A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Mediated Messages: Periodicals, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Postmodern Architecture Edited by Véronique Patteeuw and Léa-Catherine Szacka Bloomsbury Visual Arts , June 2018 Hardcover | 6 x 9 inches | 280 pages | 38 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9781350170032 | $39.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Mediated Messages presents a collection of original writing exploring the role played by the media in the development of postmodern architecture in the 1970s and 80s. The book's twelve chapters and case-studies examine a range of contemporary periodicals and exhibitions to explore their role in the postmodern. This focus on mediation as a key feature of architectural post-modernism, and the recognition that post-modernism grew out of developments in the media, opens up the possibility of an important new account of post-modernism distinct from existing narratives. Accompanied by a contextualizing introduction, the essays are arranged across four thematic sections (covering: image...

Mid-Rise Urban Living by Chris Johnson Lund Humphries , September 2021 Hardcover |  7-1/2 x 9-3/4  inches | 128 pages | 73 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9781848224643 | $79.99 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Many communities in cities around the world do not like the growing number of residential towers, but they also realise that the detached house is not a sustainable urban solution. Between these two extremes, there is a ‘missing middle’ of mid-rise apartment buildings that relate to the street and are within the height of trees. This book argues that the mid-rise way of urban living is an essential component of growing cities, demonstrating that the economics of this form of development are better than that of terrace houses or town houses. It begins by examining successful historic precedents of this housing type, such as the tenements of Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona and New York and successful mid-rise housing in London. The book then discusses reasons for the re...

A few weeks ago I decided to start giving away books featured on this blog, starting with a copy of the catalog and activity guide from this year’s Exhibit Columbus, New Middles , which I sent to the first person who correctly answered a trivia question about that Midwestern bastion of modern architecture. Today I'm giving away a copy of Raw Earth as a Construction Material , a technical guide to compressed earth blocks by LEVS architecten, the Dutch firm that has realized many buildings with CEBs. Similarly, the recipient will be based on correctly answering a bit of trivia. The venue for the giveaways is this blog's weekly newsletter , which goes out (almost) every Sunday at 11am EST. If you're not already signed up for the newsletter — it's free, by the way — you can do so right here . And if you subscribe via Gmail, be sure to check your promo folder, as Google has a way of pushing newsletters like mine into that version of purgatory. Note: Due to the prohibitive co...

Where Are the Women Architects? by Despina Stratigakos Princeton University Press , April 2016 Paperback | 5 x 8 inches | 128 pages | 15 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691170138 | $19.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : For a century and a half, women have been proving their passion and talent for building and, in recent decades, their enrollment in architecture schools has soared. Yet the number of women working as architects remains stubbornly low, and the higher one looks in the profession, the scarcer women become. Law and medicine, two equally demanding and traditionally male professions, have been much more successful in retaining and integrating women. So why do women still struggle to keep a toehold in architecture? Where Are the Women Architects? tells the story of women’s stagnating numbers in a profession that remains a male citadel, and explores how a new generation of activists is fighting back, grabbing headlines, and building coalitions that promise to bring about...

The Secrets of LEGO House:  Design, Play, and Wonder in the Home of the Brick by Jesús Díaz Chronicle Books , August 2021 Hardcover | 11 x 9 inches | 160 pages | English | ISBN: 9781452182292 | $40.00 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : This guide takes you on a tour of the "home of the brick," the official LEGO® House, so you can experience it for yourself at home!  With photos, interviews, essays, and art from the LEGO archives, The Secrets of LEGO House explores the visual wonders and the themed "zones"—yellow for emotions, blue for problem solving, green for social interaction, and red for creativity—within the iconic LEGO House in Billund, Denmark.  The Secrets of LEGO House offers an insider's look at the creative philosophy behind the iconic brand. On each page, discover the true "secret" hidden among the 25 million LEGO bricks—that everything in the house is purposefully designed around nine core principles of learning through play. A joy for ...

A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences by Shannon Mattern Princeton University Press , August 2021 Paperback | 5 x 8 inches | 200 pages | 47 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9780691208053 | $19.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. A City Is Not a Computer reveals how cities encompass myriad forms of local and indigenous intelligences and knowledge institutions, arguing that these resources are a vital supplement and corrective to increasingly prevalent algorithmic models. Shannon Mattern begins by examining the ethical and ontological implications of urban technologies and computational models, discussing how they shape and in many cases profoundly limit our engagement with cities. She looks at the methods and underlying assumptions of...

The Ecologies of the Building Envelope: A Material History and Theory of Architectural Surfaces by Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Jeffrey S. Anderson Actar Publishers , July 2021 Hardcover | 7-3/4 x 10-1/4 inches | 464 pages | English | ISBN: 9781948765183 | $59.95 PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION : While the façade is one of the most thoroughly theorized elements of architecture, it is also one of the most questioned since the end of the 19th century. Within the discipline of architecture, the traditional understanding of the façade focuses primarily on semiotic and compositional operations (such as proportional laws and linguistic codes), which are deployed on the building’s surface. In contrast to this, our material and environmental theory of the envelope proposes that the exponential development of building technologies since the mid-19th century, coupled with new techniques of management and regulation, have diminished the compositional and ornamental capacities of the envelope in favo...