Thomas Fisher – författare

Pandemics have long-term effects on how we live and work, and the COVID-19 pandemic was no exception, accelerating us into a digital economy, in which people increasingly work, shop, and learn online, transforming how we use space in-person and remotely. Space, Structures, and Design in a Post-Pandemic World explores the rebalancing of our physical and digital interactions and what it means for the built environment going forward.

This book examines the effect of the pandemic on our use of land, interior space, energy, and transportation, as well as on our approach to design, wealth, work, and practice. Author Thomas Fisher also discusses the plagues of institutional racism and climate change that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and how these were interrelated. At the same time as all of this, the automation of all or part of many jobs continued unabated, eliminating much of the work that people did before COVID-19 arrived. This text discusses how we might leverage the under-utilized human talent and material assets all around us to rebuild our communities and our economy in more creative ways for a more equitable, resilient future.

Space, Structures, and Design in a Post-Pandemic World will influence anyone interested in how design thinking can transform how we see the world and those looking for new ways to understand what the COVID-19 pandemic means and what opportunities it creates for our environments.

Pandemics have long-term effects on how we live and work, and the COVID-19 pandemic was no exception, accelerating us into a digital economy, in which people increasingly work, shop, and learn online, transforming how we use space in-person and remotely. Space, Structures, and Design in a Post-Pandemic World explores the rebalancing of our physical and digital interactions and what it means for the built environment going forward.

This book examines the effect of the pandemic on our use of land, interior space, energy, and transportation, as well as on our approach to design, wealth, work, and practice. Author Thomas Fisher also discusses the plagues of institutional racism and climate change that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and how these were interrelated. At the same time as all of this, the automation of all or part of many jobs continued unabated, eliminating much of the work that people did before COVID-19 arrived. This text discusses how we might leverage the under-utilized human talent and material assets all around us to rebuild our communities and our economy in more creative ways for a more equitable, resilient future.

Space, Structures, and Design in a Post-Pandemic World will influence anyone interested in how design thinking can transform how we see the world and those looking for new ways to understand what the COVID-19 pandemic means and what opportunities it creates for our environments.

First published in 2007, this book examines the designs of seventeen architecture and design schools and answers questions such as: How has architectural education evolved and what is its future? Are architectural schools discernible types of designs and what are their effects on those who experience them? What lessons can be learned from evaluations of recently completed school buildings and what guidance do they provide for the design of future ones? Included in the multiple approaches to evaluation are examinations of the history of architectural education and building form; typologies of school for architecture; and the systematic user evaluations of the aesthetics, function, and technology which reveal the strengths to encourage and weaknesses to avoid in future designs. While offering specific guidelines for schools of design, it also includes findings that extend beyond the walls of design schools and can be applied to everything from the interiors of educational and campus buildings to planning offices and gathering places to build communities. This book will make readers more aware of problems in architectural interiors and suggest ways to make interiors work better for the building occupants.

First published in 2007, this book examines the designs of seventeen architecture and design schools and answers questions such as: How has architectural education evolved and what is its future? Are architectural schools discernible types of designs and what are their effects on those who experience them? What lessons can be learned from evaluations of recently completed school buildings and what guidance do they provide for the design of future ones? Included in the multiple approaches to evaluation are examinations of the history of architectural education and building form; typologies of school for architecture; and the systematic user evaluations of the aesthetics, function, and technology which reveal the strengths to encourage and weaknesses to avoid in future designs. While offering specific guidelines for schools of design, it also includes findings that extend beyond the walls of design schools and can be applied to everything from the interiors of educational and campus buildings to planning offices and gathering places to build communities. This book will make readers more aware of problems in architectural interiors and suggest ways to make interiors work better for the building occupants.

Recent catastrophic events, such as the I-35W bridge collapse, New Orleans flooding, the BP oil spill, Port au Prince''s destruction by earthquake, Fukushima nuclear plant''s devastation by tsunami, the Wall Street investment bank failures, and the housing foreclosure epidemic and the collapse of housing prices, all stem from what author Thomas Fisher calls fracture-critical design. This is design in which structures and systems have so little redundancy and so much interconnectedness and misguided efficiency that they fail completely if any one part does not perform as intended. If we, as architects, planners, engineers, and citizens are to predict and prepare for the next disaster, we need to recognize this error in our thinking and to understand how design thinking provides us with a way to anticipate unintended failures and increase the resiliency of the world in which we live.

In Designing to Avoid Disaster, the author discusses the context and cultural assumptions that have led to a number of disasters worldwide, describing the nature of fracture-critical design and why it has become so prevalent. He traces the impact of fracture-critical thinking on everything from our economy and politics to our educational and infrastructure systems to the communities, buildings, and products we inhabit and use everyday. And he shows how the natural environment and human population itself have both begun to move on a path toward a fracture-critical collapse that we need to do everything possible to avoid. We designed our way to such disasters and we can design our way out of them, with a number of possible solutions that Fisher provides.

Recent catastrophic events, such as the I-35W bridge collapse, New Orleans flooding, the BP oil spill, Port au Prince''s destruction by earthquake, Fukushima nuclear plant''s devastation by tsunami, the Wall Street investment bank failures, and the housing foreclosure epidemic and the collapse of housing prices, all stem from what author Thomas Fisher calls fracture-critical design. This is design in which structures and systems have so little redundancy and so much interconnectedness and misguided efficiency that they fail completely if any one part does not perform as intended. If we, as architects, planners, engineers, and citizens are to predict and prepare for the next disaster, we need to recognize this error in our thinking and to understand how design thinking provides us with a way to anticipate unintended failures and increase the resiliency of the world in which we live.

In Designing to Avoid Disaster, the author discusses the context and cultural assumptions that have led to a number of disasters worldwide, describing the nature of fracture-critical design and why it has become so prevalent. He traces the impact of fracture-critical thinking on everything from our economy and politics to our educational and infrastructure systems to the communities, buildings, and products we inhabit and use everyday. And he shows how the natural environment and human population itself have both begun to move on a path toward a fracture-critical collapse that we need to do everything possible to avoid. We designed our way to such disasters and we can design our way out of them, with a number of possible solutions that Fisher provides.