Is this your personal list or list for school?

Death and Life of Great American Cities
A New Theory of Urban Design
Biomimicry
Invisible Cities
Smart Growth Manual
Suburban Transformations
Sustainable Urbanism
Cradle to Cradle


I'm going back to school for Urban Design, so that's obviously where my focus is on this summer.

Happy Reading.

the function of form
edible estates
Architecture of consequence
Green Urbanism-learning from European cities

and the blogs of course

Signs, Language, and Behavior
War In The Age of Intelligent Machines
Ulysses
1000 Years of Non Linear History
Warped Space
Optical Unconscious

Starting my MArch II in the fall, part of my reading/studying is to get back in the academia state of mind, the other is to continue my professional development.


LEED Prep GA (Taking the exam sometime this summer)
Sustainable Energy Systems in Architectural Design

Architecture After Modernism
Tomorrow a New World
Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments
Cradle to Cradle

Almost done with...Mastering UNREAL Technology Vol 1...probably won't get through Vol 2 since these books are massive


Side projects...
Maintain my current pace of studying Mandarin for one hour a day and since I'm moving to Texas I better start studying Spanish too.

Revitize a large portion of my neighborhood, something I've always talked about doing and now I'm probably proficient enough to do it in a timely manner.

I'm still trying to make it through The Edifice Complex. This summer I will focus on reading about materials.

Cat in the Hat
Thomas the Train
shall I go on.

The Berlin Wall: a world divided 1961-1989

http://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Wall-World-Divided-1961-1989/dp/0060786140/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274711796&sr=8-1



Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Condition-Institution/dp/0300078153/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274711850&sr=1-1

I am starting an M.Arch program this fall with no experience. Any suggested reading for a newby? I have read Le Corbusier: Towards a New Architecture; Koolhaus: Delirious New York; de Botton: Architecture of Happiness; and Goldberger: Why Architecture Matters.

All suggestions are welcome!

Sounder- Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne was an interesting read from an urban design point of view though not exactly architectural but it might serve as an enjoyable break

right now, war in the age of intelligent machines, has me thinking a lot about the derivatives market and those damn MIT physicists...has me thinking there were too many jominis and not enough clausewitzians.....

thanks for the suggestion met- I'll have to check that book out!

Fiction is good too, and I think good for architecture people to read. In that vein, I'm reading:

The Mulberry Empire, Phillip Hensher
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

bballer,

Definitely Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities mentioned above.
Peter Zumthor - Thinking Architecture
Steven Holl - Parallax
Bruno Zevi - Architecture as Space

The Tanners - Robert Walser
Nowhere Man - Aleksandar Hemon
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Foe - J. M. Coatzee
*arch-related pick* The Seven Lamps of Architecture - John Ruskin

Thanks for the tips de Architectura. I am definitely going to check them out!

The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

I'll repeat above w/ Jane Jacobs - Life and Death of Great American Cities. I'm actually pretty amazed this is not required reading during the first semester of architecture school.
Second, I would say the New York Times, your local state/city newspaper, and your local business journal to be in the know for current events.
Third, some of the LEED / green design books aforementioned would be wise.
Finally, I would suggest a few business books like the E-Myth, the 4 Hour Work Week, and some other well reviewed marketing books. These may not be the most intellectually stimulating, but they've done more for me to put food on the table than any sort of starchitect theoretical fluff. I'm not knocking your effort in having a strong design knowledge, but I encourage my employees and students to be more entrepreneurial. Business books (which can be speed read, anyways) will be helpful in this regard.

Just Why-

What do you think about the Edifice Complex. I just ordered it off Amazon. I like Sudjic as an author, I am wrapping up The Language of Things right now. He loses me at points in the book. Particularly the Fashion chapter. Overall I think he does a great job with explaining design in a language that I can grasp. I am excited about reading a book of his that focuses on Architecture.

I generally follow a pattern of fiction - non-fiction - fiction.. when it comes to my reading lists.

My planned reads for the first part of the summer:

- Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
- War in the Age of Intelligent Machines - Manuel de Landa
- The Crack in Space - Philip K. Dick
- Digital Ground - Malcolm McCullough*
- Idoru - William Gibson
- Superfreakonomics - Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
- Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs**
- On Growth and Form (Abridged) - D'Arcy Thompson
- Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
- Visual Thinking - Rudolf Arnheim

*(partial re-read).
**(re-read, it's been about 5 years since I last read this).

bballer:

If you want to get a jump-start of some of the canonical history/theory texts, you could check out:

Robert Venturi, Contradiction and Complexity in Architecture

Colin Rowe, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa

Alan Colquhoun, Essays in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical Change

You could also look at the following older threads for other recommendations:

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=61872_0_42_0_C

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=80189_0_42_0_C

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=78802_0_42_0_C

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=75054_0_42_0_C

http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=69124_0_42_0_C

"IMPERIAL" by Bill Vollmann. Has anyone read this? It's a nonfiction novel in the tradition of "In Cold Blood," etc

I'm halfway through and can't decide how I feel about it. I love its concept (obsessive, sprawling, hyperfocused, etc.) and content (the borderlands, poverty, water resources).

But

The way he talks about women makes me uncomfortable
His descriptions of poverty sometimes feel glamorizing/exploitative
He doesn't speak Spanish

Anyone who's read it - what do you think?