Architecture and urban design are typically considered as a result of artistic creativity performed by gifted individuals. Postphenomenology and Architecture: Human Technology Relations in the Built Environment analyzes buildings and cities instead as technologies. Informed by a postphenomenological perspective, this book argues that buildings and the furniture of cities—like bike lanes, benches, and bus stops—are inscribed in a conceptual framework of multistability, which is to say that they fulfill different purposes over time. Yet, there are qualities in the built environment that are long lasting and immutable and that transcend temporal functionality and ephemeral efficiency. The contributors show how different perceptions, practices, and interpretations are tangible and visible as we engage with these technologies. In addition, several of the chapters critically assess the influence of Martin Heidegger in modern philosophy of architecture. This book reads Heidegger from the perspective of architecture and urban design as technology, shedding light on what it means to build and dwell.

This book presents a new and radical interpretation of some of Martin Heidegger’s most influential texts. The unfamiliar interpretations all seek to question and unframe hasty assessments of the concepts and constellations of thoughts surrounding Heidegger’s notion of modern technology. Heidegger’s impressive work still hides many treasures and strange thoughts giving original insights into the rise of biotechnology, transgressions between art and technology and the writing of Western history. By way of surprising thought experiments, critical questioning, allusions and systematic conclusions, this book presents Heidegger’s thoughts on technology in a way that not only shows his importance for philosophy and modern society, but also identifies his shortcomings and uses his original thoughts and concepts against him.

Postphenomenology is a fascinating investigation of the relationships between global culture and technology. The impressive range of subjects to which Don Ihde applies his skill as a phenomenologist is unified by what he describes as "a concern which arises with respect to one of the now major trends of Euro-American philosophy--its textism." He adds, "I show my worries to be less about the loss of subjects or authors, than I do about [there] not being bodies or perceivers."

This book draws from philosophy, psychology, object studies, and design theory to articulate the intersection of design thinking and human experience. When designers talk about related fields, they often mention anthropology, cognitive science, psychology, information science, etc., but philosophy is usually left out. Why? Why don't we talk about philosophy as a contributor to the understanding of design, especially when phenomenology, the philosophical study of human experience, has contributed so much to our understanding of the interrelation between humans and technology? Design for Dasein attempts to apply phenomenological thinking to design in order to further inform what designers (especially what we might call "experience designers") do in their day to day work. Many activities designers perform every day can be traced back to insights from phenomenology. Activities like user testing, prototyping, sketching, interaction models, personas, interviewing, ethnography, participatory design, and processes like design thinking and lean UX all have phenomenological roots. The book will highlight these connections and explore how they contribute to designing better experiences, providing the reader with new ways of thinking about his or her work, and new strategies for designing systems for both present and future scenarios.

Structures and Architecture. A Viable Urban Perspective? contains extended abstracts of the research papers and prototype submissions presented at the Fifth International Conference on Structures and Architecture (ICSA2022, Aalborg, Denmark, 6-8 July 2022). The book (578 pages) also includes a USB with the full texts of the papers (1448 pages). The contributions on creative and scientific aspects in the conception and construction of structures as architecture, and on the role of advanced digital-, industrial- and craft -based technologies in this matter represent a critical blend of scientific, technical, and practical novelties in both fields. Hence, as part of the proceedings series Structures and Architecture, the volume adds to a continuous exploration and development of the synergetic potentials of the fields of Structures and Architecture. With each volume further challenging the conditions, problems, and potentials related to the art, practice, and theory of teaching, researching, designing, and building structures as vehicles towards a viable architecture of the urban environment. The volumes of the series appear once every three years, in tandem with the conferences organized by the International Association of Structures and Architecture and are intended for a global readership of researchers, practitioners, and students, including architects, structural and construction engineers, builders and building consultants, constructors, material suppliers, planners, urban designers, anthropologists, economists, sociologists, artists, product manufacturers, and other professionals involved in the design and realization of architectural, structural, and infrastructural projects.

Friis and Crease capture Postphenomenology, a new field that has attracted attention among scholars engaged in technology studies. Contributors to this edited collection seek to analyze, clarify, and develop postphenomenological language and concepts, expand the work of Don Ihde, the field's founder, and scout into fields that Ihde never tackled. Many of the contributors to this collection had especially close ties to Ihde and have benefited from close work with him. This combined with the distinctive diversity of the contributors—18 people from 10 different countries—enables this volume to put on display the diversity of content and styles in this young movement.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of philosophical understanding, offering an in-depth collection of leading and emerging voices in the philosophy of technology. The thirty-two contributions in this volume cut across and connect diverse philosophical traditions and methodologies. They reveal the often-neglected importance of technology for virtually every subfield of philosophy, including ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and political theory. The Handbook also gives readers a new sense of what philosophy looks like when fully engaged with the disciplines and domains of knowledge that continue to transform the material and practical features and affordances of our world, including engineering, arts and design, computing, and the physical and social sciences. The chapters reveal enduring conceptual themes concerning technology's role in the shaping of human knowledge, identity, power, values, and freedom, while bringing a philosophical lens to the profound transformations of our existence brought by innovations ranging from biotechnology and nuclear engineering to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics. This new collection challenges the reader with provocative and original insights on the history, concepts, problems, and questions to be brought to bear upon humanity's complex and evolving relationship to technology.

Our contemporary world is undeniably intertwined with technology, influencing every aspect of human life. This edited volume delves into why modern philosophical approaches to technology closely align with phenomenology and explores the implications of this relationship. Over the past two decades, scholars have emphasized users’ lived experiences and their interactions with technological practices, arguing that technologies gain meaning and shape within specific contexts, actively shaping those contexts in return. This book investigates the phenomenological roots of contemporary philosophy of technology, examining how phenomenology informs analyses of temporality, use, cognition, embodiment, and environmentality. Divided into three sections, the volume begins by exploring the role of phenomenological methods in the philosophy of technology, and further investigates the methodological implications of combining phenomenology with other philosophical schools. The second section examines technology as a phenomenon, debating whether it should be analysed as a whole or through individual artifacts. The final section addresses the practical applications of phenomenological insights in design practices and democratic engagement. By offering a systematic exploration of the connection between phenomenology and technology, this volume provides valuable insights for scholars, students, and researchers in related fields, highlighting the continued relevance of phenomenological perspectives in understanding our technologically mediated world.

Don Ihde is one of the world's foremost thinkers on the place of technologies in our lives. Over the course of a long career, he has built a unique and useful perspective by expanding on phenomenological and American pragmatist philosophy and has developed wide-ranging insights and conceptual tools for describing the details of our experience across the various areas of human activity, including scientific practice, anthropological history, computer interface, design, art history, and the technologies of everyday life. The Critical Ihde brings together many of Ihde's most influential writings, as well as a number of under-recognized gems. Across these works are examples of his influential contributions to the phenomenology of human auditory and visual experience, his foundational work on the phenomenology of technology, and his thoughts on the technologies of scientific practice, including laboratory and medical imaging. Further, these chapters reveal the development of "postphenomenology," Ihde's original philosophical perspective, one that continues to flourish today across the work of a growing interdisciplinary and international collective of scholars.

Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human–Technology Relations provides an introduction to the school of thought called postphenomenology and showcases projects at the cutting edge of this perspective. Postphenomenology presents a unique blend of insights from the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and American pragmatism, and applies them to studies of user relations to technologies. These studies provide deep descriptions of the ways technologies transform our abilities, augment our experience, and shape the world around us. This book proceeds with a preface by Don Ihde, postphenomenology’s founder, and a detailed review of the main ideas of this perspective by the editors Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek. The body of this volume is composed of twelve postphenomenological essays which reflect the expansive range, detail-orientation, and interdisciplinarity of this school of thought. These essays confront a broad assortment of topics, both abstract and concrete. Abstract topics addressed include metaphysics, ethics, methodology, and analysis of the notions of selfhood, skill training, speed, and political activism. Just a few of the concrete topics studied include human-like interactive robots, ethics education, image interpretation in radiology, science fiction tropes, transportation history, wearable computing, and organ donation protocols for brain-dead bodies. The volume concludes with constructive critiques of postphenomenology by Andrew Feenberg, Diane Michelfelder, and Albert Borgmann, all figures whose work is relevant to postphenomenological projects.