Good architecture is no longer about simply designing a building as an isolated object, but about meeting head-on the forces that are shaping today’s world. Architecture Is a Social Act: Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA] addresses how the discipline can be used as a tool to engage in politics, economics, aesthetics, and smart growth by promoting social equity, human interaction, and cultural evolution. The book features 28 projects drawn across LOHA’s nearly 30-year history, a selection that underscores the direct connection between the development of consciously designed buildings and wider efforts to tackle issues that are relevant in a rapidly changing world. LOHA’s projects range from tiny Santa Monica storefronts to vast urban plans in Detroit, Michigan, and Raleigh, North Carolina. From activating main streets, to designing housing of all shapes and sizes, to bringing hope to the homeless, to developing strategic plans for the future growth of cities, all of the work featured is represented within a larger social framework. Each case study is evidence of LOHA’s mastery of scale, form, light, and space that gives people a true sense of place and belonging. Architecture Is a Social Act: Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA] points the way ahead for both people and architecture. Features A collection of 28 projects completed over nearly three decades gives readers thorough insight – both visually and conceptually – into the work of LA and Detroit-based firm Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects. An important contribution in a post-pandemic world, the book’s main goal is to spark creative ideas and important questions about how architecture can be used in political engagement, smart growth and social structures, in order to improve our urban landscapes and elevate the human condition. Texts by O’Herlihy (Foreword), Frances Anderton (Introduction), Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne and Greg Goldin (project narratives and Afterword) are accompanied by illustrations and renderings by LOHA, and photography by Iwan Baan, Lawrence Anderson, Paul Vu, and others. The book is organized chronologically (starting in the 1990s and ending in 2020) and broken up into six sections, each representing a tipping point for the practice – periods in which LOHA’s work was launched in new directions that brought new sets of challenges, all of which parallel significant historical events. Readers will gain insight into the practice’s process when engaging a new project/site; understanding its history and context, and how it is informed by the culture and ecology of the people who live there.

The Social (Re)Production of Architecture brings the debates of the ‘right to the city’ into today’s context of ecological, economic and social crises. Building on the 1970s’ discussions about the ‘production of space’, which French sociologist Henri Lefebvre considered a civic right, the authors question who has the right to make space, and explore the kinds of relations that are produced in the process. In the emerging post-capitalist era, this book addresses urgent social and ecological imperatives for change and opens up questions around architecture’s engagement with new forms of organization and practice. The book asks what (new) kinds of ‘social’ can architecture (re)produce, and what kinds of politics, values and actions are needed. The book features 24 interdisciplinary essays written by leading theorists and practitioners including social thinkers, economic theorists, architects, educators, urban curators, feminists, artists and activists from different generations and global contexts. The essays discuss the diverse, global locations with work taking different and specific forms in these different contexts. A cutting-edge, critical text which rethinks both practice and theory in the light of recent crises, making it key reading for students, academics and practitioners.

Study of Woods' visionary architecture which is concerned with the cultural regeneration of society.

Revealing how architects can use human rights as powerful tools for better, fairer urban planning - to create livable, sustainable cities of the future.

This book presents 40 pro bono design projects produced by many of the leading architects working today. The clients include grassroots community organizations like the Homeless Prenatal Program of San Francisco, as well as national and international nonprofits, among them Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity and Planned Parenthood.

This groundbreaking edition of AD brings together a range of global expertise on social value, exploring its potential for demonstrating the positive impact of both architecture and architects on homes and communities in terms of social justice, sustainability and wellbeing. There has been a recent groundswell of interest in the mapping and measuring of social value caused by developments in legislation and planning, as well as a revival of interest in the ethical dimensions of architectural practice. Not only do architects promote wellbeing through the development of carefully conceived and appropriate designs, they can also add social value through the processes of consultation, visioning, briefing, co-design, co-creation, user manuals, soft landings (helping people to make the most of their buildings in use) and post-occupancy evaluation. These are, however, poorly recognised aspects of an architect’s role. We live in an audit culture where organisational performance is measured against predetermined targets. Unfortunately, the focus of architectural practice is generally on the financial cost of what it does in the short term rather than its long-term social value, arguably its market niche. This AD posits that the mapping and measuring of social value provides a real opportunity for the architectural profession to make its key contribution heard. Contributors: Nabeela Ahmed and Ayona Datta, Nicola Bacon and Paul Goodship, Irena Bauman, Cristina Garduno Freeman, Mat Hinds, Anthony Hoete, Karen Kubey, Mhairi McVicar, Aoibheann Ní Mhearáin and Tara Kennedy, Jenni Montgomery, Edward Ng and Li Wan, Doina Petrescu, and Peter Andreas Sattrup Featured architects: Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée (AAA), Barton Willmore, Bauman Lyons Architects, Jateen Ladd, John McLaughlin Architects, and Taylor and Hinds Architects