A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

If you've ridden the NYC subway at all in 2018, you've probably seen the StreetEasy ads that entice New Yorkers to "find your place," be it in a neighborhood or in a building. Here's a case of the latter, where the "sweet spot," to use StreetEasy's term, is closer to the street, which is probably loud during the day, than the party roof. I snapped the above photo in a subway car I was riding this morning, though elsewhere in the car was a StreetEasy ad that struck me as much more revealing. Instead of a traditional, 19th-century rowhouse, the below ad depicts a contemporary apartment building, clearly modeled on Neil Denari's HL23 (at bottom, for comparison's sake) next to the High Line at 23rd Street. Common in both ads is the guy in the brown bathrobe shaking his fist at the party on the roof and ... the sky? The contemporary design? The balcony above him? I'm not sure what he's doing, but that's besides the point. Wha...

Earlier this summer, BIG's Jakob Lange launched an Indiegogo campaign for the ORB, a giant reflective art piece planned for Burning Man. As of today, they're about $15,000 shy of their goal of $50,000, with only three days to go. Regardless, having just watched the live webcast of Burning Man for a few minutes this morning, it looks like the ORB exists: Wanna see the ORB and other large-scale desert artworks from the comfort of your air-conditioned home or office? Check out the live webcast here .

Here are a couple photos of Red Cross Volunteer House (2017) in Copenhagen, Denmark, by COBO. (Photographs by Ken Lee .) To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose

Here are some photos of Sky SOHO (2014) in Shanghai, China, by Zaha Hadid Architects. (Photographs by Fernando Herrera .) To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose

"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with short first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews (though some might go on to get that treatment), but they are a way to share more books worthy of attention than find their way into  reviews on this blog . This installment features six books grouped into three pairs with similar subjects and/or contributors. Two California-centric collections: LA Forum Reader: From the Archives of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design  edited by Rob Berry, Victor Jones, Michael Sweeney, Mimi Zeiger and Chava Danielson, Joe Day, Thurman Grant, Duane McLemore | Actar | 2018 |  Amazon Made Up: Design's Fictions  edited by Tim Durfee, Mimi Zeiger | ArtCenter Graduate Press | 2017 |  Amazon Further linking these two titles, one produced by the L.A. Forum and the other by Pasadena's ArtCenter College of Design , are brown d...

On Saturday, Thomas Kahn-kade ( @robyniko ) posted a string of his "Thomas Kinkade + Modernism mashups" to Twitter. Here is one of Frank Gehry's residence in Santa Monica, California. Others icons of modern residential architecture include Philip Johnson's Glass House, Louis I. Kahn's Fisher House, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House. Check 'em out .

Here are some more photos from my recent summer road trip: the new Museum at Gateway Arch (2018) in St. Louis, Missouri, by James Carpenter Design Associates and Cooper Robertson with Trivers Associates ; landscaping by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose

Pictures of the Floating Microcosm: New Representations of Japanese Architecture by Olivier Meystre, published by  Park Books , 2017. Hardcover, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) It's hard to deny the appeal of drawings by Japanese architects. I've succumbed, for instance, to the intricate perspective sections and plans of Atelier Bow-Wow and "Architectural Ethnography," the Japanese exhibition at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, which was co-curated by one-half of Atelier Bow-Wow and focused on drawings by architects and non-architects alike. The two-dimensional output of Japanese architects in the last two decades is evident through their high level of detail, lack of hierarchy in lines, abundance of white space, and sometimes cartoonish qualities. But why is it like this and what are these drawings trying to express? These and other questions are addressed by Olivier Meystre in his analytical, accessible, and lavishly illustrated study on drawings and model...

Here are some more photos from my recent Great Plains road trip, two buildings in Southeastern Wyoming: H. H. Richardson's Ames Monument (1882) in Albany County and Antoine Predock's American Heritage Center  (1993) at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Ames Monument: American Heritage Center: To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose

Here are some photos of the thyssenkrupp Test Tower Rottweil (2017) in Rottweil, Germany, by Werner Sobek and Helmut Jahn. (Photography by Frank Stahl ) To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose

Here are some of my photos of Kansas State University's College of Architecture, Planning and Design (2017) in Manhattan, Kansas, by Ennead Architects. I stopped by my alma mater during a recent road trip through the Great Plains and will be posting more photos from the trip in the coming days. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just: :: Tag your photos  #archidose