This book is a cutting edge study examining the attitudes to both nature and the built environment of the designer, the client and the society in which an intervention (be it architecture, landscape design or a piece of art) is made. The legacy of the Modernist view of nature and the environment is also addressed, and the degree to which such ideas continue to impinge on contemporary interventions is assessed.

An analysis of how city dwellers interact with their social and materials worlds in everyday life and how this affects their bodies. Space and place have become central to analysis of culture and history in the humanities and social sciences. Making Place examines how people engage the material and social worlds of the urban environment via the rhythms of everyday life and how bodily responses are implicated in the making and experiencing of place. The contributors introduce the concept of spatial ethnography, a new methodological approach that incorporates both material and abstract perspectives in the study of people and place, and encourages consideration of the various levels—from the personal to the planetary—at which spatial change occurs. The book’s case studies come from Costa Rica, Colombia, India, Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “Rich, diverse, and provocative meditations on place and identity formation . . . it builds on the previous scholarship on bodies, memory and place while also moving our understanding of this theme in a refreshing and engaging direction.” —Abidin Kusno, University of British Columbia

This book offers a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to place attachment from a European perspective. Starting from a dynamic, relational, and participatory concept of place attachment, the book discusses place making and place attachment processes through place-based development and community place-driven actions. It also presents examples of creating place attachment through nature- and culture-based contexts and focuses on how sustainable planning and territorial identities enhance place attachment. Finally, this book presents and discusses (re)constructing place attachment within transition processes and through strategic solutions for urban recovery and regeneration of (post)-industrial areas. By considering the social, environmental, economic, and political effects of building, strengthening and maintaining place attachment, this book is a valuable read for all those working with and interested in learning more about place attachment: geographers, landscape planners, sociologists, psychologists, environmental and political scientists, and members of community movements.

Cultural traditions transmitted within the primary and secondary migratory communities of the Caribbean are continually subject to loss, gain and reinterpretation. Communication practices play a role in these processes as they help to sustain and challenge the diasporic subjectivities of the Caribbean. Re-Constructing Place and Space: Media, Culture, Discourse and the Constitution of Caribbean Diasporas seeks to explore the influence of embodied, discursive and mediated communicative forms on the construction and maintenance of Caribbean diasporic communities. The volume emerged from the 2009 New Media and the Global Diaspora Symposium: Exploring Media in Caribbean Diasporas held at Roger Williams University in the United States. The event sought to encourage interdisciplinary academic discourse on Caribbean migratory populations, foregrounding the role of communicative practices in sustaining their traditions. In keeping with the spirit of the symposium, this volume applies a transdisciplinary lens to understanding the diversity and complexity of Caribbean peoples’ production of and engagement with communication practices. The objectives for the book are two-fold. The general objective is to contribute to discourse on diasporic identity and performativity. The more specific aim of the book is to present a more complex picture of peoples from the Caribbean region and their diasporic communities. —From the Introduction

This collection of twenty-three essays by Duncan Stroik shows the development and consistency of his architectural vision. Packed with informative essays and over 170 photographs, this collection clearly articulates the Church’s architectural tradition.

Addressing one of the hottest trends in real estate the development of town centers and urban villages with mixed uses in pedestrian-friendly settings this book will help navigate through the unique design and development issues and reveal how to make all elements work together."

While it is widely recognized that architects and their architecture play a key role in constructing a sense of place, the inherent nexus between an architectural ideology and the production of national space and place has so far been neglected. Focusing on the Zionist ideology, this book brings together practising architects and academics to critically examine the role of architects, architecture and spatial practices as mediators between national ideology and the politicization of space. The book first of all sets out the wider context of theoretical debates concerning the role of architecture in the process of constructing a sense of place then divides into six main sections. The book not only provides an innovative new perspective on how the Israeli state had developed, but also sheds light on how architecture shapes national identity in any post-colonial and settler state.

You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.

Throughout history and around the world, community members have come together to build places, be it settlers constructing log cabins in nineteenth-century Canada, an artist group creating a waterfront gathering place along the Danube in Budapest, or residents helping revive small-town main streets in the United States. What all these projects have in common is that they involve local volunteers in the construction of public and community places; they are community-built. Although much attention has been given to specific community-built movements such as public murals and community gardens, little has been given to defining community-built as a whole. This volume provides a preliminary description of community-built practices with examples from the disciplines of urban design, historic preservation, and community art. Taken as a whole, these community-built projects illustrate how the process of local involvement in adapting, building, and preserving a built environment can strengthen communities and create places that are intimately tied to local needs, culture, and community. The lessons learned from this volume can provide community planners, grassroots facilitators, and participants with an understanding of what can lead to successful community-built art, construction, preservation, and placemaking.

“Shows us why the actions that prepare us for emergencies and energy descent are the right things to do no matter what the future brings.” —Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden Other books tell us how to live the good life—but you might have to win the lottery to do it. Making Home is about improving life with the real people around us and the resources we already have. While encouraging us to be more resilient in the face of hard times, author Sharon Astyk also points out the beauty, grace, and elegance that result, because getting the most out of everything we use is a way of transforming our lives into something much more fulfilling. Written from the perspective of a family who has already made this transition, Making Home shows readers how to turn the challenge of living with less into settling for more—more happiness, more security, and more peace of mind. Learn simple but effective strategies to: · Save money on everything from heating and cooling to refrigeration, laundry, water, sanitation, cooking, and cleaning · Create a stronger, more resilient family · Preserve more for future generations We must make fundamental changes to our way of life in the face of ongoing economic crisis and energy depletion. Making Home takes the fear out of this prospect, and invites us to embrace a simpler, more abundant reality. “Americans are born to be transient—Sharon Astyk has the prescription for dealing with that genetic disease, and building a healthy nativeness into our lives.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author “Exhaustively researched and compassionately delivered.” —Harriet Fasenfest, author of A Householder’s Guide to the Universe