TYPEBook
DATE2021 - Present
PUBLISHERRoutledge
AUTHORDavid Costanza
This book is about shifting the priorities by which we design and construct works of architecture. It does so through privileging an understanding of building construction as imperative to design conception. The fundamental question of the book is how can a better understanding of materials, labor, and the environment—and the knowledge that emerges from their intersection—inform an architecture that addresses the environmental, social, and cultural impacts of building buildings?
Under the magnifying glass of the current climate crisis, the book points towards an architecture that interrogates how we build, the materials we deploy, the systems we construct, and the impacts these practices have on the environment. The ambition is to unpack the various repercussions that result from the act of building to speculate on how architects can articulate real-world responses by simply building better. Rather than expressing a model of doing that promotes problem-solving responses as a one-size-fits-all strategy, the book promotes a practice of thinking with buildings that seek to address the complex and urgent conditions architecture is complicit in making.