by the Orders of Form, Place, and Understanding. These three fundamental, int...
First translated in English ten years after its original Dutch publication in 1962, this book distinguishes the infill from the support - examining what users can individually decide in a housing process from what users share - and what has turned out to be feasible in practice.
In this 2002 book, Tim Gorringe reflects theologically on the built environment as a whole.
Why urban design is larger than architecture: the foundational qualities of urban design, examples and practitioners Urban design in practice is incremental, but architects imagine it as scaled-up architecture—large, ready-to-build pop-up cities. This paradox of urban design is rarely addressed; indeed, urban design as a discipline lacks a theoretical foundation. In The Largest Art, Brent Ryan argues that urban design encompasses more than architecture, and he provides a foundational theory of urban design beyond the architectural scale. In a “declaration of independence” for urban design, Ryan describes urban design as the largest of the building arts, with qualities of its own. Ryan ...
The average lifespan of a house is somewhere around 100 years. During that time it will see many mutations in household composition and related spatial rituals. Designers are therefore faced with the task of giving form to something that is constantly subject to change. Many studies into flexibility focus on the changeable, on movable partitions and variation in the internal layout. The present study takes not the changeable but the permanent as its departure-point. The permanent--i.e. the more durable component of the house or building--constitutes the frame within which change can take place, while the frame defines the generic space, the space in which change can occur.
Based on many years of personal observation, Palladio's Children critically examines the role of the architect as a professional descendent of Palladio, and as an heir to his architectural legacy. Seven innovative and carefully crafted essays explore the widening ideological schism between today’s architects whose core values, identity and education remain rooted in the Renaissance legacy of creating artful ‘masterpieces’, and the practical demands on a profession which acts within an evolving, ubiquitous and autonomous built environment or ‘field’. Clearly written yet expressing complex, evolving ideas, this extended argument opens a new forum of debate across design theory, professional practice and academic issues. Moving the subject on from a historical perspective, Habraken shows how architects are increasingly involved in the design of everyday buildings. This must lead to a reassessment of architects’ identities, values and education, and the contribution of the architect in the shaping of the built environment.
This book offers, for the first time, access to the chronological arc of John Habraken’s writing in a single collection. Few architects or scholars have so consistently and patiently pursued such a humane and culturally vital set of radical questions related to the behaviour of the built environment as N. John Habraken. From the publication of his first book in 1960, he has quietly helped redraw the map of architectural research, education, practice, design methods and theory. His insights lead us to a better understanding of how the built field works, contributing to the development of methods enabling professionals to contribute to its coherence and resilience. Following an introductory ...
"'Home' represents a fundamental value in a person's life. Although many factors pertaining to his housing situation are beyond the occupant's control, he still attempts to create his own domestic domain, the finite center of a world in which he is free to be himself. As long ago as 1961, in his book 'Supports : An alternative to mass housing', John Habraken suggested a completely different approach to mass housing in the Netherlands. In an effort to offer the occupant of a mass-produced dwelling the opportunity to make a personal statement, he introduced the concept of a separation of support and infill. Habraken sees the support structure as the aspect of housing production that represents...
Residential Open Building, the result of a CIB Task Group 'Open Building Implementation', provides a state-of-the-art review of open building, fundamental principles, recent developments, and international coverage of current projects on both the public and private arena. Open Building is a highly flexible and economical method of building which has far reaching advantages for urban designers, architects, contractors, developers and end users.
A carefully crafted reader which represents the discipline’s best thinking and promotes an understanding of the principles of urban design, Writing Urbanism is the ideal volume for both architects and urban designers.