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

Michael Hensel is an architect, researcher, educator and writer. He is Professor of Architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design where he directs the Research Center for Architecture and Tectonics. He cofounded OCEAN in 1994, and is founding and current chairman of the OCEAN Design Research Association and the Sustainable Environment Association, as well as an editorial board member of Architectural Design (AD). He has co-guest-edited five titles of AD, including seminal issues on emergence and the architecture of Turkey and Iran. He is currently writing The Handbook for Traditional Sustainable Buildings for John Wiley & Sons.

Dedication 005 Acknowledgements 005 Foreword by David Leatherbarrow 009 Introduction: The Task at Hand 015 Chapter 1: A Brief History of the Notion of Performance 017 Chapter 2: A Brief History of the Notion of Performance in Architecture 023 Chapter 3: Non-Discrete Architectures 031 Chapter 4: Non-Anthropocentric Architectures 045 Chapter 5: Traits of Performance-Oriented Architecture 053 Local Climate and Microclimate 057 Material Performance 059 The Active Boundary, the Articulated Envelope and Heterogeneous Environments 067 The Extended Threshold 082 Second-Degree Auxiliarity: Supplementary Architectures 095 First-Degree Auxiliarity: Embedded Architectures 109 Multiple Grounds and Settlement Patterns 116 Chapter 6: The Road(s) Ahead 133 Select Bibliography 143 Index 148 Picture Credits 152