Environmental Diversity in Architecture

This book takes the position that the dynamic of the architectural environment is a key aspect of good design, yet one which is not well anticipated or understood. Environmental variety is a design characteristic closely related to our experience of architecture - an architecture of the senses. Each chapter demonstrates how an understanding of a particular context or environmental characteristic in dynamic terms informs design. The book is an antidote to the misconceptions of 'optimum' environmental performance or fixed criteria, instead embracing the richness of environmental variety.

Koen Steemers is a director of the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies and a senior lecturer at the University of Cambridge Department of Architecture. He specialises in aspects of environmental design in architecture, has practices as an architect in the UK and Germany, and is a Director of Cambridge Architectural Research Limited. His recent publications include Energy and Environment in Architecture (2000), and Architecture City Environment (2000), The Selective Environment (2002), Daylight Design of Buildings (2002).

Mary Ann Steane is a lecturer in the University of Cambridge Department of Architecture. She lectures on environmental issues and is also a course director of the MPhil in Environmental Design. In the studio courses she delivers the acknowledgement and integration of environmental design issues is always given particular emphasis. Her research marries technical analysis with a more historical perspective. The current focus of her research is on natural lighting strategies, and seeks to enable more precise communication about light quality, and thus to develop a more nuanced appraisal of natural lighting strategies in their broader topographic, climatic and programmatic context.