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Humanise

A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World

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Humanise

By: Thomas Heatherwick
Narrated by: Thomas Heatherwick
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Brought to you by Penguin.

In this manifesto for change, one of the world's pre-eminent designers explores how buildings and cities around the world lost their soul - and what we can do about it.

Thomas Heatherwick shows how design has a profound effect on our mental and physical health, the climate, as well as the peace and cohesion of societies. He shows how a flawed idea of utility and 'efficiency' has engulfed our towns and cities and hardened into a form of bland minimalism. But it doesn't have to be this way: there are other ways to build - with the power to lift our spirits, engage and connect us.

Heatherwick draws on his own work, the ideas of other experts in the field, and recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to offer both a case against the inhumanity of modernist design and a rallying cry to everyone to imagine the world anew. Looking through his eyes, we take in places around the world, old and new, famous and obscure, that can sap the life out of us - or nourish our senses and our psyche.

Humanise is a tautly argued provocation and an urgent call-to-arms to make the world around us a far better place for everyone to live.

©2023 Thomas Heatherwick (P)2023 Penguin Audio Architecture Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Sociology Urban
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Critic Reviews

"This book is a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn't put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that." (Grayson Perry)

"Humanise is a masterwork. It's quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here." (Alain de Botton)

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Everything about Thomas thinking and appoch to design development and execution is a better and more progressive way forward. the world of architecture is way to academic and not inclusive

great history and future plan

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The best book I’ve read in the architecture, building and design space. Humanise is brilliant, insightful and added a new perspective to the way I think about the buildings and the impact they have on society.

As a Feng Shui and design practitioner, many of the ideas strongly resonated with me. I appreciated the neuroscience and research underpinning the importance of more human-centred design.

Highly recommend this book for anyone involved in shaping the built environment.

A must-read for anyone interested in design

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.