Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-287) and index

Foreword / HRH Prince Charles -- Preface to the second edition (2002, modified 2006) -- Preface to the third edition -- Architecture: does it matter? -- How environment affects us -- Place: placemaking and place-generation -- Space for living in: shape, form, space and life -- Lines: material realities or bearers of energy? -- Qualities and quantities -- The senses: gateways to the world -- Light: nourishment for body and soul -- Spirit of place, of project, of buildings -- Ensouling buildings -- Conversation or conflict? -- Architecture as art -- Architecture with health-giving intent -- Healing silence: the architecture of peace -- Soul or survival? -- Building for planetary health -- Building for human health -- Design as a listening process: co-creating places -- Building as a health-giving process -- Children and environment -- Accessibility for all: compromise for the soul? -- Urban life, urban needs -- Development: continuity-destruction or place-improvement? -- Urban problems: urban opportunities -- Eco-cities: achievable or utopian dream? -- Building for tomorrow -- Appendix 1. Lazure: inexpensive technique -- Appendix 2. Target pricing -- Appendix 3. Hand-finished plastering

"For Christopher Day, architecture isn't just about the appearance of buildings but how they're experienced as places to be in. Occupants' experience can differ radically from designers' intentions as their concerns and thinking differ. Additionally, multi-sensory ambience, spatial sequential experience and embodied spirit resonate in the human soul. Sustainable design means much more than energy-efficiency: if sustainable buildings don't also nourish the soul, occupant-building interaction will lack care and eco-technologies won't be used efficiently. This major revision of his classic text builds on more than forty years of experience ecological design across a range of climates, cultures and budgets, and 25 years hands-on building. Treating buildings as environments intrinsic to their surroundings, the book explores consensus design, economic and social sustainability, and how a listening approach can grow architectural ideas organically from the interacting, sometimes conflicting, requirements of place, people and situation. This third edition, comprehensively revised to incorporate new knowledge and address new issues, continues Day's departure from orthodox contemporary architecture, offering eye-opening insights and practical design applications. These principles and guidelines will be of interest and value to architects, builders, planners, developers and homeowners alike."--Publisher's website