SUNY series in Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology – serie

Contributors include architects, philosophers, landscape architects, and geographers, who focus on the question of how people might see and understand the natural and built environments in a deeper, more perceptive way. What is a sense of place and how can it be supported by architecture, policy, and education? Why are places important to people, and can designers and policy-makers create better places? Is there a way to see and understand what might help to make buildings, landscapes, and places that are beautiful, alive, and humane? What role do the geographical and architectural environments play in human life?

In this book, Mugerauer emphasizes the interplay between European continental philosophy and North American environments and architecture. Drawing on a keen understanding of conceptual trends in both scholarship and the design professions, he clarifies various competing philosophical visions and their considerably different perspectives on environment, place, and architecture. The book covers Derrida's deconstruction, Foucault's genealogy, Heidegger's originary thinking, and Eliade's hermeneutics in order to interpret cultural displacements and the possible recovery of "place," especially through interpretation of dwelling, sense of place, landscapes, architecture, planning, urban design, and technology.Mugerauer identifies a series of design principles that might facilitate mutual understanding.

In this book, Mugerauer emphasizes the interplay between European continental philosophy and North American environments and architecture. Drawing on a keen understanding of conceptual trends in both scholarship and the design professions, he clarifies various competing philosophical visions and their considerably different perspectives on environment, place, and architecture. The book covers Derrida's deconstruction, Foucault's genealogy, Heidegger's originary thinking, and Eliade's hermeneutics in order to interpret cultural displacements and the possible recovery of "place," especially through interpretation of dwelling, sense of place, landscapes, architecture, planning, urban design, and technology.Mugerauer identifies a series of design principles that might facilitate mutual understanding.

In the First Country of Places explores how people's personal philosophies of nature shape their childhood memories and self-identities. Drawing upon written work and original interviews, the book describes uses of memory through the perspectives of five American Poets who represent different contemporary beliefs: William Bronk, David Ignatow, Audre Lorde, Marie Ponsot, and Henry Weinfield. These authors present their relationships with nature and childhood in the context of major Western traditions of philosophy and religion. Each poet confronts the modern scientific image of an alien nature within which histories of individuals are insignificant; and three poets elaborate alternative versions of connection with nature and their own past. This work opens new directions in the psychology of memory, developmental and environmental psychology, environmental studies, and the study of American poetry.

Examines Goethe's neglected but sizable body of scientific work, considers the philosophical foundations of his approach, and applies his method to the real world of nature.Though best known for his superlative poetry and plays, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) also produced a sizable body of scientific work that focused on such diverse topics as plants, color, clouds, weather, and geology. Goethe's way of science is highly unusual because it seeks to draw together the intuitive awareness of art with the rigorous observation and thinking of science. Written by major scholars and practitioners of Goethean science today, this book considers the philosophical foundations of Goethe's approach and applies the method to the real world of nature, including studies of plants, animals, and the movement of water. Part I discusses the philosophical foundations of the approach and clarifies its epistemology and methodology; Part II applies the method to the real world of nature; and Part III examines the future of Goethean science and emphasizes its great value for better understanding and caring for the natural environment.

Looks at how teenagers in one small town use spaces and give value and meaning to specific places.Landscapes of Betrayal, Landscapes of Joy provides a rare glimpse into the world of teenagers, from beach parties to bedrooms, from the math class to the midnight movies. In this fascinating ethnography, Herb Childress demonstrates how our buildings and landscapes (and the institutions that shape them) systematically shortchange our kids, eliminating opportunities for challenge and growth and encouraging their passivity. After examining the places to which the kids were devoted, where they worked hardest, and where they were at their best, Childress offers ideas for change.

Utilizes Heidegger in rethinking common environmental paradigms.This book examines how a phenomenological approach helps move us closer toward safeguarding our common future by evolving a more originative and informed way of thinking about the foundations of sustainable development. Phenomenology, as conceived by Heidegger, enlarges and deepens our ways of thinking about sustainable development and offers a unique methodology of environmental policy development and planning.