If you’ve ever felt like a slacker, neither of these books will help. You’ll know even before you open them—one weighs 4.4 pounds; the other, more than 7—that they represent thousands of hours of painstaking effort.
There's something funny about architectural theory. It takes the building—one of the heaviest and most solid artifacts of human production—and evacuates it of any relation to the physical world.
By Russell Fortmeyer and Charles D. Linn. Images Publishing, April 2014, 224 pages, $78. Smart Skins Despite its title, Kinetic Architecture is not a book about buildings with components that literally move. Instead, its authors, Russell Fortmeyer and Charles D. Linn (both former editors at Architectural Record), investigate projects with envelopes that dynamically respond—in ways both visible and invisible—to their surroundings in order to modulate the interior environment, conserve energy, and enhance the comfort of occupants. Linn, an architect and director of communications for the University of Kansas School of Architecture, and Fortmeyer, an electrical engineer and sustainable-technology specialist at
The author, who covers architecture for Inhabitat.com, examines the need for new kinds of housing in the wake of disasters, poverty, and climate change, and shows projects from around the globe.
Rem Koolhaas’s most recent publication (with Hans Ulrich Obrist) tells the story of Metabolism, a technocratic movement of the 1960s based on ideas of organic growth.
By James S. Russell, Island Press, 312 pages, 2011, $35 James Russell argues in this well-researched and persuasive book that cities will need to become agile: to adapt to the climate changes already in progress and to reduce the potential for a global environmental catastrophe as the world races towards a population of more than 10 billion. Transitioning to energy-efficient buildings is one form of agility open to all cities. Adopting planning measures that preserve more of the natural environment, supported by diverse forms of transportation and not just highways, is another strategy within the control of state and local
The author collected tales of cities known for their historic beauty, contrasting their thoughtless destruction with the story of those who fought to save them.
The rebuilding of the old Jewish Quarter would be guided by an advisory council of distinguished philosophers, historians, artists, architects, planners, theologians, and philanthropists called the Jerusalem Committee, established by the mayor immediately upon entering office.