1st Edition
Aesthetics, Well-being and Health Essays within Architecture and Environmental Aesthetics
In everyday life, most people do not reflect seriously on the impacts of architecture and environmental aesthetics on their well-being and health. Originally published in 2001 as part of the Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences series, reissued now with a new series introduction, Aesthetics, Well-being and Health: Essays within Architecture and Environmental Aesthetics, is an intriguing volume bringing together professionals working in architecture, planning, urban design and social policy with academics from both humanities and social sciences to provide a broad-based and insightful discussion on how aesthetics affect us emotionally and physically. The essays help us understand our cultural and individual preferences related to the quality of the environment and challenge the common belief that environmental beauty is a matter of personal taste. A wide range of concepts are discussed such as place identity, multi-sensuous and emotional processes, geometrical order and controlled space, architectural plasticity, aesthetically real and virtual values, participative design processes, ethics in architecture, and beauty and happiness. The book highlights the importance for today's society to engage more in aesthetic ethics and to understand the significance of creating aesthetically pleasing environments.
New Series Introduction to the Reissue David Canter and David Stea. Preface. Introduction. 1. Aesthetics, Well-Being and Health 2. The Essays 3. Health and Beauty: Enclosure and Structure David Canter 4. Beauty Birgit Cold 5. The Aesthetics of Place Kim Dovey 6. Creating Aesthetic Built Environments through the User Participation Process Aase Eriksen 7. What Happens if Zeleste Becomes an Architect? Arnulf Kolstad 8. The Architectural Psychology Box of Infinite Knowledge Rikard Küller 9. Housing. Health and Aesthetics: Reconnecting the Senses Roderick Lawrence 10. “Chuck out the Chintz”? Some Observations on Aesthetics, Well-Being and Health Sue-Ann Lee 11. Reflections on Concepts of Aesthetics, Health and Well-Being Byron Mikellides 12. Aesthetics in the Built Environment and its Influence on the User Kaj Noschis 13. The Mind of the Environment Juhani Pallasmaa 14. Aesthetics, Order and Discipline Jens Schjerup Hansen 15. I Live in a Beautiful House, on a Beautiful Street in Beautiful Montreal: Notes on Well-Being and the Experience of Place Aesthetics Perla Serfaty-Garcon 16. Environmental Aesthetics and Well-Being: Implications for a Digital World Daniel Stokols 17. Reasonable Persons and Their Aesthetic Preferences Einar Strumse 18. Conversations on Aesthetics David Uzzell 19. Buildings Imagined as Bodies Ann Westerman. Presentation of the Contributors. Appendixes.
Biography
Birgit Cold (1936-2022) was born in Denmark. She graduated as an architect at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1961. At the time of original publication, she had an architectural practice with social housing as its main field. She was also Professor of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Fine Arts at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.
