The experience of architecture / Henry Plummer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : places of possibility -- 1. Floors of agility -- The docile effect of flat ground -- Vernacular stairs and footpaths -- Gravitational currents -- Acrobatic staircases -- The sprightly Japanese floor -- Vertiginous edges -- Sky cities and residential eyries -- The graceful flight of ramps -- Catwalks : from the Eiffel Tower to Arne Jacobsen's stairways -- 2. Mechanisms of transformation -- Interplay and discovering the self -- The red herrings of machine architecture -- Modest sliding screens of Japan -- Simple but rewarding vernacular devices -- Genealogy of modern kineticism -- Mechanical marvels of the Maison de verre -- The poetic mutations of Carlo Scarpa -- Tom Kundig's 'Gizmos' and Steven Holl's 'Hinged space' -- 3. Spaces of versatility -- Ambiguity -- Double-perspective in 20th-century poetry and painting -- The freedom of elbow room -- Composite staircases -- Italian piazzas, both grand and intimate -- Wright's 'Sovereignty of the individual' -- Polyvalent forms of Herman Hertzberger -- Maurice Smith's spatial collages -- Giancarlo de Carlo's participatory architecture -- The binary values of Aldo van Eyck -- 4. Depths of discovery -- Secrets of residual space -- Japanese grilles and blinds -- Forest-like ventures -- The mystery of shadows -- Fogged images in translucent walls -- Intricacy and patina -- Tiny immensity -- Spatial elasticity of Sir John Soane -- Enigmatic details of Carlo Scarpa -- The primorial journey -- The compelling glimpse -- Enfilades and receding thresholds -- 5. Fields of action Painterly images of a pervious world -- Under construction and in ruin -- The field of forces in science and art -- Open-form cities -- Stone forests -- Interlaced webs of iron and glass -- Interfolding space from Wright to Kappe -- Construction of holes -- Three-dimensional habitable fields of Maurice Smith -- The Japanese spatial lattice.

"How does the experience of turning a door handle, opening a door from one space to lead into another, affect us?... This book aims to understand how these everyday acts are influenced by architectural form, a concept that is vital for all architects to grasp if our buildings are to be anything more than a commercial or aesthetic enterprise. It considers how specific built elements and volumes, taken from a wide array of buildings and settings around the world, can sustain or deny our powers of decision."--Publisher's website.