Architecture & Design

Concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation, from the basics of "How to Draw a Line" to the complexities of color theory.This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom. These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation-from the basics of "How to Draw a Line" to the complexities of color theory-provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum. Each lesson utilizes a two-page format, with a brief explanation and an illustration that can range from diagrammatic to whimsical. The lesson on "How to Draw a Line" is illustrated by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on the dangers of awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a drawing of a building split neatly in half between the two. Written by an architect and instructor who remembers well the fog of his own student days, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School provides valuable guideposts for navigating the design studio and other classes in the architecture curriculum. Architecture graduates-from young designers to experienced practitioners-will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem.

Why Architecture Matters is not a work of architectural history or a guide to the styles or an architectural dictionary, though it contains elements of all three. The purpose of Why Architecture Matters is to “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually”—with its impact on our lives. “Architecture begins to matter,” writes Paul Goldberger, “when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads.” He shows us how that works in examples ranging from a small Cape Cod cottage to the “vast, flowing” Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, from the Lincoln Memorial to the highly sculptural Guggenheim Bilbao and the Church of Sant’Ivo in Rome, where “simple geometries . . . create a work of architecture that embraces the deepest complexities of human imagination.” Based on decades of looking at buildings and thinking about how we experience them, the distinguished critic raises our awareness of fundamental things like proportion, scale, space, texture, materials, shapes, light, and memory. Upon completing this remarkable architectural journey, readers will enjoy a wonderfully rewarding new way of seeing and experiencing every aspect of the built world.

Most architectural standards references contain thousands of pages of details--overwhelmingly more than architects need to know to know on any given day. The Architecture Reference & Specification Book contains vital information that's essential to planning and executing architectural projects of all shapes and sizes, in a format that is small enough to carry anywhere. It distills the data provided in standard architectural volumes and is an easy-to-use reference for the most indispensable--and most requested--types of architectural information.

10 Buildings That Changed America tells the stories of ten influential works of architecture, the people who imagined them, and the way these landmarks ushered in innovative cultural shifts throughout our society. From American architectural stalwarts like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, to modern revolutionaries like Frank Gehry and Robert Venturi, this book examines the most prominent buildings designed by the most noteworthy architects of our time. Also profiled are Americans less noted for their architectural acumen, but no less significant for their contributions to the field. Thomas Jefferson, a self-taught architect, is profiled for designing the iconic Virginia State Capitol. Taking its inspiration from ancient Rome, America's first major public building forged a philosophical link between America and the world's earliest democracies. We see the legacy of the architects profiled like Mies van der Rohe or H.H. Richardson all around us: in the homes where we live, the offices where we work, our public buildings, and our houses of worship. 10 Buildings is the ideal collection to detail the flashes of inspiration from these architects who dared to strike out on their own and design radical new types of buildings that permanently altered our environmental and cultural landscape.