This book showcases cutting-edge research on city form revealing that urban design features--such as topology, morphology, entropy and scale--have massive implications to the quality of life for a city’s residents.The Aretian team, a spin off company from the Harvard Innovation Lab, has developed a city science methodology to evaluate the relationship between city form and urban performance. This book illuminates the relationship between a city’s spatial design and...

In 1965, the architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander published a landmark theoretical critique of modern urban design, and by extension, modern design in general. His critique was different from others of the day in that it was not based on a social or political argument, but on a structural analysis, rooted in then-emerging insights from the fields of mathematics and cognition. Here, published again on its fiftieth anniversary, is Alexander’s classic text, together with new in...

How to write a thesisWhat is a thesis statement?Every paper you write should have a main point, a main idea, or central message. The argument(s) you make in your paper should reflect this main idea. The sentence that captures your position on this main idea is what we call a thesis statement.How long does it need to be?A thesis statement focuses your ideas into one or two sentences. It should present the topic of your paper and also make a comment about your...

A new, empathic approach to design research, drawn from the informed experiences of a leading design research program in Finland.Design, Empathy, Interpretation tells the story of empathic design, a design research program at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, that has developed an interpretive approach to design over the past twenty years. As one of the leaders of the Helsinki group, Ilpo Koskinen draws on his own experiences to offer readers a genera...

How can we design better experiences? Experience Design brings together leading international scholars to provide a cross-section of critical thinking and professional practice within this emerging field. Contributors writing from theoretical, empirical and applied design perspectives address the meaning of 'experience'; draw on case studies to explore ways in which specific 'experiences' can be designed; examine which methodologies and practices are employed in this process; and consider ...

Experimental Museology scrutinizes innovative endeavours to transform museum interactions with the world. Analysing cutting-edge cases from around the globe, the volume demonstrates how museums can design, apply and assess new modes of audience engagement and participation.Written by an interdisciplinary group of researchers and research-led professionals, the book argues that museum transformations must be focused on conceptualizing and documenting the everyday challenges and choi...

In Educating Artists for the Future, some of the world’s most innovative thinkers in higher education in art and design offer fresh directions for educating artists for a rapidly evolving post-digital future. Their creative redefinition of art at the interdisciplinary interface where scientific enquiry and new technologies shape aesthetic and cultural values offers groundbreaking guidelines for art education in an era of emerging new media. This is the first book concerned with educating a...

When (re-)designing organizations, one must first be clear about what is meant by the structures of an organization and what can be done in order to change them. In this book, we present communication channels, programs and personnel as central structures. We also unfold the aspects that come to the forefront when one focuses on either the formal, the informal or the display side of an organization. At the core, we elaborate on how structures cause blind spots, and how these can be utilize...

Today architecture and other fields in the built environment face the steep task of answering complex questions pertaining to sustainability, performance, and adaptability.How are these disciplines to accomplish these difficult tasks at such an immense pace?How might architectural practice renovate itself accordingly?Worldwide it is becoming increasingly clear that different modes of research are emerging which are triggered directly by the need to re...

The landscape of contemporary research is characterized by growing interdisciplinarity, and disciplinary boundaries are blurring faster than ever. Yet while interdisciplinary methods, and methodological innovation in general, are often presented as the ‘holy grail’ of research, there are few examples or discussions of their development and ‘behaviour’ in the field.This Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research presents a bold intervention by showcasing a diversity of stimula...

Rather than seeing art as a curricular extra, or a fun break from the curriculum, the authors of Using Art Critically position art, as a tool and toy for learning, rethinking, and outgrowing oneself. Vasquez, Harste & Albers' intent is to position art as a seamless and integralpart of the educative process that creates space for exploring important social issues, events, and injustices from a critical literacy perspective. In so doing working with art from a critical perspective becomes an...

Design and Anthropology challenges conventional thinking regarding the nature of design and creativity, in a way that acknowledges the improvisatory skills and perceptual acuity of people. Combining theoretical investigations and documentation of practice based experiments, it addresses methodological questions concerning the re-conceptualisation of the relation between design and use from both theoretical and practice-based positions. Concerned with what it means to draw 'users' into proc...