Architecture and Participation (Paperback, New edition)

A participative approach to architecture challenges many of the normative values of traditional architecture and, in particular, issues of authorship, control, aesthetics and the role of the user. The book explores how a participative approach may lead to new spatial conditions, as well as to new types of architectural practices and investigates the way that the user has been included in the design process. Where many architectural books concentrate on formal or aesthetic issues, this book explicitly opens up the social and political aspects of our built environment, and the way that the eventual users may shape it. As government policies throughout the world call for more involvement by people in the making of their environment, the issue of participation has become of central concern to architects, clients, funders, users and government officers. However, participation often remains as a token gesture; this book promises to make a major contribution to the field by arguing for a more considered approach to architectural participation. Architecture and Participation brings together leading international practitioners and theorists in the field, ranging from the 1960s pioneers of p