AD EMPHATIC SPACE

In recent
years, questions of space have gained renewed momentum in architecture
and urban design, as adaptation, densification and sustainable
regeneration have become an increasing priority. While most
computing-based design tends to emphasise the formal aspects of
architecture, overlooking space and its users, the ‘original’
computational design approaches first spearheaded in the UK in the 1960s
and 1970s tended to be focused on behavioural and occupational
patterns. Over the last decade, a new generation of design research has
emerged that has started to implement and validate previous
investigations into spatial computation, aiming to understand how to
design spatial configurations based on user experiences. This revives an
interest in the experiential that was first explored in the early 20th
century by German and Nordic organic architects, who invented design
methods that correlated cognitive responses of buildings’ occupants to
spatial structure. The current revival of human-centric design, however,
represents the first design approach that synthesises spatial design
and algorithmic techniques with organic design thinking, which could
also be regarded as a return to the ‘first principles’ of architectural
design.

Contributors include:
Paul Coates, Christian Derix, Olafur Eliasson, Lucy Helme, Bill
Hillier, Åsmund Izaki, Prarthana Jagannath, Dan Montello, Juhani
Pallasmaa, Philip Steadman and Guy Theraulaz.

Featured Architects/Designers:
Jussi Ängeslevä (Art+Com), Stan Allen, Aedas|R&D, Markus Braach
(Kaisersrot), Hermann Hertzberger, Kazuhiro Kojima (Cat), Pablo Miranda
and Rafi Segal.