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Humanise

A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World

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Humanise

Written by: Thomas Heatherwick
Narrated by: Thomas Heatherwick
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Brought to you by Penguin.

In this manifesto for change, one of the world's pre-eminent designers explores how buildings and cities around the world lost their soul - and what we can do about it.

Thomas Heatherwick shows how design has a profound effect on our mental and physical health, the climate, as well as the peace and cohesion of societies. He shows how a flawed idea of utility and 'efficiency' has engulfed our towns and cities and hardened into a form of bland minimalism. But it doesn't have to be this way: there are other ways to build - with the power to lift our spirits, engage and connect us.

Heatherwick draws on his own work, the ideas of other experts in the field, and recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to offer both a case against the inhumanity of modernist design and a rallying cry to everyone to imagine the world anew. Looking through his eyes, we take in places around the world, old and new, famous and obscure, that can sap the life out of us - or nourish our senses and our psyche.

Humanise is a tautly argued provocation and an urgent call-to-arms to make the world around us a far better place for everyone to live.

©2023 Thomas Heatherwick (P)2023 Penguin Audio Architecture Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Sociology Urban
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Critic Reviews

"This book is a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn't put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that." (Grayson Perry)

"Humanise is a masterwork. It's quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here." (Alain de Botton)

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Thomas touches on a subject that is rampantly affecting himan lives and yet is conveniently ignored under the name of isms and movements, modernity and practicality, and under new theories and critiques. it's a simple thing that he talks about, and yet that which has been ignored for decades. This is a book that brings forth only three points - how architecture can be designed to last, how not to create boring architecture and how to curate a desired feeling for people - both the users of a space as well as passers by who witness the architecture from a distance. This book is a simple reminder for young practitioners to revive the future, tu humanise architecture.

A simple guide to humanising our space

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