BOOKS
A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future
A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future examines the impact of Chinese philosophy on China’s historic structures, as well as on modern Chinese urban aesthetics and architectural forms. For architecture in China moving forward, author David Wang posits a theory, the New Virtualism, which links current trends in computational design with long-standing Chinese philosophical themes. The book also assesses twentieth-century Chinese architecture through the lenses of positivism, consciousness (phenomenology), and linguistics (structuralism and poststructuralism). Illustrated with over 70 black-and-white images, this book establishes philosophical baselines for assessing architectural developments in China, past, present and future
Architecture and Sacrament: A Critical Theory
David Wang’s Architecture and Sacrament considers architectural theory from a Christian theological perspective, specifically, the analogy of being (analogia entis). The book tracks social and cultural reasons why the theological literature tends to be separate from contemporary architecture theory. Wang argues that retrieval of the sacramental outlook embedded within the analogy of being, which informed centuries of art and architecture in the West, can shed light on current architectural issues such as "big box stores," the environmental crisis and the loss of sense of community. The book critiques the materialist basis of current architectural discourse, subsumed largely under the banner of critical theory. This volume on how European ideas inform architectural theory complements Wang’s previous book, A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future, and will appeal to architecture students and academics, as well as those grappling with the philosophical moorings of all built environments.
Research Methods for Interior Design: Applying Interiority
Interior design has shifted significantly in the past fifty years from a focus on home decoration within family and consumer sciences to a focus on the impact of health and safety within the interior environment. This shift has called for a deeper focus in evidence-based research for interior design education and practice.
​
Research Methods for Interior Design provides a broad range of qualitative and quantitative examples, each highlighted as a case of interior design research. Each chapter is supplemented with an in-depth introduction, additional questions, suggested exercises, and additional research references. The book’s subtitle, Applying Interiority, identifies one reason why the field of interior design is expanding, namely, all people wish to achieve a subjective sense of well-being within built environments, even when those environments are not defined by walls. The chapters of this book exemplify different ways to comprehend interiority through clearly defined research methodologies.
​
This book is a significant resource for interior design students, educators, and researchers in providing them with an expanded vision of what interior design research can encompass.
Architectural Research Methods
From searching for the best glass to prevent glare to determining how clients might react to the color choice for restaurant walls, research is a crucial tool that architects must master in order to effectively address the technical, aesthetic, and behavioral issues that arise in their work.
This book's unique coverage of research methods is specifically targeted to help professional designers and researchers better conduct and understand research. Part I explores basic research issues and concepts, and includes chapters on relating theory to method and design to research. Part II gives a comprehensive treatment of specific strategies for investigating built forms. In all, the book covers seven types of research, including historical, qualitative, correlational, experimental, simulation, logical argumentation, and case studies and mixed methods.
Features new to this edition include:
-
Strategies for investigation, practical examples, and resources for additional information
-
A look at current trends and innovations in research
-
Coverage of design studio–based research that shows how strategies described in the book can be employed in real life
-
A discussion of digital media and online research
-
New and updated examples of research studies
-
A new chapter on the relationship between design and research
Architectural Research Methods is an essential reference for architecture students and researchers as well as architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and building product manufacturers.
Sounding Spokane: Perspectives on the Built Environment of a Regional City
What does being an urban center for a large geographical region do to the communal idenitity of such a city as Spokane? How does the relative youth of the city relate to the sense of place in geography, and in time?
These are some of the issues addressed in David Wang's marvelous anthology, the first book of its kind to view the western mid-size regional city as a complex and unique phenomenon. Its in-depth discussions of neighborhood, geography, architectural themes and gambits, parks, urban renewal and preservation, and other aspects of a city's composition, enact a portrait with implications far beyond Spokane itself. Anyone interested in the fate of regional cities in the West will want to read this book.
