The Architecture of Happiness PDF Download

Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Architecture of Happiness PDF full book. Access full book title The Architecture of Happiness by Alain De Botton. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.

The Architecture of Happiness

The Architecture of Happiness PDF Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551993872
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Bestselling author Alain de Botton considers how our private homes and public edifices influence how we feel, and how we could build dwellings in which we would stand a better chance of happiness. In this witty, erudite look at how we shape, and are shaped by, our surroundings, Alain de Botton applies Stendhal’s motto that “Beauty is the promise of happiness” to the spaces we inhabit daily. Why should we pay attention to what architecture has to say to us? de Botton asks provocatively. With his trademark lucidity and humour, de Botton traces how human needs and desires have been served by styles of architecture, from stately Classical to minimalist Modern, arguing that the stylistic choices of a society can represent both its cherished ideals and the qualities it desperately lacks. On an individual level, de Botton has deep sympathy for our need to see our selves reflected in our surroundings; he demonstrates with great wisdom how buildings — just like friends — can serve as guardians of our identity. Worrying about the shape of our sofa or the colour of our walls might seem self-indulgent, but de Botton considers the hopes and fears we have for our homes at a new level of depth and insight. When shopping for furniture or remodelling the kitchen, we don’t just consider functionality but also the major questions of aesthetics and the philosophy of art: What is beauty? Can beautiful surroundings make us good? Can beauty bring happiness? The buildings we find beautiful, de Botton concludes, are those that represent our ideas of a meaningful life. The Architecture of Happiness marks a return to what Alain does best — taking on a subject whose allure is at once tantalizing and a little forbidding and offering to readers a completely beguiling and original exploration of the subject. As he did with Proust, philosophy, and travel, now he does with architecture.

The Architecture of Happiness

The Architecture of Happiness PDF Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551993872
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Bestselling author Alain de Botton considers how our private homes and public edifices influence how we feel, and how we could build dwellings in which we would stand a better chance of happiness. In this witty, erudite look at how we shape, and are shaped by, our surroundings, Alain de Botton applies Stendhal’s motto that “Beauty is the promise of happiness” to the spaces we inhabit daily. Why should we pay attention to what architecture has to say to us? de Botton asks provocatively. With his trademark lucidity and humour, de Botton traces how human needs and desires have been served by styles of architecture, from stately Classical to minimalist Modern, arguing that the stylistic choices of a society can represent both its cherished ideals and the qualities it desperately lacks. On an individual level, de Botton has deep sympathy for our need to see our selves reflected in our surroundings; he demonstrates with great wisdom how buildings — just like friends — can serve as guardians of our identity. Worrying about the shape of our sofa or the colour of our walls might seem self-indulgent, but de Botton considers the hopes and fears we have for our homes at a new level of depth and insight. When shopping for furniture or remodelling the kitchen, we don’t just consider functionality but also the major questions of aesthetics and the philosophy of art: What is beauty? Can beautiful surroundings make us good? Can beauty bring happiness? The buildings we find beautiful, de Botton concludes, are those that represent our ideas of a meaningful life. The Architecture of Happiness marks a return to what Alain does best — taking on a subject whose allure is at once tantalizing and a little forbidding and offering to readers a completely beguiling and original exploration of the subject. As he did with Proust, philosophy, and travel, now he does with architecture.

How Buildings Learn

How Buildings Learn PDF Author: Stewart Brand
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101562641
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
Buildings have often been studies whole in space, but never before have they been studied whole in time. How Buildings Learn is a masterful new synthesis that proposes that buildings adapt best when constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and that architects can mature from being artists of space to becoming artists of time. From the connected farmhouses of New England to I.M. Pei's Media Lab, from "satisficing" to "form follows funding," from the evolution of bungalows to the invention of Santa Fe Style, from Low Road military surplus buildings to a High Road English classic like Chatsworth—this is a far-ranging survey of unexplored essential territory. More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they're allowed to. How Buildings Learn shows how to work with time rather than against it.

Happy by Design

Happy by Design PDF Author: Ben Channon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1003822835
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 85

Book Description
Can good design truly make us happier? Given that we spend over 80% of our time in buildings, shouldn't we have a better understanding of how they make us feel? Happy by Design explores the ways in which buildings, spaces and cities affect our moods. It reveals how architecture and design can make us happy and support mental health, and explains how poor design can have the opposite effect. Presented through a series of easy-to-understand design tips and accompanied by beautiful diagrams and illustrations, Happy by Design is a fantastic resource for architects, designers and students, or for anybody who would like to better understand the relationship between buildings and happiness. With the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, the importance of designing for mental wellbeing has never been higher on the agenda. Whether through low-energy design, designing in better ventilation to avoid passing on pathogens or the realisation of the importance of accessing nature within an environment, this revised edition has been updated to reflect a changed world.

Status Anxiety

Status Anxiety PDF Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307491331
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
“There's no writer alive like de Botton” (Chicago Tribune), and now this internationally heralded author turns his attention to the insatiable human quest for status—a quest that has less to do with material comfort than love. Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins. Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.

The Nine Rooms of Happiness

The Nine Rooms of Happiness PDF Author: Lucy Danziger
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401395023
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
What Room Are You In? Ask any woman how she's feeling. Even when things look pretty darn great from the outside, chances are that at least one thing (and it may seem minor to others) is nagging at her, making her feel less than spectacular, bringing her down: I'm too fat. My husband doesn't help enough around the house. My friend is going to be mad if I don't call her back. Why don't my kids try harder at school? My job is less than inspiring. Whatever happened to that old boyfriend, the one who got away? Whether it's the size of our thighs or our bank accounts, there always seems to be something that isn't measuring up to our high standards--and we let the dissatisfaction spill over into other areas of our lives, distracting us from taking pleasure in everything that's going right. In The Nine Rooms of Happiness, Lucy Danziger, editor in chief of Self magazine, and women's-health psychiatrist Catherine Birndorf use the metaphor of a house to release us from this phenomenon. In this house, the living room is where we deal with friendships and our social life; the bedroom is where we explore intimacy, romance, relationships, and sex; the bathroom is for issues relating to health and body image; the kitchen is for nourishment and the division of chores; and so on. Our "inner house" can have eight beautifully designed, neat and tidy rooms, and one messy one, and still we focus on the mess. The Nine Rooms of Happiness pinpoints common self-destructive patterns of behavior and offers key processes that will help readers clean up their emotional architecture. After each room is "clean," Danziger and Birndorf show us how we can spend time on ourselves figuring out what is most meaningful to us--finding larger passion and purpose that makes returning to the rest of our house a pleasure, no matter what calamity or mess awaits. The result? After reading this book you'll think differently about the things that are bringing you down and be able to live a happier, more joy filled life, in every room of your emotional house. From the outside, you'd think I have it all: beautiful house, wonderful children, devoted husband. But am I happy? I think so. There's nothing that has gone terribly wrong. There's no reason for me not to be happy. But I don't feel happy so much as I feel I'm just going through the motions. Sometimes I have the feeling that there's more and I just haven't found it yet. But what . . . and how dare I want more? Isn't all that I have enough? --from The Nine Rooms of Happiness

The Consolations of Philosophy

The Consolations of Philosophy PDF Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030783350X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
From the author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, a delightful, truly consoling work that proves that philosophy can be a supreme source of help for our most painful everyday problems. Perhaps only Alain de Botton could uncover practical wisdom in the writings of some of the greatest thinkers of all time. But uncover he does, and the result is an unexpected book of both solace and humor. Dividing his work into six sections -- each highlighting a different psychic ailment and the appropriate philosopher -- de Botton offers consolation for unpopularity from Socrates, for not having enough money from Epicurus, for frustration from Seneca, for inadequacy from Montaigne, and for a broken heart from Schopenhauer (the darkest of thinkers and yet, paradoxically, the most cheering). Consolation for envy -- and, of course, the final word on consolation -- comes from Nietzsche: "Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us." This wonderfully engaging book will, however, make us feel better in a good way, with equal measures of wit and wisdom.

The Algebra of Happiness

The Algebra of Happiness PDF Author: Scott Galloway
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593084195
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
An unconventional book of wisdom and life advice from renowned business school professor and New York Times bestselling author of The Four Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway teaches brand strategy at NYU's Stern School of Business, but his most popular lectures deal with life strategy, not business. In the classroom, on his blog, and in YouTube videos garnering millions of views, he regularly offers hard-hitting answers to the big questions: What's the formula for a life well lived? How can you have a meaningful career, not just a lucrative one? Is work/life balance possible? What are the elements of a successful relationship? The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning draws on Professor Galloway's mix of anecdotes and no-BS insight to share hard-won wisdom about life's challenges, along with poignant personal stories. Whether it's advice on if you should drop out of school to be an entrepreneur (it might have worked for Steve Jobs, but you're probably not Steve Jobs), ideas on how to position yourself in a crowded job market (do something "boring" and move to a city; passion is for people who are already rich), discovering what the most important decision in your life is (it's not your job, your car, OR your zip code), or arguing that our relationships to others are ultimately all that matter, Galloway entertains, inspires, and provokes. Brash, funny, and surprisingly moving, The Algebra of Happiness represents a refreshing perspective on our need for both professional success and personal fulfillment, and makes the perfect gift for any new graduate, or for anyone who feels adrift.

The Great Indoors

The Great Indoors PDF Author: Emily Anthes
Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374716684
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
An Architectural Record Notable Book A fascinating, thought-provoking journey into our built environment Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside, shuttling between homes and offices, schools and stores, restaurants and gyms. And yet, in many ways, the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings, we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Our productivity, performance, and relationships? In this wide-ranging, character-driven book, science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound, and sometimes unexpected, ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research, she probes the pain-killing power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance, how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems, and how cafeteria design affects what—and how much—we eat. Along the way, Anthes takes readers into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors, a school designed to boost students’ physical fitness, and a prison designed to support inmates’ psychological needs. And she previews the homes of the future, from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the Moon. The Great Indoors provides a fresh perspective on our most familiar surroundings and a new understanding of the power of architecture and design. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world—one room at a time.

Building Happiness

Building Happiness PDF Author: Jane Wernick
Publisher: Black Dog Architecture
ISBN: 9781906155469
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"The Building Happiness project was started by Building Futures early in 2007, with the aim of discussing whether the way we design our built environment can have a direct bearing on how happy we feel. Can we construct happiness?" "The book follows on from numerous consultative initiatives, including a public debate hosted in May 2007, with the aim of gathering public and informed opinion on the subject." "We spoke to a number key thinker and practitioners to share their thoughts. Architects, artists, policy advisors, developers, engineers and health researchers have all contributed. In addition, we have asked people who use and inhabit our built environment to describe places which do indeed make them happy, including the journalist Kirsty Wark, the sculptor Antony Gormley, the architect Richard Rogers, and the Young Vic Theatre Director David Lan." "This book aims to provoke discussion amongst all those who inhabit, plan or design our built spaces, and to encourage the professionals to keep happiness at the centre of their work."--BOOK JACKET.

Our Happy Life

Our Happy Life PDF Author: Francesco Garutti
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781927071656
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
How do we design our cities when our most intimate experiences are incessantly tracked and our feelings become the base of new modes of production that prioritize the immaterial over the material? Since the 2008 financial crisis, lists of well-being indicators, happiness indexes, and quality-of-life rankings have become viral. Concurrently, the emotional data presented in these surveys?including perceptions on questions such as loneliness, friendship, and intimate fears?feed an expanding political agenda of happiness and a new form of market whose most decisive asset is ?affect.?00'Our Happy Life' investigates the architectural implications of this trend by dissecting and questioning the political, economic, and emotional conditions that generate space today. Organized as a visual narrative with critical readings by Will Davies, Daniel Fujiwara, Simon Fujiwara, Ingo Niermann, Deane Simpson, and Mirko Zardini, the book reveals architecture, city, and landscape as contested surfaces, caught between the intangible guidelines of happiness indexes, the new marketplace of emotions, and the relentless ideology of positivity.00Exhibition: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada (08.05. - 13.10.2019).