Children are rarely introduced properly to architecture, but there are in fact few subjects more important – because the quality of the architecture that surrounds us has such an impact on our mood and sense of well-being. The bitter truth is that in modern times, we’ve built a world that’s far too often ugly or uncharming – and we’ve done so because only a very few people ever feel they have the right to comment on what gets built around them. This is a chance for the next generation to develop the tools to talk about architecture with confidence, knowledge and passion. It tells us about what a satisfying building is, what makes a street enticing (or not), why some cities are charming and others repel us – and how we might build going forward in a way that will reliably delight and uplift us. This engaging and beautifully illustrated guide is designed to help children (and their favourite adults) to understand how buildings work and how we might create the better looking world we all crave and deserve.

This is an innovative guide to the importance of art, produced in a way that will enchant children and, along the way, teach their favourite adults one or two vital things as well.

A captivating exploration of the ever-evolving world of architecture and the untold stories buildings tell. When a building is finished being built, that isn’t the end of its story. More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they’re allowed to. Buildings adapt by being constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and in that way, architects can become artists of time rather than simply artists of space. From the connected farmhouses of New England to I.M. Pei’s Media Lab, from the evolution of bungalows to the invention of Santa Fe Style, from Low Road military surplus buildings to a High Road English classic like Chatsworth—this is a far-ranging survey of unexplored essential territory. Discover how structures become living organisms, shaped by the people who inhabit them, and learn how architects can harness the power of time to create enduring works of art through the interconnected worlds of design, function, and human ingenuity.

A practical introduction to architecture for aspiring teen architects Architecture is a fascinating, diverse field that blends technology, creativity, engineering, and even psychology. Discover the possibilities with this in-depth choice in architecture books for teens. Delve into the world of architecture, learn about recent innovations in sustainability and inclusivity, and uncover the details behind real architectural projects. Explore an overview of architectural movements and designers from prehistory to modern-day, and check out inspiring interviews with working professionals. With tons of practical advice for pursuing a career, you'll find out how you can become an architect and help build an environmentally responsible world from the ground up! Go beyond other architecture books for teens with: Architecture essentials—Get to know the five basic elements of architecture: structure, program, economics, aesthetics, and region. Creative career options—Learn what it means to work in residential or industrial architecture, specialize in historic preservation, create landscapes, innovate in urban planning, and more. Real-world examples—Go behind the scenes on real architectural projects with colorful illustrations, breakdowns of the design process, and thoughtful examinations of their impact. Learn all about the role of an architect with this comprehensive selection in architecture books for teens.

This book is a delightful guide to understanding and identifying architectural styles for kids and their parents Why do houses look the way they do? Why do dome have small windows, while others seem to be all glass? Why do some hug the landscape, while others are tall with very steep roofs? Why do dome people live in mansions, while others live in mobile houses? Can you imagine a house that looks like an elephant or a shoe? Children and adults will learn about the history of domestic architecture, the styles of the houses we live in, and the terms for the architectural elements that compose the buildings. Use the pictorial field guide to investigate your own house, then take it along on family outings to identify different architectural details. Under Every Roof features more than 60 houses from 30 states and the District of Columbia that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places; many of these are house museums that are open to the public. Kids need to understand the house they live in, so the book also includes a wide variety of regional styles and architectural types. The full-color, watercolor illustrations add a unique, gentle humor to the text.

An Architectural Record Notable Book A fascinating, thought-provoking journey into our built environment Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside, shuttling between homes and offices, schools and stores, restaurants and gyms. And yet, in many ways, the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings, we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Our productivity, performance, and relationships? In this wide-ranging, character-driven book, science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound, and sometimes unexpected, ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research, she probes the pain-killing power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance, how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems, and how cafeteria design affects what—and how much—we eat. Along the way, Anthes takes readers into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors, a school designed to boost students’ physical fitness, and a prison designed to support inmates’ psychological needs. And she previews the homes of the future, from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the Moon. The Great Indoors provides a fresh perspective on our most familiar surroundings and a new understanding of the power of architecture and design. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world—one room at a time.

Bestselling author Alain de Botton considers how our private homes and public edifices influence how we feel, and how we could build dwellings in which we would stand a better chance of happiness. In this witty, erudite look at how we shape, and are shaped by, our surroundings, Alain de Botton applies Stendhal’s motto that “Beauty is the promise of happiness” to the spaces we inhabit daily. Why should we pay attention to what architecture has to say to us? de Botton asks provocatively. With his trademark lucidity and humour, de Botton traces how human needs and desires have been served by styles of architecture, from stately Classical to minimalist Modern, arguing that the stylistic choices of a society can represent both its cherished ideals and the qualities it desperately lacks. On an individual level, de Botton has deep sympathy for our need to see our selves reflected in our surroundings; he demonstrates with great wisdom how buildings — just like friends — can serve as guardians of our identity. Worrying about the shape of our sofa or the colour of our walls might seem self-indulgent, but de Botton considers the hopes and fears we have for our homes at a new level of depth and insight. When shopping for furniture or remodelling the kitchen, we don’t just consider functionality but also the major questions of aesthetics and the philosophy of art: What is beauty? Can beautiful surroundings make us good? Can beauty bring happiness? The buildings we find beautiful, de Botton concludes, are those that represent our ideas of a meaningful life. The Architecture of Happiness marks a return to what Alain does best — taking on a subject whose allure is at once tantalizing and a little forbidding and offering to readers a completely beguiling and original exploration of the subject. As he did with Proust, philosophy, and travel, now he does with architecture.

Renowned artist and architect Maya Lin's visual and verbal sketchbook—a unique view into her artwork and philosophy. Walking through this parklike area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth -- a long, polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. Approaching the memorial, the ground slopes gently downward, and the low walls emerging on either side, growing out of the earth, extend and converge at a point below and ahead. Walking into the grassy site contained by the walls of this memorial, we can barely make out the carved names upon the memorial's walls. These names, seemingly infinite in number, convey the sense of overwhelming numbers, while unifying these individuals into a whole.... So begins the competition entry submitted in 1981 by a Yale undergraduate for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. -- subsequently called "as moving and awesome and popular a piece of memorial architecture as exists anywhere in the world." Its creator, Maya Lin, has been nothing less than world famous ever since. From the explicitly political to the un-ashamedly literary to the completely abstract, her simple and powerful sculpture -- the Rockefeller Foundation sculpture, the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial, the Yale Women's Table, Wave Field -- her architecture, including The Museum for African Art and the Norton residence, and her protean design talents have defined her as one of the most gifted creative geniuses of the age. Boundaries is her first book: an eloquent visual/verbal sketchbook produced with the same inspiration and attention to detail as any of her other artworks. Like her environmental sculptures, it is a site, but one which exists at a remove so that it may comment on the personal and artistic elements that make up those works. In it, sketches, photographs, workbook entries, and original designs are held together by a deeply personal text. Boundaries is a powerful literary and visual statement by "a leading public artist" (Holland Carter). It is itself a unique work of art.

Exploring the impact of the built environment and design on people with a range of neurological experiences, including autism, dementia, dyslexia and dyspraxia, this comprehensive guide provides project commissioners, architects and designers with all the information and personal insight they need to design, create and build 'mind-friendly' environments for everyone. Assimilating knowledge from medical, therapeutic, social and educational spheres, and using sensory integration theory, the book explores the connection between our minds and our surroundings and considers the impact of the environment on the senses, well-being and neurodiverse needs of people. The book shows how design adaptations to lighting, acoustics, temperature, surfaces, furniture and space can positively benefit the lives of everyone across a range of environments including workplaces, retail, sport and leisure, domestic, educational institutions, cultural and civic spaces, outdoor spaces and places of worship. Universal in its approach and written by an experienced architect and inclusive design consultant, this book is essential reading for professionals in architecture and design, education, organisational psychology, business management and occupational therapy.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and LitHub Winner of the 2021 Science in Society Journalism Book Prize A fascinating and provocative new way of looking at the things we use and the spaces we inhabit, and a call to imagine a better-designed world for us all. Furniture and tools, kitchens and campuses and city streets—nearly everything human beings make and use is assistive technology, meant to bridge the gap between body and world. Yet unless, or until, a misfit between our own body and the world is acute enough to be understood as disability, we may never stop to consider—or reconsider—the hidden assumptions on which our everyday environment is built. In a series of vivid stories drawn from the lived experience of disability and the ideas and innovations that have emerged from it—from cyborg arms to customizable cardboard chairs to deaf architecture—Sara Hendren invites us to rethink the things and settings we live with. What might assistance based on the body’s stunning capacity for adaptation—rather than a rigid insistence on “normalcy”—look like? Can we foster interdependent, not just independent, living? How do we creatively engineer public spaces that allow us all to navigate our common terrain? By rendering familiar objects and environments newly strange and wondrous, What Can a Body Do? helps us imagine a future that will better meet the extraordinary range of our collective needs and desires.