"The process of investigation, analysis, and testing makes Architecture Research Office (ARO) as much a laboratory as a design firm. For Stephen Cassell, Adam Yarinsky, and their team, the starting point of each commission is not the development of an abstract "idea" for the project, but an intensive, hands-on occupation with a project's conditions, with its physical, economic, and social contexts. This practical approach to making architecture, to shrinking the distance between thinking and building, is much evident in their work, which manages to be simultaneously thoughtful and sensual." "The seven projects featured in this, the first monograph on the work of this firm, range from self-directed research (ARO's paper wall project), to private living spaces (the SoHo Loft), to commercial interiors (the Qiora Store and Spa), to the popular U.S. Armed Services Recruiting Station in Times Square, to the stunning Colorado House in Telluride. All of these projects challenge design conventions, while delighting the senses with their unusual materials, careful detailing, and unexpected spatial discoveries." "With essays by Stan Allen, Philip Nobel, Guy Nordenson, and Sarah Whiting."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

By Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt, Adam Yarinsky.

Published to accompany the exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, 24 Mar. - 11 Oct. 2010.

Architecture, the saying goes, is a verb. It's an ongoing process of creating. For Brooklyn-based architects Jared Della Valle and Andrew Bernheimer it is, more accurately, two verbs: think and make. Two words that, when fused in the work of Della Valle Bernheimer, energize and transform each otherarchitectural process as a feedback loop. Just a decade into their practice, Della Valle Bernheimer has assembled an impressive body of completed projects. Coveted commissions in New York City include two high-profile condo towers in Chelsea and the renovation of architect Paul Rudolph's landmark modernist apartment at 23 Beekman Place. Think/Make documents twelve of the firm's most innovative projects, ranging from residences to public commissions such as Federal Plazain San Francisco; affordable housing units in the Bronx, New York; a public swimming center in Aalborg, Denmark; and a proposal for the reuse of New York City's Hudson Yards. Each project in Think/Make covers both aspects of their creative process, often demonstrating that they think both with their minds and their hands; the process is cerebral as well as physical. Thinking about the larger contexts of site and program, as well as about historical precedents, linguistics, and correlations to natural forms and phenomena, Della Valle Bernheimer creates thoughtful, structurally innovative architecture. For the Artreehouse in New Fairfield, Connecticutdesigned in collaboration with structural engineer Guy Nordensonthey observed patterns of light filtered through canopies of native tree species and scoured the history of building techniques in the region to design a 5,400-square-foot, locally inspired house. This unique monograph illustrates how personal, associative, and often highly poetic thoughts are made legible in architecture.

This first monograph by New York-based Young Projects demonstrates a new approach to spatial design that embraces ambiguity at the intersections of form, type, and material. This monograph introduces the cutting-edge research and work of Young Projects, founded by Bryan Young, where materiality, structure, and form intersect to generate new architectural typologies. The book presents a selection of the practice’s most relevant projects: five innovative houses completed between 2015 and 2020 as well as less in-depth looks at other projects that define the practice. Each house serves as a chapter through which Young Projects’ broader body of work is explored across scales, illustrated through a rich landscape of drawings, diagrams, renderings, mock-ups, prototypes, and photography. The through-line connecting all chapters is the studio’s interest in using ambiguity and anomaly to create novel and accessible spaces, whether for high profile clients or a new resort in St. Kitts. Young Projects seeks to draw users into immersive spatial experiences that unfold over time, in a manner that is familiar but subtly foreign. This quality of “allure” is a result of a unique and experimental approach to materiality and spatial legibility. These are the threads that tie the work together and have set Young Projects apart as an emerging practice, as well as inform the larger-scale projects the studio undertakes as it enters its second decade. Young Projects’ process often begins with simple exercises in making: form-finding experiments they undertake within their Brooklyn studio. Material research has included hand-pulling plaster with an irregular knife, using furniture foam as a casting bed, and forming concrete with palm stems. These experiments, among many others, mine characteristics that are not typically associated with conventional architectural materials and break traditional methodology, allowing for qualities of randomness and spontaneity to enter the process of making. The studio finds that letting go of control (at the right moments) produces results that are often surprising, entirely bespoke, and resist replication.