The room in context

the long version

Katherine Benzel takes you through room design, to buildings, to cities, to landscapes, showing how human life has always flowed through its environment, each space defining, combining, and relating to the next. No room exists in isolation. The Room in Context is a thoughtful, beautiful meditation on the continuity and interrelatedness of the interior space to the building that houses it, and of both to the surrounding landscape and cityscape. Nature is the prototype, in which all parts, from the microscopic to the cosmic, are interdependent in a complex symphony of form and function. Benzel draws on the great design traditions of Europe and Japan, in particular, where Nature is integrated into the world of human habitation. Designers, architects, and urban planners will find this creatively stimulating book a guide to designing interiors that draw their life from their surroundings and the people who inhabit them, and reflect that life back again.