An Architecture of Place: Topology in Practice - Softcover

Lindstrom, Randall S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032322322 ISBN 13: 9781032322322

Publisher: Routledge, 2024

Synopsis

Challenging mainstream architecture’s understandings of place, this book offers an illuminating clarification that allows the idea’s centrality, in all aspects of everyday design thinking, to be rediscovered or considered for the first time.

Rigorous but not dense, practical but not trivialising, the book unfolds on three fronts. First, it clearly frames the pertinent aspects of topology―the philosophy of place―importantly differentiating two concepts that architecture regularly conflates: place and space. Second, it rejects the ubiquitous notion that architecture “makes place” and, instead, reasons that place is what makes architecture and the built environment possible; that place “calls” for and to architecture; and that architecture is thus invited to “listen” and respond. Finally, it turns to the matter of designing responses that result not just in more places of architecture (demanding little of design), nor merely in architecture with some “sense of place” (demanding little more), but, rising above those, responses that constitute an architecture of place (demanding the greatest vigilance but offering the utmost freedom).

Opening up a term regarded as so common that its meaning is seldom considered, the author reveals the actual depth and richness of place, its innateness to architecture, and its essentiality to practitioners, clients, educators, and students―including those in all spatial disciplines.

About this title

About the Author

Randall S. Lindstrom, PhD, is an architect, author, and teacher. Practising since 1978, he has served clients on four continents and received numerous professional awards. In 2011, his focus shifted to academic pursuits at the University of Tasmania, where he is Adjunct Researcher in Architecture and Design. Previous publications include Kenosis Creativity Architecture (Routledge, 2021).

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032322322
• ISBN 13: 9781032322322
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 194