Design Meditations

Architectural Praxis as an Exploration of Consciousness
1. Auflage 2027
ISBN: 978-1-041-14436-6
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 162 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Could a heightened sense of awareness deepen the designer's capacity for empathy, ethical responsibility, and meaningful engagement with the world? And might design thinking, understood as an exploration of consciousness, offer a structured yet liberating framework for architectural praxis?

The discourse on design cognition has long sought to understand how designers analyze, create, and solve problems. Yet cognitive processes alone may not fully explain the awareness through which designers perceive and engage with the world. This limitation invites a complementary inquiry into the broader field of consciousness within which design thinking occurs. Drawing on consciousness studies, design cognition, architectural theory, and neuroscience, this book examines transcendental knowing as one dimension of this inquiry into consciousness. Within architecture, the work of Louis Kahn, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Laurie Baker, Glenn Murcutt, and Frank Lloyd Wright illustrate how loosening the dominance of form-making can open awareness toward the transcendental. Central to this inquiry are contemplative practices as a means of intentionally cultivating this awareness within architectural praxis. These practices are developed through guided meditative exercises that can be integrated into design practice, including site visualization, concept generation, and pre-construction visualization.

This book is a theoretical resource, practical guide, and studio companion for design educators, students and researchers in architecture and related design fields.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

D'souza, Newton

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Innenarchitektur, Architekturdesign
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Berufspraxis
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Biologische Psychologie, Neuropsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Design Produktdesign, Industriedesign
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gestaltung, Darstellung, Bautechnik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Prologue 1. Designing with Awareness 2. Tracing the Boundaries of Awareness 3. When a Hard Problem meets a Wicked Problem 4. Dissolution of Form: Architectural Strategies toward the Transcendental 5. Cultivating Pure Consciousness in the Design Process 6. A Guided Meditative Practice for Design Epilogue: Return to Pure Consciousness

Über Autor(innen)

Newton D’souza is Director of Doctoral Programs in Design and Associate Professor in the College of Design at North Carolina State University. He has previously served as Chair of Interior Architecture at Florida International University, where he founded the Collaboratory for Design, Environment & Cognition Lab (CoDEC). He has published extensively on design cognition, creativity, environment–behavior studies, emerging technologies, and artificial intelligence in design thinking. Trained as an architect, he has professional experience in architecture and interior design and over three decades of experience as an educator and researcher. He is a recipient of 2014 Ernest L. Boyer International Award for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Technology.