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CATEGORY ARCHITECTURE Building Happiness

Architecture to Make You Smile
ISBN: 978 1 90615546 9 Paperback 192 pages 70 colour and b/w ills 21 x 15 cm Pub date: August 2008 24.95 Editor

Jane Wernick
Building Happiness presents an abundance of views on the nature of happiness within our built environment. Do architectural spaces influence our emotional state and contribute a positive spiritual feeling or are they merely bricks and mortar? Building Happiness explores how we measure and define our happiness and to what extent the space we live in has a significant psychological impact on these evaluations. Taking the initial enquiries to this question from a variety of architects, such as Will Alsop, the thread of this discussion is woven through to the present day with texts and discussions from Kirsty Wark, Glenda Jackson and Richard Wentworth. Building Happiness also features an original interview with Sir Richard Rogers, whose buildings include Centre Pompidou, European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg and the Millennium Dome in London. The book is packed with visual representations in the form of photographs, diagrams and artists work, which reflect on the mood altering effects of the built environment. Building Happiness brings new light to discussions on contemporary architecture and is an ideal title for architects, students and anyone with an interest in the built environment.

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DESCRIPTION Building Happiness

Building Happiness is published in association with Building Futures, a collaborative group working alongside RIBA to develop standards in the built environment. This architecture title explores ideas and debates initiated by great minds such as Herman Hertzberger and Aldo Van Eyck, with their concerns regarding the built environment, physical well-being and how we live in cities. These discussions are given a contemporary relevance through inclusion of the work of contemporary architects, artists, writers and commentators. The nature of how we are conditioned by, and utilise, our environment is considered in detail, particularly as this affects our sense of wellbeing or happiness. Is this a personal feeling or is it how space is used in our community that constructs happiness? Is it green eco-houses, traditional cottages or 1970s modernism that makes you happy? Building Happiness comprises both short commentaries and longer essays concerned with the impact of our built environment. With contributions from social commentators such as Rita Chakrabarti the BBC correspondent, the newsreader Kirsty Wark and the actress and politician Glenda Jackson. The book will include an interview with the prestigious architect Sir Richard Rogers and examples of artists work, such as that by Richard Wentworth. Other contributors include: Jeremy Till Director of Architecture at Sheffield University; Max Fordham, high profile engineer; and Dickon Robinson, from the RIBA and past Director of development of The Peabody Trust. Jane Wernick is a structural engineer who has worked in both Europe and the USA. As Associate Director of Ove Arup & Partners during the construction of the London Eye, which she is largely accredited with. She is now Director of Jane Wernick Associates.