This book evaluates how we perceive buildings in different ways depending upon our academic and professional background. With reference to the Seattle Central Library, it illustrates a range of different methods available through its application.

Introduction (Ruth Dalton & Christoph Hölscher), Part I: The Process of Design, 1. Diamonds and Sponge (Albena Yaneva), 2. Just How Public Is the Seattle Central Library? Publicity, Posturing, and Politics in Public Design (Shannon Mattern), 3. OMA's Conception of the Users of Seattle Central Library (Ruth Dalton), Part II: The Building as Artefact, 4. One-way Street (Kim Dovey), 5. A Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Reading of Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library: Buildings as Lifeworlds and Architectural Texts (David Seamon), 6. The Feel of Space: Social and Phenomenal Staging in the Seattle Central Library (Julie Zook and Sonit Bafna), 7. Seattle Central Library as Place: Reconceptualising Space, Community and Information at the Central Library (Karen Fisher, Matthew Saxton, Phillip Edwards and Jens-Erik Mai), Part III: The Library and its Users, 8.Emotional Responses to Locations in the Seattle Central Library (Saskia Kuliga), 9. Why People get Lost in the Seattle Central Library (Amy Shelton, Steven Marchette, Christoph Hölscher, Ben Nelligan, Tim Shipley and Laura Carlson), 10. Using Social Media to Gather Users' Feedback of the Seattle Central Library (Ruth Dalton & Saskia Kuliga), 11. Discovering Serendip: Eye Tracking Experiments in the Seattle Central Library as the Beginning of a Research Adventure (Clemens Plank and Fiona Zisch), Epilogue : Drawing together the Multiple Perspectives of the Seattle Central Library (Wilfried Wang)