Leon van Schaik – författare

Practical Poetics in Architecture takes poetics out of the theory class and into the design studio, showing architects how the atmospheric and experiential qualities of built structures can be intentionally considered and planned. With an emphasis on analysing and explaining the sensibility of poetics at work in designing and constructing architecture, this book features projects from architects around the world that demonstrate the principles of poetics come to life. The rich illustration of two hundred colour images, including analytical diagrams, plans, sections, and photos, make this insightful guide a highly visual foray into a topic that has thus far remained more theoretical than practical. The text is matter-of-fact and concrete, yet remains richly connected to its forbears and the writings of William Lethaby, Gaston Bachelard, and Steen Eiler Rasmussen. The perspective is contemporary in its examples and its connections to the evolving science of perception.

An established seminar topic in theory classes around the world, poetics tends to rely heavily on classic philosophic texts — until now. Practical Poetics in Architecture brings theory down to earth to show architects how to invoke poetics when designing real projects.

Poetics — the accumulated experience of place, space, and culture — has become more critical in recent years as the atmospheric and experiential qualities of built spaces have become more elusive in the virtual age. Practical Poetics in Architecture provides real guidance for real projects, and brings poetics out of the mind and onto the plans.

Practical Poetics in Architecture takes poetics out of the theory class and into the design studio, showing architects how the atmospheric and experiential qualities of built structures can be intentionally considered and planned. With an emphasis on analysing and explaining the sensibility of poetics at work in designing and constructing architecture, this book features projects from architects around the world that demonstrate the principles of poetics come to life. The rich illustration of two hundred colour images, including analytical diagrams, plans, sections, and photos, make this insightful guide a highly visual foray into a topic that has thus far remained more theoretical than practical. The text is matter-of-fact and concrete, yet remains richly connected to its forbears and the writings of William Lethaby, Gaston Bachelard, and Steen Eiler Rasmussen. The perspective is contemporary in its examples and its connections to the evolving science of perception.

An established seminar topic in theory classes around the world, poetics tends to rely heavily on classic philosophic texts — until now. Practical Poetics in Architecture brings theory down to earth to show architects how to invoke poetics when designing real projects.

Poetics — the accumulated experience of place, space, and culture — has become more critical in recent years as the atmospheric and experiential qualities of built spaces have become more elusive in the virtual age. Practical Poetics in Architecture provides real guidance for real projects, and brings poetics out of the mind and onto the plans.

The case studies in this book describe how clients’ promotion of innovative communities of practice has led to important collections of architectural works. The book provides an assessment of the effectiveness of their approaches. Architects and clients will understand what to look for as they construct their careers and their portfolios with innovation as a goal.

It is taken for granted nowadays that supporting innovative architecture benefits society. In countries as diverse as Austria, Australia, Belgium, England, Japan, South East Asia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the USA, retailers, institutions, local and regional government and transport authorities have established substantial bodies of work by new and emerging architects. This books looks at what their goals are and how they have achieved them. Is it possible to promote sustainable communities of innovative practice through such patronage? Can innovation be ‘kick-started’ by importing visionary works?

The case studies in this book describe how clients’ promotion of innovative communities of practice has led to important collections of architectural works. The book provides an assessment of the effectiveness of their approaches. Architects and clients will understand what to look for as they construct their careers and their portfolios with innovation as a goal.

It is taken for granted nowadays that supporting innovative architecture benefits society. In countries as diverse as Austria, Australia, Belgium, England, Japan, South East Asia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the USA, retailers, institutions, local and regional government and transport authorities have established substantial bodies of work by new and emerging architects. This books looks at what their goals are and how they have achieved them. Is it possible to promote sustainable communities of innovative practice through such patronage? Can innovation be ‘kick-started’ by importing visionary works?

Worldwide, more and more people are living in cities, with suburbs conceived as appendages to the city, rather than being part of the city system, which is densely populated and offers a full range of services. But suburbs are not the city spread too thin, and in fact hold potential for a lived complexity as satisfying as that assumed to be available in inner cities. Just as the ecological function of wetlands was ignored by modernist planning, and swamps once-drained are now recognised as vital to water cycles, suburbs are increasingly recognised as part of a city’s wellbeing with their own alternative ideology and opportunities for urbanity and ecological sustainability. Suburbia Reimagined shows how such subdivision structures can offer new possibilities for sustainably integrating living between generations and between established and arriving migrant communities.

The authors worked locally and internationally with university campuses, shopping centres, hospitals, airports, and other large entities spread through suburbia, to identify a broad range of suburban situations that have been modified to ensure that residents have a full access to amenities and services. The book addresses the history and design of suburbia, from the post-war soldier settlements of the 40s and 50s to the university hinterlands of Silicon Valley in order to reappraise the locked potential within such subdivision patterns. The authors propose a new model forward, examining case studies ranging from repurposed malls and railways for ecological sustainability to cul-de-sacs as social units and post-industrial factory conversions, ultimately showing the nascent patterns in suburbia that have the potential to support a rich life for all age groups.

Worldwide, more and more people are living in cities, with suburbs conceived as appendages to the city, rather than being part of the city system, which is densely populated and offers a full range of services. But suburbs are not the city spread too thin, and in fact hold potential for a lived complexity as satisfying as that assumed to be available in inner cities. Just as the ecological function of wetlands was ignored by modernist planning, and swamps once-drained are now recognised as vital to water cycles, suburbs are increasingly recognised as part of a city’s wellbeing with their own alternative ideology and opportunities for urbanity and ecological sustainability. Suburbia Reimagined shows how such subdivision structures can offer new possibilities for sustainably integrating living between generations and between established and arriving migrant communities.

The authors worked locally and internationally with university campuses, shopping centres, hospitals, airports, and other large entities spread through suburbia, to identify a broad range of suburban situations that have been modified to ensure that residents have a full access to amenities and services. The book addresses the history and design of suburbia, from the post-war soldier settlements of the 40s and 50s to the university hinterlands of Silicon Valley in order to reappraise the locked potential within such subdivision patterns. The authors propose a new model forward, examining case studies ranging from repurposed malls and railways for ecological sustainability to cul-de-sacs as social units and post-industrial factory conversions, ultimately showing the nascent patterns in suburbia that have the potential to support a rich life for all age groups.

For architect and educator Leon van Schaik, the way we understand our world is not an abstract consideration, but deeply rooted in physical experience. Our family houses and places of work, the gardens we have played and rested in, the landscapes we have travelled through and those we have come to call home-all of these inflect what van Schaik describes as our spatial intelligence. For better or worse, this understanding informs our interpretation of the world, and any attempts we might make to reshape it.

In Doing, Seeing; Seeing, Doing, van Schaik unearths the lineage of landscape and garden ideas that have influenced his thinking over many decades spent practicing and teaching architecture. Partly auto-biographical, partly essayistic, the book unfolds as a series of journeys with friends and colleagues through their shared histories in architecture, landscape and gardening.

From Persian paradise gardens to the mosaic burning that maintained pre-colonial Australia''s ''parkland'' landscape, the nested arches of Edwin Lutyens to Renaissance axiality, Doing, Seeing; Seeing, Doing explores how every line drawn in our world brings a system along with it. It also demonstrates why an awareness of our own spatial histories is crucial if we are to avoid visiting those systems onto others, unexamined.

About the author: Leon van Schaik AO, Emeritus Professor of Architecture (RMIT University) gardens and writes. Recent books include Kerstin Thompson Architects (Thames and Hudson 2021), Building a Culture (Uro Publications 2019), Architecture in its Continuums (Uro Publications 2018); Suburbia Reimagined (with Nigel Bertram, Routledge 2018), Practical Poetics (Wiley 2015), Spatial Intelligence (Wiley 2008).