Description
From participatory architecture to interaction design, the question of how design accommodates use is driving inquiry in many creative fields. Expanding utility to embrace people's everyday experience brings new promises for the social role of design. But this is nothing new. As the essays assembled in this collection show, interest in the elusive realm of the user was an essential part of architecture and design throughout the twentieth century. Use Matters is the first to assemble this alternative history, from the bathroom to the city, from ergonomics to cybernetics, and from Algeria to East Germany. It argues that the user is not a universal but a historically constructed category of twentieth-century modernity that continues to inform architectural practice and thinking in often unacknowledged ways.
About the Author
Kenny Cupers is Assistant Professor of Architectural History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Reviews
"Use Matters critically interrogates the engagement of "user" in architectural design. It puts the user/occupant/inhabitant as the core of the value premise." - Leonard Bachman, Journal of Architectural Education, University of Houston
Book Information
ISBN 9780415637343
Author Kenny Cupers
Format Paperback
Page Count 280
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g
