Reviewing the use of natural light by architects in the era of electricity; this book aims to show that natural light not only remains a potential source of order in architecture; but that natural lighting strategies impose a usefully creative discipline on design.Considering an approach to environmental context that sees light as a critical aspect of place; this book explores current attitudes to natural light by offering a series of in-depth studies of recent projects and the particular lighting issues they have addressed. It gives a more nuanced appraisal of these lighting strategies by setting them within their broader topographic; climatic and cultural contexts.
#2685971 in eBooks 2012-11-12 2012-11-12File Name: B00ABLJ4VO
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. AmazingBy Geoffrey A RhodesI bought this because the first essay in the book was one of my favorites; On the Word Design The whole book is of a similar style-- aggressive; insightful; fresh commentary on Design; its relation to Art and Technology.9 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Mans fate in information societyBy Philippe VandenbroeckThis slender booklet is a collection of short; late essays by the cosmopolitan thinker Vilem Flusser. Originally from the Czech Republic he fled to Brazil at the beginning of the Second World War and returned to Europe only in the early 1970s. He died in a car crash in 1991. Writing in German; Portuguese; and French; Flusser remained unpublished in English during his lifetime. In fact; the book reviewed here was the very first to be made accessible to an English readership. Meanwhile; based on as yet a very small selection of translated work; he has acquired a kind of a cultstatus with cognoscenti as an iconoclastic; clairvoyant linguistic philosopher and media theorist. Flussers big theme is the transition from a pre-industrial to an industrial and; onwards; to an information society. In that process; spanning a mere 300 years; our relationship with our environment; increasingly populated by `non-things; by artificial intelligences and robotic machines; has been (and continuous to be) fundamentally altered. What happens when human beings morph from being productive; shape-giving artisans to abstract calculators; pressing keys on a keyboard; when our existential concerns shift from things to information? An interesting; ambiguous reciprocal dependency sets in: "the robot only does what the human being wants; but the human being can only want what the robot can do." Hence; humans become `functionaries of the programmed tools they have created; inscribing themselves into a kind of (hopefully) benign totalitarianism governed by potentially endless but pre-programmed choice. Flussers perspicaciousness in anticipating an emerging; virtual; omnidirectionally transparant society is admirable. Although "The Shape of Things" is a slim booklet; it is very difficult to do justice to Flussers ideas in the space of a short review. Flussers way of communicating complex ideas is highly idiosyncratic. His idiom is more journalistic than scholarly: he uses clear and simple language in very short; punchy essays. There are no references to other thinkers or to secondary literature. His argument is characterized by unexpected twists; linking the mundane to the exotic; relying often on clever etymological and linguistic reasoning. The style is terse; at times to the point of abruptness. Flusser is a combative thinker; not afraid to take provocative positions to tease his readers. Sometimes there is a clenched teeth kind of wittiness. This book is not a full-fledged; methodically argued `philosophy of design but a series of elliptical; thought-provoking essays intent on redefining the debate on what makes (and keeps) us human in a world engulfed by immaterial objects and smart robots.