Customer Reviews

Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art

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Mr.Day's philosophies about architecture is inspiring. You go through each day being influenced by your surroundings, but never realizing how or why you sometimes feel as you do (good or bad). A good heathly location with a structure that evolves from the ground up, in harmony with it's surroundings, can only bring harmony and balance to your inner being. I can't imagine not being aware of these things before, but now that I have read Mr. Day's book I will never look at architecture design in the same way. The overall influence of the book is very powerful, as a matter of fact so powerful we have contact Mr. Day to design our new house in the Sonoran Desert.

PLACES OF THE SOUL is a very satisfying, powerful look at how the architectural environment makes an impact health, thought, and especially spirit. Mr. Day's writing is beautiful, drawing the reader through ideas of space, light, structure, environment, location and intention. Reading it was both inspiring and informative. An elegant book about an important subject.

Chrisopher Day's "Places of the Soul" is an eye-opening examination
of why and how buildings impact our health, our productivity, our
moods, and even our spirits. Written both to architects and
non-architects, he speaks in plain English to bring many different
aspects of the built environment to our awareness.

Books like this tend to be pedantic, possessing a narrow aesthetic
(i.e. the author's). However, Day, while admitting his biases, is more
focused on how to enrich the world we live in now, whether with the
softening textures of sensitive landscaping or the appropriate use of
harder angles when the mood these conjure is necessary.

If you are thinking about building or remodeling, and/or want to
understand more about your built surroundings, this book is certain
to challenge your viewpoint, and leave you with a few ideas of your
own about how you can relate consciously, sensitively, and
responsibly to your present environment.

Are you looking for a book that recognizes the need for designing buildings to meet lofty sustainability goals, but that also places human needs on an equal or superior plane? Do you look at new mechanistic buildings of steel, titanium and low-e glass and wonder how it's possible to feel inspired, or even comfortable, when you're in them? If you answer yes to these questions, then perhaps you would benefit from reading the second edition of Christopher Day's book, Places of the Soul, Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art (Grammarians might suggest "as Healing Arts").

Day wrote the book in 1988, long before the birth of LEEDS, to address his perception of a growing lack of concern about human needs for variety in the form of spaces, the connection of spaces to nature and natural processes, and craft in the production of habitation. From his concerns one would assume that he was a student of the work of Christopher Alexander, particularly "A Timeless Way of Building". However, he moves beyond Alexander in citing the results of empirical studies that support his theses.

In the chapter Architecture: Does It Matter? Day discusses how good design adds value, increases productivity, reduces health care costs, and accelerates healing. He cites the work of Dr. Roger Ulrich that demonstrated faster healing of patients in ICU's with views of nature. Important to architects struggling with limited budgets is the cited research that demonstrates how a 6.5% increase in productivity can justify a building four times as expensive!

This book takes a broad-brush look at regionalism, vernacular architecture, the art of architecture, human and planetary health, quality versus quantity, making spaces livable, and even design as a listening process. Responding to criticism from clients that listening is a problem with some architects, the National Architectural Accrediting Board has made a recent change in its student performance criteria that emphasizes listening as a required skill.

From listening, Day moves to making buildings with soul, building as a health-giving process, silence and peace in architecture, and the creation of appropriate spaces for children. He concludes with an important chapter on the urban environment, the conflict between sustainable values and urban pressures, the needs of urban life, cities as places for people and for life, and whether eco-cities might be utopian or practicable.

Places of the Soul is an excellent primer for students of architecture seeking a balance between design for sustainability and for human needs, between a mass-produced machine aesthetic and one that includes hand-craftsmanship, and between sterile mind-numbing sameness and invigorating variety. It is illustrated with photographs and drawings of buildings and places in Great Britain that, while relevant, could be supplemented with more recent global examples. This book raises challenging questions about the buildings and places we will design and build, and the affect they will have on us as people and as a society.

This is a seminal piece of work, that I would recomend for anyone involved with homes and living spaces, (I think that means everyone!) There is much wisdom in this book, and it is as much a book about how we live as it is a life philosopy book.
Best book I have read about our 'third Skin'

I "had" to read this book for my Healing Environments seminar, and I loved it! Usually I'm not a huge fan of books I'm forced to read, but I really enjoyed this one. I find myself referring back to passages and thoughts from this book, not just in my work but in life in general. It's one of the only "textbooks" I hung on to!

I loved it and I would definitely recommend it!

A bit wordy and repetitive, but some of his ideas are first rate. The pictures are really nice too.

I utilized some of the principles in this book for a design project in a class. It is a wonderful book that I plan to make a permanent part of my library. It speaks to what I believe architecture is all about- it must provide more than mere shelter, but speak to the person as a place of refuge, renewal, and centering.

My God, I was forced to read this book for a construction management class at a four-year university in the United States and struggled through every minute. I don't know what was more frustrating, having to read this dull-minded and repetative junk or reading four words at a time because for whatever reason the prestigious author, Christopher Day, was forced to go against conventional thinking and put two columns on each page. This was hands down the worst book I have ever read throughout my life. The guy is hypocritical of everyone who lives in an ordinary house and works in an ordinary job in an ordinary office building. Sorry Mr. Day, but most of us don't have the time and monetary security to write a 200-page book regarding soulful places. We just trudge off to work everyday in our non-biologically inducing office buildings. A bunch of junk!