Description

Community architecture; How people are creating their own environment.

By Nick Wates and Charles Knevitt,

Published by Penguin Books, 1987.
ISBN 0 14 010428 3
Foreword by the Rt Hon The Lord Scarman.
Sponsors include: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Rod Hackney Foundation, Stanhope Securities, Wates Foundation.

Reissued by Routledge Revivals, Taylor & Francis Group
Hardback, 2013: 978-0-415-70853-1
Paperback, 2014: 978-0-415-70858-6:
E-book 2014: 9781315885957

Sponsors include: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Rod Hackney Foundation, Stanhope Securities, Wates Foundation.

Community architecture has emerged as a powerful force for change in the way people all over the world are creating their own homes, neighbourhoods and cities. The basic principle is simple: the built environment works better if the people who use it are directly and actively involved in its creation and management. The movement embraces planning, development, landscape, art and design as well as architecture and other forms of technical aid. It has brought together an extraordinary alliance of community groups, professionals, church leaders and politicians of all parties – and caused major ructions in the professions as a result. Charles Knevitt and Nick Wates wrote and broadcast on the development of the Community Architecture movement for over ten years before writing this book – the first on the subject. It explains how and why Community Architecture works and reveals the full story of the quiet revolution which provides hope for communities everywhere.

‘…indispensable to all concerned with the disastrous state of our built environment. A pioneering and definitive work….’
Vivian Linacre, Environment Now, April 1988.

‘…written with such tenacity of purpose that arguments for and against seem as irrelevant as King Canute attempting to push back the waves.’
Jim Antoniou, Building Design, 29 January 1988.

‘…absolutely essential reading…. The book succeeds in demonstrating the many things which can be achieved by, and through, the changed relationship between designer and client which is at the heart of successful progress.’
Jeff Bishop, Bulletin of Environmental Education, November 1987.

‘…an antidote to apathy… that can have the dangerous effect of not just making you sit back and ponder on the ills of the world, but of stimulating you enough to want to get stuck in to try and tackle them.’
Kelvin McDonald, Planning, 27 November1987.

‘…an invaluable experience for community workers and architects dealing with urbanisation in Taiwan…. The best reference work available.’
Ruimao Huang, Lecturer at Tankang University, China Times, 18 November 1993.

‘…a Bible to (Prince) Charles.’
Anthony Holden, Charles: A Biography, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988

The English version can be purchased from Routledge Revivals.

Japanese translation by Dr Yoshimitsu Shiozaki, Toshi Bunka Sha, 1992.
ISBN 4 88714 120 3

Chinese translation by Ching-Dar Hsieh and Hsian-Ching Lin,
Chuan Hsing Publishing Company, 1993.
ISBN 957 9693 13 7