Bloomsbury Place and Parametricism: Critical, Archival and Digital Approaches to Contemporary Design

Can qualitative ideas of place be adequately encompassed by the quantitative methods of digital and parametric design? This wide-ranging and multi-faceted book explores how designers and architects capture the deeper qualities of place though their practice. It provides a rigorous exploration of the nature of place and its role in design, in parallel with a detailed analysis of the nature of parametricism. Drawing on ideas and approaches from diverse, disciplinary perspectives, essays in this book argue for greater attentiveness to place in contemporary design practice, and examine the potential of parametric techniques to enhance the engagement with place in design contexts. Considering place beyond the designer’s touch, chapters explore other creative disciplines such as literature, art and music, seeking commonalities across the realm of imaginative endeavour in the creation of a tangible sense of place, environment and experience. Authors also discuss notions of atmosphere and interiority, pose situated parameters for place and home, consider the potential to extend beyond the bounded internality of architectural spaces and examine interiority through ecological systems, identity and urbanism. By decentring existing anthropocentric understandings of place that privilege human perspectives, this book considers other living perspectives and how design can support more-than-human places of the future.