People-Centered Architecture

Shinberg has done something truly impressive: He has created a practical framework for architectural thinking and design, grounded in the latest research on human perception and cognition. His ideas and insights offer a fresh perspective that have helped me clarify many aspects of my own approach to design.
—Stefan Behling, Architect, Senior Executive Partner, Head of Studio, Foster+Partners, London

This book is a must-read for architects and designers at any stage of their career. His inspiring and practical narrative makes even the most complex concepts accessible. Along the way, he offers aspiring and experienced professionals a fresh perspective to reignite their passion for architecture.
—Andrea de Paiva, Architect, Urban Planner, and Author, Director of NeuroAU at the University of Brasilia

Milton Shinberg is at the vanguard of architects convinced that the design of buildings for people to flourish should incorporate a deep understanding of human psychology and neuroscience. A very clearly written book, rich with reflections from the science of human emotions, embodiment, and aesthetics, People-Centered Architecture will greatly enhance architectural thinking, education, and practice.
—Anjan Chatterjee, MD, FAAN, Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture, University of Pennsylvania

A veteran architect’s pragmatic guide to re-energizing design thinking, architectural practice and architectural education, with pivotal insights from the human sciences and wisdom harvested from non-architects.

People-Centered Architecture: Design Practice Education is a unique and probing exploration designed to help architects better serve everyone who uses what architects design. In this one-of-a-kind book, architect and educator Milton Shinberg presents game-changing approaches to enhance, reorient, and re-energize design thinking.

Shinberg draws from decades of dialogue with architects, designers, clients, artists, scientists, teachers, and his own students. His prompts and provocations, written in a clear and accessible narrative style, are organized to help architects, who are humanists, come to know much more about humans. Wise design becomes easier.

In one concise volume, People-Centered Architecture: Design Practice Education delivers a vibrant framework for architectural practice, for students and teachers of architecture, and for clients and stakeholders. Through this book, each will see their project partners more clearly, more empathetically, and in ways that foster richer, better brainstorming and more productive collaboration. The “coalition of the curious,” people intrigued by architecture and architects, will get a peak behind the curtain.

Milton Shinberg, AIA, is principal emeritus of Shinberg Levinas Architects, an internationally recognized practice honored by many design awards and published firm profiles. He is also a long-time adjunct professor in architecture at Catholic University of America, teaching design, drawing, and theory courses, among them his Beauty & Brains seminar, one of the prompts for this book. He lectures and teaches extensively on its topics at regional and national AIA conferences and for programs in Italy, Germany, and Brazil. Shinberg is on the advisory boards of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture and the International Arts+Mnd Lab of Johns Hopkins University.