Books are the most reliable of gifts. They offer worlds of imagination, exploration, deep connection, wisdom, insight, laughter, wonder, curiosity – the entire range of human endeavor and experience. Below are suggestions for identifying the right book to give or the next book to read, organized by subject and with …
“So many books, so little time.” – Frank Zappa Whether searching for a gift, or for your own education, exploration, total immersion zone-out or entertainment, a book is often the perfect solution. Below are links that will help you find the right book – lists and websites sorted into rough …
100 years ago in Weimar, Germany Walter Gropius founded the visionary and highly influential design program known as the Bauhaus. Integrating art and craft – a return to craftsmanship – the curriculum began with a foundation course for all students before they moved on to specialized workshops in cabinetry, pottery, metal working, weaving, and other crafts. Only after those …
Steedman murals in the Great Hall – visitors to the main St. Louis Public Library (SLPL) in downtown St. Louis, MO will have the unusual opportunity to see books from the Steedman Architectural Collection on display through May of this year. The exhibit is in the library’s Great Hall – itself worth …
Bauwelt 24:2014 Stadt und Auto – this June 27, 2014 issue of the German weekly Bauwelt has good articles about cars in cities. Even if you’re German-language-challenged, it’s worth a look for the photos and illustrations of a variety of approaches to harmonizing the tangle of cars, buses, pedestrians, and bicyclists in …
Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming – an impassioned and thought-provoking argument for the value to society of reading, libraries, librarians, and how the daydreaming that reading can stimulate leads to imagining a better future and the innovation that our social and economic well-being depends …
A Monochrome Lego Set To Teach Tomorrow’s Architects – six architectural firms contributed to the 268-page books that accompanies Lego Architecture Studio, a completely white set of Lego bricks designed to highlight major architectural principles. Each of the firms – REX Architecture, Sou Fujimoto, SOM, MAD Architects, Tham & Videgård, and Safdie Architects – gets up to …
More Discussion About Evidence-Based Design – post by healthcare design consultant Sara Marberry is a recap of a discussion among design experts about what it means for architects to be involved in design research. In addition to encouraging schools to prepare students for working in an evidence-based design environment, they …
The Art of the Bookmark – UK graphic artist Simon C Page offers some great bookmarks in a variety of patterns and colors. Saw it on COLOURlovers. Mirage Bookmark – Swiss makers of fine bookmarks; their site has a exhibition of bookmarks from around the world. Also …
BibliOdyssey – one of my favorite places to take a break; here’s the tag line: Books~~Illustrations~~Science~~History~~Visual Materia Obscura~~Eclectic Bookart. Each post features images based on a theme, or from a specific book or manuscript. The images are wonderful and plentiful and unexpected. Most sources are from early printed books or manuscripts …
Unintentional Knowledge: What we find when we’re not looking – this is an eloquent plea for balance between digital and traditional library-based research. While fully supporting the capabilities offered by online search technology the author also highlights the value of what a person can find by browsing library stacks, the …
In Memoriam: Niels Diffrient – anyone who’s been in the design world within the last 50 years will have come into contact with the work and ideas of designer Niels Diffrient who died last Saturday at the age of 84. From his ground-breaking work on the 3-volume reference set Humanscale to …
ArchiAfrika Magazine #2 – this second issue covers a wide range of topics, from the cover story on musician Hugh Masakela to African architects at Milan Design Week (shown here) to recycling practices in 6 African cities to community-built compressed-earth block schools in the Dogon to informal housing in Accra …
The Digital Public Library of America is launching on April 18-19 in Boston. This huge and long-awaited project is a cooperative non-profit venture undertaken by libraries, museums and other institutions from across the country, aggregating access to digitized content and making it all easily searchable and accessible. Their Elements page …
A trio of Dutch design magazines from Frame Publishers – Frame (interiors), Mark (architecture), Elephant (art/visual culture) – are all definitely worth a look. Online you get a sense of content and layout, but to see the issues entire you have to either purchase or subscribe yourself or, my choice, be near a library …
Santiago’s biggest newspaper takes a visual approach to urban issues – the Santiago edition of newspaper El Mercurio started a series, Santiago en 180°, with panoramic photos of sections of the city annotated with information on traffic, nearby changes, history, etc. Though a simple project, by rethinking what’s newsworthy El Mercurio has …
Here’s another good architecture magazine that requires a non-subscriber to visit a library, though it looks like they’ve got a pretty nice iPad app. Arquine 61 | Public space, space enabled – quarterly magazine focuses on the architecture of Mexico and Latin America, but includes projects from around the world. …
For an all-around design magazine, Wallpaper is among the best. To see their Design Awards 2013 you’ll have to find a February print issue, but visit the website and look around. Two sections to start with are Architecture and Travel where you’ll find a lot on hotels.