Architectural Anthropology - Exploring Lived Space

Architectural Anthropology - Exploring Lived Space

This book prompts architects and anthropologists to think and act together. In order to fully grasp the relationship between human beings and their built environments and design more livable and sustainable buildings and cities in the future, we need new cross-disciplinary approaches combining anthropology and architecture. This is neither anthropology of architecture, nor ethnography for architects, but a new approach beyond these positions: Architectural Anthropology. 

The anthology gathers contributions from leading researchers from various Nordic universities, architectural schools, and architectural firms as well as prominent international scholars like Tim Ingold, Albena Yaneva, and Sarah Pink – all exploring, developing, and innovating the cross-disciplinary field between anthropology and architecture. Several contributions are co-written by architects and anthropologists, merging approaches from the two disciplines in order to fully explore the dynamics of lived space. 

Through a broad range of empirical examples, methodological approaches, and theoretical reflections, the anthology provides inspiration and tools for scholars, students, and practitioners working with lived space. The first part focusses on homes, walls, and boundaries, the second on urban space and public life, and the third on processes of creativity, participation, and design. 

FOREWORD

Tim Ingold

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Architectural anthropology: An Introduction

Marie Stender, Claus Bech-Danielsen and Aina Landsverk Hagen

Architectural anthropology: Six methodological suggestions

Albena Yaneva

Part 1: 

Home, walls and boundaries

Claus Bech-Danielsen and Marie Stender

1. The viscous porosity of walls and people

Sandra Lori Petersen

1. An outdoor living room. Balconies and blurring boundaries

Marie Stender and Marie Blomgren Jepsen

1. Mould, microbes and microscales of architecture – an anthropological approach to indoor environments

Turid Borgestrand Øien and Mia Kruse Rasmussen

1. Homelessness and homeliness: Collage technique as a research method

Laura Helene Højring and Claus Bech-Danielsen

1. Walls and islands – exploring perpetual configurations of carcerality through architectural anthropology

Runa Johannessen and Tomas Max Martin

Part 2: 

Urban space and public life

Sten Gromark, Aina Landsverk Hagen and Marie Stender

•   Interdisciplinarity on site: Exploring the urban interventions ‘Unidades de Vida Articulada’ in Medellín 

Lisbet Harboe and Hanne Cecilie Geirbo

•   Engaging with mixed-use design. The case of the urban library in Oslo 

Cicilie Fagerlid, Bengt Andersen and Astri Margareta Dalseide

•   Urban youth, narrative dialogues and emotional imprints: How co-creating the "splotting" methodology became a transformative journey into interdisciplinary collaboration 

Aina Landsverk Hagen and Jenny B. Osuldsen

•   What makes spatial difference? Conceptualising architectural anthropology through filmmaking 

Lina Berglund-Snodgrass and Ebba Högström

•   ‘After Belonging’: a study of proposals for architectural interventions for arrival of refugees in Oslo, Norway 

Eli Støa and Anne-Sigfrid Grønseth

Part 3: 

Processes of creativity, participation and design

Eli Støa and Aina Landsverk Hagen 

•   Architectural anthropologists in the making? Paths to creative youth participation in local urban development

Ingrid M. Tolstad and Astri Margareta Dalseide

1. Questioning the shape of social concepts: Transforming anthropological insights into architectural design drivers

Drew Nathan Thilmany

1. Rendering Atmosphere. Exploring the creative glue in an urban design studio

Anette Stenslund and Mikkel Bille

1. Constructing community? A collaborative housing development process, meeting credit and concrete

Silje Erøy Sollien and Søren Nielsen

1. Norwegian pilots: Navigating the technological logic of sustainable architecture

Ruth Woods and Thomas Berker

Afterword: Engaging architectural anthropology

Sarah Pink

Index

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Marie Stender is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, Denmark.

Claus Bech-Danielsen is an architect and professor at the Department of the Built Environment, Aalborg University, Denmark.

Aina Landsverk Hagen is an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Work Research Institute at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.