Toward a Scientific Architecture - Softcover

"Much of the fascination of this book lies in Yona Friedman's provocative ideas: city barometers, effort maps, intervention permits, and so on. But it is also fascinating for the carefree audacity with which he expresses his particular form of positivism... He proposes...a method which would provide each client with a repertoire of all possible arrangements of space, together with a technical device--a 'flat-writer'--by which to choose his own particular environment, as if from an architectural menu, with inbuilt warnings against socially disadvantageous consequences."-- "The Architectural Association Quarterly"

Today in architecture and city planning, Friedman (who has lived and practiced architecture in France for many years) observes that there are no strict rules that allow an accurate prediction of the results of a particular decision. Instead of the intuitive rules or "tricks of the trade" used by both professions, Friedman proposes a complete list of objective rules and risks involved as choices are made among several million possible plans for living space.