A New Look at Humanism: In Architecture, Landscapes, and Urban Design Hardcover – June 1, 2016 by Robert Lamb Hart (Author), Albrecht Pichier (Author)(ORO Editions / Goff Books)

I’ve been following the efforts of a few pioneering architects to bring the expanding insights of the human sciences into architectural education and practice. Going back to Grant Hildebrand’s Origins of Architectural Pleasure and Bloomer and Moore’s Body Memory and Architecture and, more recently, Sussman and Hollander’s Cognitive Architecture, Robinson and Pallasmaa’s Mind in Architecture, and, naturally, the work of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, I’ve been impressed by each step taken along the way to a more sensible design culture.

Then, last week, I discovered this book. It pulls together that growing understanding of nature and human nature into a concise, practical up-date of contemporary design practice. It takes a fresh look at a science-based “humanism,” as a new kind of organizing perspective for designers – one that can continually incorporate the changing insights.

The view is broad one, encompassing ecology and the evolutionary sciences, as well as the dramatic advances in the neurosciences. It also addresses architecture and landscapes and urban places as well as the people within them – the complete environment that we actually experience.

Just as important, the book has been designed to be easy to read. The illustrations are superb and, as a practicing architect, he writes in the informal language of a design office and the vocabulary of their client meetings. So it’s clear and ready to apply in practice.