Archinect - Features

The Books You Should Read for Summer 2024, According to Leading Voices in Architecture

2024-05-29T16:41:00-04:00

Is your bookshelf ready for Summer? If not, we have you covered.

Continuing a recurring tradition, Archinect has reached out to notable figures across the architecture community who have been featured in our editorial over the past year, asking them what books they believe should be on your radar. The resulting list, in its own way, encapsulates the most important conversations taking place within architecture, design, and academia today, from inequality and conflict to labor and technology.

We hope you find some new inspiration in the titles below or, if you’ve exhausted our 2024 list, from our previous recommendations.

Archinect's 2023 Summer Reading List

2023-07-10T20:46:00-04:00

Summer is here, and whether you're on vacation or preparing for one or looking to lay low at home, a summer must is a good book. The Archinect team has curated a list of reading essentials to explore.

Below is a collection of books organized into five categories – New Releases, Books Every Student Should Read, Books for Motivation and Introspection, Books on Artificial Intelligence and Beyond, and Coffee Table Collectables. We've also included book suggestions from the Archinect team, Archinectors from our forum, and individuals we've interviewed in the last year.

Reyner Banham Is Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies at 50

2021-08-19T07:59:00-04:00

If you have an interest in Los Angeles, you also have a copy of Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. My own is a mid-1980s Pelican paperback, which I chose because it had the dumbest cover of all the editions. Though it shares with previous printings the image of David Hockney's A Bigger Splash, an unimpeachable representation of a certain midcentury vision of the city's hauntingly good life, its title replaces their elegant Helvetica with letterforms better suited to a post-apocalyptic action movie gone straight to video. "Angeles" is spelled out in forward-slanting, shadow-casting, bright yellow capitals but for the red initial "A," rendered as if hastily spray-painted and set inside a circle to form the 1970s anarchy symbol. Right, Los Angeles — that's the zone of semi-controlled urban chaos obedient to no conventional rules or order, architectural or otherwise, isn't it?

Troy Schaum on Challenging Architecture Studio Pedagogy Through "Totalization"

2020-01-22T12:42:00-05:00

Design studios play a crucial role during a student's time in architecture school where students are given opportunities to gain new skills, experiment with fabrication techniques, and implement design theory, all while creating prototypes and learning how to effectively present their designs. However, not all studios are executed in the same way. Depending on the institution's focus and pedagogy, studio instructors are often challenged to create new methods of interpreting studio culture, while continuing to implement applicable themes and briefs that challenge and initiate creative thought and reasoning for students. As stressful as it is memorable, students and instructors engage in an almost symbiotic experience through studio: Both parties learn together while conducting research and experimentation through design.

Archinect connected with Troy Schaum, Associate Professor at the Rice University School of Architecture, to discuss his Totalization studio and his recently publish...

What do you buy an architect for the holidays? Check out Archinect's 2019 Holiday Gift Guide

2019-11-28T11:53:00-05:00

Like them or not, the holidays are here! When it comes to holiday shopping, architects and designers can be a tough crowd to please. Whether you're looking for something practical or whimsical or simply need some inspiration, surprise the architect(s) dearest to you with an item or two (or three) from Archinect's 2019 Holiday Gift Guide.

From unique household items, to sleek everyday-carry essentials, to contemporary classics, this curated selection of gifts is sure to delight any coworker, boss, or your architecturally inclined friends and family. Plus, we have some charming ideas for mini-modernists and aspiring architects.

Archinect's Biographical Reading List

2019-09-12T07:00:00-04:00

While the work of an architect often stands in for the life of the architect itself, there is much to be learned about the lived experience of history's most notable designers.

And while monographs that tally up and showcase the work of individual designers and firms are a dime a dozen, biographies and autobiographies, though much more rare among designers, offer a deeper and more nuanced look into the lives and minds of some of the most well-known design personalities.

As the school year gets underway, and students and professors alike embark on an era of new beginnings, it can be useful—and perhaps inspirational—to investigate how other architects and designers have lived their lives. Below, Archinect has gathered a dozen interesting and notable biographies and autobiographies that highlight the lives of designers with the hope that you will find something in their lives that speaks to yours.

Frederick Douglass and the Empowered Reader

2019-06-27T12:04:00-04:00

Architecture, like any field, is one filled with endless recordings, writings, images, and material of its long history. Books hold the information of the ages, yet so many of us are "too busy" to read any of it. We take our access to books for granted. But there are those of us who genuinely want to change that. We want to spend more time reading. We know that it's a practice that can help us grow and improve in our professional (and personal) pursuits. But, still, we have trouble making it happen. I think that sometimes, putting things into a certain perspective can help us make shifts like this in life. This article shares the early life of one of America's greatest citizens and how reading set him on a path to rid the world of one of its most horrifying institutions. Hopefully, a little snippet from his life can help give us an idea on how we might situate reading into our busy lives.

How Overwork and Anxiety Led Architect Ben Channon to Focus on Designing for Happiness

2018-11-08T12:00:00-05:00

Architect Ben Channon was finishing up his architectural qualifications when he began to realize the toll it was taking on his mental health. Overcome by anxiety, and living in a small shared flat, he was gripped by questions of why some buildings make us happy, while others do not. "At the end of the day, our environment affects us, whatever type of building it is," Channon says. His curiosity led him down a path investigating the links between architecture and well-being. Channon's findings have culminated in the recent book, Happy by Design, where he asserts that the design of buildings can have large effects on the happiness of its inhabitants and offers advice on how to design spaces that better serve its users.

Books and Bots: Conversations on the Future of Architecture Publishing

2018-11-05T10:48:00-05:00

The ease of online publishing has influenced a surge in the production of architecture content—more text, images and video are now created and distributed than ever before. In this sink or swim environment of the global ‘mediasphere’, print-based architecture publishers face challenging questions when it comes to their future financial sustainability and role in a rapidly-changing industry. As Archinect’s own bookshop and event space in Downtown LA’s Arts District, Archinect Outpost, celebrates its first summer, this edition of Architecture Futures invites architecture publishers to reflect on the industry as it stands today and what the next decade may hold. Instead of ‘killing print’ will the fourth industrial revolution induce a mainstream resurgence of physical publications? What is the future role of editor as publishers add AI sorting mechanisms and user-driven editing practices to their oeuvre? What new forms of architectural content may soon exist? I discuss these questions ...

Archinect's 2018 Summer Reading List

2018-07-10T09:01:00-04:00

Temperatures are rising, and for many, that might mean finding a good book for the beach or pool, while on the plane to a summer destination, or hiding away in an air-conditioned Starbucks. When talking to architects over the past few months, we've been asking for their current favorites. Whether it's a companion to the Venice Architecture Biennale or a deep dive into communal living, below you'll find a stellar list to supplement that already overflowing stack sitting on your shelves.

Archinect's Summer Reading + Listening List: Recommendations from Amale Andraos, Dora Epstein Jones, Jenna Didier, and Mimi Zeiger

2016-08-04T10:13:00-04:00

It turns out architecture folk don't really go for junk fiction when it comes to summer reading. Karl Ove Knausgaard makes another appearance, alongside classics by Albert Camus and Frantz Fanon, as well as some more architecture-specific reads. Here's what Amale Andraos, Dora Epstein Jones, Jenna Didier, and Mimi Zeiger are reading (and listening to) this summer—and why.

Archinect's Summer Reading + Listening List: Recommendations from Aaron Betsky, Jimenez Lai, Alan Loomis and Scott Merrill

2016-07-16T10:41:00-04:00

From vivid historical analysis to theoretically-driven essays on Rem Koolhaas to the mesmerizing stream of consciousness of Karl Ove Knausgaard, Aaron Betsky, Jimenez Lai, Alan Loomis and Scott Merrill spoke to Archinect about what they're reading (and listening to).

Here's a quick glimpse of the tenor and scope of their picks, just in time for summer.

Archinect's Summer Reading List: recommendations from Oana Stanescu of Family, Elaine Molinar and Craig Dykers of Snøhetta, and Jorge Otero-Pailos

2016-07-07T08:39:00-04:00

With temperatures climbing and vacations on the horizon, it’s time to stock up on summer reads. When talking to architects over the past few months, we’ve been asking for their book recommendations—to bring to the beach, to distract from the sweltering heat of the subway, or just to edify. Here’s a few of them.