Buildings That Feel Good

What makes a building good? This book argues that a powerful key to designing good buildings is to decipher consistent truths from other good buildings. It presents case studies that include a range of highly-rated buildings assessed in terms of user experience.

What makes a building good? The question is the central challenge facing architects and ultimately can only be answered by looking at what has worked well in the past. Lavishly illustrated in full colour, this refreshingly original book is packed with case study buildings that have been found to satisfy their users - buildings that feel good. This ineffable quality is the architect''s Holy Grail. It is rooted in the physical but mediated by human experience and may only be reported - or not - by building users after it has been ''lived in'' and stood the test of time. Written by a highly respected briefing and design evaluation consultant who specializes in optimizing the experience of building users, "Buildings That Feel Good" distils a set of hard-won lessons synthesized from years of real-world research. It argues that a powerful key to designing good buildings is to decipher consistent truths from other good buildings. The case studies include a wide range of recent highly-rated buildings assessed in terms of user experience. The lessons extracted are universal and intended to form the basis of any new briefing process. Eclectic, thought-provoking and bound to generate debate, "Buildings That Feel Good" is aimed at architects, interior designers and anyone interested in the nature of beautiful spaces.