Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture

by Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, Jeremy Till

This book offers the first comprehensive overview of alternative approaches to architectural practice. At a time when many commentators are noting that alternative and richer approaches to architectural practice are required if the profession is to flourish, this book provides multiple examples from across the globe of how this has been achieved and how it might be achieved in the future. Particularly pertinent in the current economic climate, this book offers the reader new approaches to architectural practice in a changing world. It makes essential reading for any architect, aspiring or practicing.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 9, 2011

Reviews

[Amrit]

Beautiful 🌟

[♡ Shée ♡]

Wow, absolutely brilliant.

Spatial Agency by Nishat Awan explores the relationship between architecture, urbanism, and activism. Awan, who is an architect, academic, and urbanist, brings together a collection of case studies that examine how space is used as a tool for social change, and how individuals and communities can shape the built environment to suit their needs and desires. The five issues that motivate the examples of spatial agency in the book: are politics, the profession, pedagogy, humanitarian crises, and ecology.

The book is divided into six chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of spatial agency. These include the idea of "territorialising" space, the role of the architect in shaping urban environments, and the importance of community engagement in the design process. Awan draws on a wide range of examples from around the world, including the squatter settlements of Rio de Janeiro, the community-led regeneration of a former industrial area in Liverpool, and the use of mobile architecture to create temporary public spaces in Tehran.

This book has developed sophisticated perspective on space and architecture and I am forever grateful for that !

Citations :
"Instead it comes from a belief that beauty has been used too often as an excuse to retreat from some of the more contested areas of contemporary life as if a timeless sense of beauty will lift us from our daily grind." & "Objects do not preexist as such. Objects are boundary projects. But boundaries shift from within; boundaries are very tricky. What boundaries provisionally contain remains generative, productive of meanings and bodies."

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a holistic view of other ways to 'architect' look no further. A book with a very clear purpose full of inspiring practices and practitioners. Loved it!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful index. Might be a little bit outdated now. I like the way it’s cross-referenced like hypertext, referring to the website of the same name.