Architecture

A fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home....

The fascinating true story behind the magnificent Gilded Age mansion Biltmore - the largest, grandest residence ever built in the United States....

Meet Me by the Fountain is a highly entertaining and evocative promenade through the mall’s story of rise, fall and ongoing reinvention....

Thirty years after its publication, this book was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning"....

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn, Jr., delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America's transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did....

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate certification is one of the most challenging exams. It's great at assessing how well you understand not just AWS, but making sure you are making the best architectural decisions based on situations....

We are living in a new urban age and its most tangible expression is the "supertall": megastructures that are dramatically bigger, higher, and more ambitious than any in history. Stefan Al reveals the advancements in engineering, design, and data science that have led to this boom....

Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about....

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability....

A lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, The Bright Ages shows the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality - a brilliant reflection of humanity itself....

Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today. Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius....

With this updated edition of his earlier book A Place of My Own, listeners can revisit the inspired, intelligent, and often hilarious story of Pollan’s realization of a room of his own....

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness....

An essential and accessible guide to increasing happiness, improving your financial well-being, and bettering your health through the timeless Chinese art of feng shui....

Jeff Speck’s follow-up to his best-selling Walkable City is the resource that cities and citizens need to usher in an era of renewed street life. Walkable City Rules is a doer’s guide to making change in cities, and making it now....

In this no-holds-barred treatise, Donald Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems....

The E-Myth Architect gives you a complete toolkit for either starting a successful firm from scratch or maximizing an existing firm's performance....

Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities.... 

Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world....

Critical Path details how humanity found itself in its current situation - at the limits of the planet's natural resources and facing political, economic, environmental, and ethical crises....

Many want to achieve success in being a project manager, but not everyone is given a roadmap on how to get there. Think about it. You worked hard, got promoted into a project management position and then what....

The ancient practice of feng shui is uncovered in this simple and practical guide, revealing the tools that will lead to a healthier, happier home for every budget....

On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction....

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for The New York Times comes an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of the world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright....

In this wide-ranging, character-driven audiobook, 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....

Alexandra Lange now turns her sharp eye to another subject we only think we know. She chronicles post-war architects’ and merchants’ invention of the mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. In Lange’s perceptive account, the mall becomes newly strange and rich with contradiction: Malls are environments of both freedom and exclusion—of consumerism, but also of community. Meet Me by the Fountain is a highly entertaining and evocative promenade through the mall’s story of rise, fall and ongoing reinvention.

We sometimes wish for alone time. There are many reasons we long for such a thing. It could be the need to achieve something we feel we can’t achieve amid everything around us. We might also long for some time alone to get away from the hustle and bustle of life as it goes on around us. But, whatever the choice, our ultimate aim is usually some time to ourselves, a moment of reflection, a time to make personal decisions and grow as a person.

In this manifesto, the author takes a leap of faith. It is a faith in Lost Causes. He asserts that today, architectonic reason has fallen into ruins. As soon as architecture leaves the limits set to it by architectonic reason, no other path is open to it but the path to aestheticism. This is the wrong path contemporary architecture has taken. In its reduction to a pure aesthetic object, architecture negatively affects the human sensorium. 

From his vantage point as a garden designer and writer based in Kyoto, Marc Peter Keane examines the world around him and delivers astonishing insights through an array of narratives. How the names of gardens reveal their essential meaning. A new definition of what art is. What trees are really made of. The true meaning of the enigmatic torii gate found at Shinto shrines. Why we give flowers as gifts. The essential, underlying unity of the world.

How to fit bookshelves in a small space? What wood will you prefer for designing? When designing a room what is the most important factor for you? Interior designing does not need to be difficult. All you really need is the knowledge to go about planning your approach to designing. There are some common interior design questions you can use no matter the project you have going on. Every design is a hypothesis and a very interesting and practical adventure. Which ever approach you use, design focuses on resolving problems by tacking them in interesting ways.

Every year, thousands of homeowners apply for planning permission and come away battered and bruised. As a council case officer, Martin Gaine was part of the problem, continuously rejecting applications from poorly prepared applicants. Seeing that they were getting a raw deal, he founded Just Planning, a consultancy dedicated to helping homeowners to beat the planners. How to Get Planning Permission is a lively and accessible guide for homeowners.

I have described 35 of my favorite colonial buildings in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and placed them in their historical context. Each one of them has a fascinating story to tell and is best understood and appreciated as a milestone in the history of Rangoon. The audiobook has two parts. Part one is the history of Rangoon, and part 2 is the buildings.

We are living in a new urban age and its most tangible expression is the "supertall": megastructures that are dramatically bigger, higher, and more ambitious than any in history. In Supertall, TED Resident Stefan Al—himself an experienced architect who has worked on some of the largest buildings in the world—reveals the advancements in engineering, design, and data science that have led to this worldwide boom.

The modern world has the ancient Romans to thank for the origins of many modern technologies, conveniences, and ideas, from running water, baths, and republican-style government to roads. Similarly, by the third century BCE, the Romans were prodigious monument builders, so much so that the memory of the great Roman Republic and the Roman Empire continues to exist within a cityscape of stone. Rome’s public spaces were filled with statues, arches, temples, and many other varieties of monumental images, and each of these structures had its own civic or religious function.

Tiny houses on wheels are glamorous and solve a lot of problems for people, but actually building one is a different story entirely. Maybe you've spent a lot of time researching and planning, but you're not quite sure you are ready. Or perhaps you are having a tiny house built for you but don't know what your builder will really do or how to communicate with them. Whatever your situation, this audiobook will arm you with construction knowledge in simple terms.