Performance-Oriented Architecture. Rethinking Architectural Design and the Built Environment

Architecture is on the brink. It is a discipline in crisis. Over the last two decades, architectural debate has diversified to the point of fragmentation and exhaustion. What is called for is an overarching argument or set of criteria on which to approach the design and construction of the built environment. Here, the internationally renowned architect and educator Michael Hensel advocates an entirely different way of thinking about architecture. By favouring a new focus on performance, he rejects longstanding conventions in design and the built environment. This not only bridges the gap between academia and practice, but, even more significantly, the treatment of form an…