2nd Edition
Making Places for People 12 Questions Every Designer Should Ask
Making Places for People explores 12 social questions crucial to environmental design. Authors Christie Johnson Coffin and Jenny Young bring perspectives from practice and teaching to challenge assumptions about how places meet human needs. In this expanded second edition, the authors continue to explore the complexities of basic questions, such as: What is the story of this place? What logic orders it? How big is it? How sustainable is it? They consider the impact on making places of pandemic, climate change, human migration, and contemporary discussions of diversity, equity, and justice. Short, approachable, easy-to-read chapters, illustrated with updated examples of projects from around the world, bring together theory, methodology and key research findings. Understanding experienced and research-based connections between people and built form can inspire designs that make places of meaning and delight. This second edition will be essential reading for design students and professionals.
Introduction 1. What is the story of this place? 2. Whose place is this? 3. Where is this place? 4. How big is this place? 5. What logic orders this place? 6. Does this place balance community and privacy? 7. What makes this place useful? 8. Does this place support health? 9. What makes this place sustainable? 10. Who likes this place? 11. What evidence is there that this place will work? 12. Does this place foster social equity and justice?
Biography
Christie Johnson Coffin practices architecture in the western United States, Taiwan, Nicaragua, and India with a focus on healthcare and laboratory research design. Her university teaching includes the University of California Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Polytechnic State University, National Taiwan University, and the University of Oregon.
Jenny Young teaches architectural design and human factors in design. Her research focuses on key attributes of successful public spaces and urban form. Her practice includes school, library, and clinic projects, and residential design. She is Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon.
'Creating environments that enable a diverse cross-section of people to thrive requires attention to human psychological and behavioral processes and physical needs. By expounding on twelve key design-focused questions, Making Places for People weaves a narrative of environmental design theory and techniques to enrich human experience, while referencing important works of architecture and planning from around the world. The book provides a framework for understanding how well designed built form can support healthy communities and foster human well-being.' - Dr. Lynne M. Dearborn, AIA, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
'Coffin and Young have written an easily readable, jargon-free introduction to the field of socially informed architecture and planning. They treat theoretical concepts as questions and deftly incorporate most of the early theorists who helped establish this field into their discussions. In both their writing and in the book's excellent photography the authors broaden the field of "action anthropology" with many international as well as North American examples. Insofar as educational budgets in architecture are tightening with fewer specialists in the sociology and anthropology of design, this book offers a comfortable way for architects to embrace the social-cultural in studio teaching.' - Dr. Galen Cranz, Professor of Architecture, University of California Berkeley
'A great many architecture books present lavishly illustrated cases of completed projects without explaining in text what questions the projects addressed or how particular human needs were fulfilled. Christie Coffin and Jenny Young take a very different, welcome approach. In reply to a series of key questions they pose about people and architecture, in easily readable text with a few evocative images, they tell the stories of diverse places and projects that will inspire students, professionals and clients to discover their own answers.' - Karen A. Franck, Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology and author of Design through Dialogue and Architecture from the Inside Out
'The jury was impressed by the book’s use of case studies to wisely illustrate the book’s thesis. They found the examples easy to understand and made a great addition to your explanations. Deliberations noted your book offers a fresh and exciting perspective to design practice and the application of design principles. Jury members agreed it makes a great addition to a design library.' - Mallika Bose, Coordinator, 2018 Great Places Awards, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Penn State
'In summary, I highly recommend Making Places for People, not only to colleagues who teach in the field of placemaking. The book will be valuable and relevant also to researchers and professionals.' - Gert-Jan HOSPERS, Radboud University & University of Twente
