Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan


Rem Koolhaas - 1978
    Back in print in a newly designed edition, this influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first printing on publication. Rem Koolhaas's celebration and analysis of New York depicts the city as a metaphor for the incredible variety of human behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle -- "the culture of congestion" -- and its architecture. "Manhattan," he writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Koolhaas interprets and reinterprets the dynamic relationship between architecture and culture in a number of telling episodes of New York's history, including the imposition of the Manhattan grid, the creation of Coney Island, and the development of the skyscraper. Delirious New York is also packed with intriguing and fun facts and illustrated with witty watercolors and quirky archival drawings, photographs, postcards, and maps. The spirit of this visionary investigation of Manhattan equals the energy of the city itself.

Human Dimension and Interior Space: A Source Book of Design Reference Standards


Julius Panero - 1979
    Its applicability to the design process is seen in the physical fit, or interface, between the human body and the various components of interior space.Human Dimension and Interior Space is the first major anthropometrically based reference book of design standards for use by all those involved with the physical planning and detailing of interiors, including interior designers, architects, furniture designers, builders, industrial designers, and students of design. The use of anthropometric data, although no substitute for good design or sound professional judgment should be viewed as one of the many tools required in the design process. This comprehensive overview of anthropometrics consists of three parts.The first part deals with the theory and application of anthropometrics and includes a special section dealing with physically disabled and elderly people. It provides the designer with the fundamentals of anthropometrics and a basic understanding of how interior design standards are established. The second part contains easy-to-read, illustrated anthropometric tables, which provide the most current data available on human body size, organized by age and percentile groupings. Also included is data relative to the range of joint motion and body sizes of children. The third part contains hundreds of dimensioned drawings, illustrating in plan and section the proper anthropometrically based relationship between user and space. The types of spaces range from residential and commercial to recreational and institutional, and all dimensions include metric conversions.In the Epilogue, the authors challenge the interior design profession, the building industry, and the furniture manufacturer to seriously explore the problem of adjustability in design. They expose the fallacy of designing to accommodate the so-called average man, who, in fact, does not exist. Using government data, including studies prepared by Dr. Howard Stoudt, Dr. Albert Damon, and Dr. Ross McFarland, formerly of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Jean Roberts of the U.S. Public Health Service, Panero and Zelnik have devised a system of interior design reference standards, easily understood through a series of charts and situation drawings. With Human Dimension and Interior Space, these standards are now accessible to all designers of interior environments.

Operative Design: A Catalog of Spatial Verbs


Anthony di Mari - 2012
    These operative verbs abstract the idea of spatial formation to its most basic terms, allowing for an objective approach to create the foundation for subjective spatial design. Examples of these verbs are expand, inflate, nest, wist, lift, embed, merge and many more. Together they form a visual dictionary decoding the syntax of spatial verbs. The verbs are illustrated with three-dimensional diagrams and pictures of designs which show the verbs 'in action'.This approach was devised, tested, and applied to architectural studio instruction by Anthony Di Mari and Nora Yoo while teaching at Harvard University's Career Discovery Program in Architecture in 2010. As instructors and as recent graduates, they saw a need for this kind of catalogue from both sides - as a reference manual applicable to design students in all stages of their studies, as well as a teaching tool for instructors to help students understand the strong spatial potential of abstract operations.

Experiencing Architecture


Steen Eiler Rasmussen - 1959
    From teacups, riding boots, golf balls, and underwater sculpture to the villas of Palladio and the fish-feeding pavilion of the Peking Winter Palace, the author ranges over the less-familiar byways of designing excellence.At one time, writes Rasmussen, "the entire community tool part in forming the dwellings and implements they used. The individual was in fruitful contact with these things; the anonymous houses were built with a natural feeling for place, materials and use and the result was a remarkably suitable comeliness. Today, in our highly civilized society, the houses which ordinary people are doomed to live in and gaze upon are on the whole without quality. We cannot, however, go back to the old method of personally supervised handicrafts. We must strive to advance by arousing interest in and understanding of the work the architect does. The basis of competent professionalism is a sympathetic and knowledgeable group of amateurs, of non-professional art lovers."

The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses


Juhani Pallasmaa - 1996
    This new, revised and extended edition of this seminal work will not only inspire architects and students to design more holistic architecture, but will enrich the general reader's perception of the world around them. The Eyes of the Skin has become a classic of architectural theory and consists of two extended essays. The first surveys the historical development of the ocular-centric paradigm in western culture since the Greeks, and its impact on the experience of the world and the nature of architecture. The second examines the role of the other senses in authentic architectural experiences, and points the way towards a multi-sensory architecture which facilitates a sense of belonging and integration.

A Field Guide to American Houses


Virginia McAlester - 1984
    17th century to the present. Book was reprinted in 2006

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built


Stewart Brand - 1994
    How Buildings Learn is a masterful new synthesis that proposes that buildings adapt best when constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and that architects can mature from being artists of space to becoming artists of time. From the connected farmhouses of New England to I.M. Pei's Media Lab, from "satisficing" to "form follows funding," from the evolution of bungalows to the invention of Santa Fe Style, from Low Road military surplus buildings to a High Road English classic like Chatsworth—this is a far-ranging survey of unexplored essential territory.More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they're allowed to. How Buildings Learn shows how to work with time rather than against it.

Modern Architecture Since 1900


William J.R. Curtis - 1982
    Worldwide in scope, it combines a clear historical outline with masterly analysis and interpretation. Technical, economic, social and intellectual developments are brought together in a comprehensive narrative which provides a setting for the detailed examination of buildings. Throughout the book the author's focus is on the individual architect, and on the qualities that give outstanding buildings their lasting value.For the third edition, the text has been radically revised and expanded, incorporating much new material and a fresh appreciation of regional identity and variety. Seven chapters are entirely new, including expanded coverage of recent world architecture.Described by James Ackerman of Harvard University as "immeasurably the finest work covering this field in existence", this book presents a penetrating analysis of the modern tradition and its origins, tracing the creative interaction between old and new that has generated such an astonishing richness of architectural forms across the world and throughout the century.

A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals


Spiro Kostof - 1985
    Now, updated and expanded, this classic reference continues to bring to readers the full array of civilization's architectural achievements.Insightful, engagingly written and graced with close to a thousand superb illustrations, the Second Edition of this extraordinary volume offers a sweeping narrative that examines architecture as it reflects the social, economic, and technological aspects of human history. The scope of the book is astonishing. Kostof examines a surprisingly wide variety of man-made structures: prehistoric huts and the TVA, the pyramids of Giza and the Rome railway station, the ziggurat and the department store. Kostof considered every building worthy of attention, every structure a potential source of insight, whether it be prehistoric hunting camps at Terra Amata, or the caves at Lascaux with their magnificent paintings, or a twenty-story hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture: Comprehensive Edition


Phaidon Press - 2000
    Every building type is covered - from the largest publicly-funded art museums and airports to private houses - and each project is illustrated with colour photographs, line drawings and an analytical text.Eminent architectural critics, curators, journalists and practitioners from all parts of the globe nominate what they consider to be the most outstanding works of contemporary architecture in their regions and beyond. The resulting 1,050 buildings confirm the far-reaching influence of well-known and respected international practitioners such as Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Sir Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & De Meuron, as well as introducing a host of lesser-known architects whose work provides an illuminating point of comparison with their famous counterparts.This magnificent book provides a unique opportunity to examine contemporary architecture as an evolving global phenomenon with all the cross-cultural influences this suggests, while illustrating the powerful diversity that is generated by climate (from the Arctic circle to the African deserts), culture (from the technologically advanced secularism of western Europe to traditional rural communities) and economics (from the wealthy post-industrial mega-economies to some of the most economically challenged countries of the developing world).The colossal volume is divided into six geographical regions with meticulous maps in each section, providing geographical orientation and an understanding of where contemporary architecture is being commissioned, designed and built. Its composition, scale, range and depth are truly unprecedented. The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture is essential reading for all those interested in gaining a true understanding of where the best contemporary architecture is located in the world.

Cities for People


Jan Gehl - 2010
    In this revolutionary book, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people.Taking into account changing demographics and changing lifestyles, Gehl explains how to develop cities that are lively, safe, sustainable, and healthy.The book is extensively illustrated with over 700 photos and drawings of examples from Gehl’s work around the globe.

The Architecture of Happiness


Alain de Botton - 2006
    The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.Whereas many architects are wary of openly discussing the word beauty, this book has at its center the large and naïve question: What is a beautiful building? It is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture that aims to change the way we think about our homes, our streets and ourselves.

Japan Style: Architecture Interiors Design


Geeta K. Mehta - 2005
    Japan Style introduces 20 special residences. With more than 200 color photographs, this book showcases the stunning beauty of old homes, and reveals how they are cared for by their owners.Traditional Japanese homes, with superbly crafted fine wood, great workmanship and seasonal interior arrangements, have an aesthetic of infinite simplicity. Unlike Japanese inns and historical buildings, the houses featured in this book are private property and are not open to public viewing. Japan Style offers a rare glimpse into the intimate world of the everyday Japanese and fascinating insight into the traditional architecture of Japan.

Graphic Guide to Frame Construction


Rob Thallon - 1991
    This revised fourth edition reflects the most recent changes in residential frame construction. It contains more details for engineered wood products, fasteners, and seismic hold-down requirements, as well as the latest IRC code updates. It is well annotated and covers foundations, floors, walls, stairs, and roofs. Because examples are taken from actual job sites by a trusted expert, this book is an invaluable visual aid that can help builders and homeowners alike to tackle a wide range of framing projects.

Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession


Reinier de Graaf - 2017
    Four Walls and a Roof challenges this notion, presenting a candid account of what it is really like to work as an architect.Drawing on his own tragicomic experiences in the field, Reinier de Graaf reveals the world of contemporary architecture in vivid snapshots: from suburban New York to the rubble of northern Iraq, from the corridors of wealth in London, Moscow, and Dubai to garbage-strewn wastelands that represent the demolished hopes of postwar social housing. We meet oligarchs determined to translate ambitions into concrete and steel, developers for whom architecture is mere investment, and the layers of politicians, bureaucrats, consultants, and mysterious hangers-on who lie between any architectural idea and the chance of its execution.Four Walls and a Roof tells the story of a profession buffeted by external forces that determine--at least as much as individual inspiration--what architects design. Perhaps the most important myth debunked is success itself. To achieve anything, architects must serve the powers they strive to critique, finding themselves in a perpetual conflict of interest. Together, architects, developers, politicians, and consultants form an improvised world of contest and compromise that none alone can control.