Ever felt a "been-there-before" presence at a place you visited... for the first time? If so, you may have stumbled upon a Thin Place, described in Celtic history as places where the veil between this world and another becomes very thin; places where different eras often seem to merge; and places where people feel connected to a stirring presence. In this book you will discover how to identify five ways Thin Places engage with us; how to utilize the low-cost benefits at Thin Places; how to score engagement levels at places you visit; and how to "seed" new Thin Places with your architect.

What makes the places we inhabit extraordinary? Why are some urban spaces more vital and restorative? Wonderful landscapes, inspiring works of architecture and urban design, and the numinous experiences that accompany them have been an integral dimension of our culture. Up-lifting spaces, dramatic use of natural light, harmonic proportional geometry, magical landscapes, historic sites and vital city centers create special, even sacred moments in architecture and planning. This quality of experience is often seen as an aesthetic purpose intended to inspire, ennoble, ensoul and spiritually renew. Architecture and urban spaces, functioning in this way, are considered to be thin places.

Elemental Architecture presents a new and refreshing approach to sustainable architectural practice. Going beyond the standard performance-based and quantitative sustainable measures, it incorporates a broader framework of considerations, including the more poetic and noetic possibilities of environmental design. The book is structured around the ancient Greek and medieval alchemists’ system of the Five Temperaments: fire, earth, air, water, and ether. Phillip James Tabb examines how these elements produce both positive and negative environmental forces which have an impact on architectural design – from drinking water and fresh air to torrential floods and tornados. He shows how responding to or enhancing these forces can help us to create a more sustainable, healthy, and purposeful architecture. To illustrate this, each chapter draws on seminal contemporary works of architecture, from Peter Zumthor’s Bruder-Klaus Field Chapel to Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece at Fallingwater. These examples are accompanied by over a hundred high-quality illustrations. Expanding the discussion of sustainability to include phenomenological as well as qualitative considerations, Elemental Architecture is ideal for students and researchers with an interest in sustainable architecture and architectural theory.

The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.