Constructing Place

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.

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.

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.

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."

Although vernacular architecture scholarship has expanded beyond its core fascination with common buildings and places, its attention remains fixed on the social function of building. Consistent with this expansion of interests, Constructing Image, Identity, and Place includes essays on a wide variety of American building types and landscapes drawn from a broad geographic and chronological spectrum. Subjects range from examinations of the houses, hotels and churches of America's colonial and Republican elite to analyses of the humble cottages of Southern sharecroppers and mill workers, Mississippi juke joints, and the ephemeral rustic arbors and bowers erected by Civil War soldiers. Other contributors examine or reexamine the form of early synagogues in Georgia, colonial construction technologies in the Chesapeake, the appropriation and use of storefront windows by San Francisco suffragists, and the evolution of the modern factory tour. Other decidedly twentieth-century topics include the impact of the automobile on American building forms and landscapes, including parkways, drive-in movie theaters, and shopping malls. Drawn from the Vernacular Architecture Forum conferences of 1998 and 1999, these seventeen essays represent the broad range of topics and methodologies current in the field today. The volume will introduce newcomers to the breadth and depth of vernacular architecture while also bringing established scholars up to date on the field's continued growth and maturation. The Editors: Alison K. Hoagland is associate professor of history and historic preservation at Michigan Technological University. Kenneth A. Breisch is director of Programs in Historic Preservation at the University of Southern California. He is author of Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America. The Contributors: Shannon Bell, Robert W. Blythe, Timothy Davis, Stephanie Dyer, Willie Graham, Kathleen LaFrank, William Littmann, Carl Lounsbury, Al Luckenbach, Sherri M. Marsh, Maurie McInnis, Steven H. Moffson, Jason D. Moser, Jennifer Nardone, Martin C. Perdue, Mark Reinberger, Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz, Jessica Sewell, Donna Ware, and Camille Wells.

In architecture, as in food, local is an idea whose time has come. Of course, the idea of an architecture that responds to site; draws on local building traditions, materials, and crafts; and strives to create a sense of community is not recent. Yet, the way it has evolved in the past few years in the hands of some of the world's most accomplished architects is indeed defining a new movement. From the rammed-earth houses of Rick Joy and Pacific Northwest timber houses of Tom Kundig, to the community-built structures of Rural Studio and Francis Kéré, designers everywhere are championing an architecture that exists from, in, and for a specific place. The stunning projects, presented here in the first book to examine this global shift, were featured at the thirteenth and final Ghost conference held in 2011, organized by Nova Scotia architect, educator, and local practitioner Brian MacKay-Lyons. The result is the most complete collection of contemporary regionalist architecture available, with essays by early proponents of the movement, including Kenneth Frampton, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Pritzker Prize–winning architect Glenn Murcutt.

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 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.