In ‘Beyond the Envelope,’ Students Interview 21 Leading Designers About Architecture

If you could invite 21 of today’s most brilliant architects to dinner, who would they be? And if you seated each luminary between a pair of architecture students primed on one of the architect’s most significant works, what conversations might you overhear? Short of actually holding that imaginary gathering, Beyond the Envelope is as close as most of us will get to hearing, for example, Pritzker Prize–winner Wang Shu discuss modernity and tradition in the construction of the Ningbo Historic Museum; AL_A director Maximiliano Arrocet describe “sculpting with shadows” to design Lisbon’s Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology; or Sir Peter Cook range from the functionality of the nozzles on Kunsthaus Graz to his interlocutor’s taste in shirts, all in one place.

The book’s candid, insightful, and sometimes revelatory interviews were conducted online by final-year master of architecture students in a building-envelope course at New York Institute of Technology, between 2021 and 2023, and broadcast as part of the school’s program of public events. Edited and introduced by the students’ instructor, architect Tom Verebes, each interview focuses on a single building, notable for its innovative envelope. Professional photographs (principally by RECORD contributing photographer Iwan Baan and London-based Hufton & Crow) and student-generated graphic analysis complement the interviews and generate “aha” moments throughout.