Resolution. Repositioning the Relation Between Man and Nature (English and Chinese Edition) - Hardcover

Philippe Barriere; A & J International Design Media

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 7561835655 ISBN 13: 9787561835654

Publisher: Tianjin University Press, 2010

Synopsis

The book approach taken is to define new relationships between nature, man and society by creating new organizational models, wherein architecture is designed to permit a balance. By becoming the environment for these relationships, these models can become a benchmark, guaranteeing equilibrium and integrity even in the midst of the crises that transformed them. What drives the approach used in this book are some of the unanswered questions being posed in the contemporary built environment which becomes even more urgent to address because of environmental changes. These questions push us to better understand our hopes and the need for change. The book aims to contribute to defining this hope but also exemplify the limit of that hope, since it shows examples that attempt to avoid the potential constraints raised by these questions by more directly answering them. Author philosophy: In the face of environmental crisis and globalization, architecture is becoming indispensable as an instrument to reconcile man with his (cultural, social and environmental) milieu, by either re-investing in this milieu to mitigate the structural deficiencies and/or by fostering its recovery. Taking this view, architecture is an ongoing experiment that constantly adjusts to contextual needs, implementing the new strategic and innovative interventions necessary to improve on man s milieu; a process that redefines architecture. This approach provokes architecture to become a threshold over which or, a channel through which to renegotiate the relation between man and nature and a focal point for reducing the imbalance between extremes (social and environmental). Architecture becomes second nature, man s link between human nature and society. Book synopsis: Resolution, Repositioning the Relation between Man and Nature moves beyond the present understanding of sustainable design to one of critical realism. The book approaches existing constraints on the built environment social, geopolitical and ecological as assets for the evolution of society, understanding that architecture crystallizes the relationship between man and his environment. Recognizing that outcomes change with inputs, Resolution investigates potential changes in defining elements of planning and design that could overturn existing conditions and present proactive solutions. In her introduction, American critic Joan Ockman qualifies these as 'radical realism'. The detrimental effects of current planning practices and building typologies are common knowledge, but existing strategies to remedy past errors do not address the growing problems at their source. Sustainable architecture, with its emphasis on low-carbon design and ecological sensibility, is a purely quantitative means that only addresses effect, overlooking causal, structural and other relational issues. The text and projects laid out in this book consist of ten years of research addressing these contemporary predicaments in a North American context. Situated at the nexus of theory and practice, the solutions presented here depart from existing conditions as catalysts whose positive effects radiate outward. In this way, architecture serves as an intermediary between man and nature, a means to emancipate man from his present condition, to amend the natural environment and to open choices for future evolution. The book is divided into four chapters, each of which deals with different contemporary human environments. These include the postindustrial city, the superhighway, suburbia, and the issue of social and humanitarian architecture. Transformation can only be brought about by establishing new structural relations (spatial, programmatic and functional) and by designing new building typologies.

About this title

About the Author

Philippe Barriere has engaged in a wide range of activities in the professional, non-profit and academic realms on a national and international level and as an architect, architecture critic, urban planner, associate professor and architecture historian. Philippe received his degree in architecture from the L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was granted a scholarship to study at two American graduate programs - Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cornell University. He received a Master of Science in Urban Planning from the Institut d'Urbanisme de Paris, followed by a Doctorate in Art History at the University Pantheon Sorbonne (Paris). He worked as an architect in the USA as well as France, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the French West Indies. He completed his Master s Degree at Pratt Institute in New York, where he subsequently settled and established a practice. His writings have been widely published in l'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, Archi-Cree and other publications. His work and the work of his students has been widely exhibited. He has taught at the New York Institute of Technology, Parsons School of Design, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Montreal, Drury University, the University of Kansas, and more recently at l'Ecole Speciale d'Architecture de Paris and l'Ecole d'Architecture de Universite Laval de Quebec. He is the principal of Philippe Barriere Collective (PB+Co). In 2006, Philippe was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature (Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), an honor bestowed on him by the French Ministry of Culture for his contribution and achievements in the field of architecture.

Review

1. The work presented in this book is visionary, in particular by seeming as if based in reality, and vice versa. It takes on the contradictions of today without being so naive as to try to surmount them, and without being so cynical as to merely parody them. The work acknowledges that we are what we consume, and it takes responsibility for this. A given: a hardscape of asphalt parking lots, antediluvian industrial buildings, space-devouring superhighways. What now? A given: inhospitable swamplands, poisonous brownfields. A given: people displaced from their homes, uprooted, with no shelter. What now?

These are terrifying problems, truly haunting problems that will not disappear, even with all the digital prestidigitation in the world. These problems crave resolutions that show intense imagination and allow for delicate healing. The name for such an approach to architecture is realism. Philippe Barriere is its magician and surgeon. --Joan Ockman, historian, critic, educator, former director of the Buell Center for the Study 'radical' of American Architecture at Columbia University.

2. The truly beautiful projects gathered in this book are singular augmentations of the landscape, as found and as built. Each adds not simply an architectural supplement but some social enlargement that changes our view of place. Philippe Barriere strides with gentle, elegant, resolution across the field of life, punctuating the environment with moments of brilliant and mysterious precision. --Michael Sorkin, Architect, Contributing Editor for Architectural Record, I.D., and Metropolis.

3. The architecture of Philippe Barriere magically attaches itself to the commonplace: confronting, enlarging and transforming our understanding of the world and ultimately ourselves. The forms and ideas displayed in this book are the result of a highly learned yet personal architectural research and recovers the idea of the architect as public provocateur...read it slowly and carefully so as not to miss a thing! --William Menking, Executive editor, the Architects' Newspaper

About this edition

• Publisher: Tianjin University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 7561835655
• ISBN 13: 9787561835654
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 276
• Editor: A&J International Design Limited & Tianjin University Press
• Illustrator: Philippe Barriere Collective / Philippe Barriere 501 Studio