What We Talk About When We Talk About Architecture documents a series of conversations with some of contemporary architecture's most accomplished thinkers and practitioners. The conversations took place in 2018 and 2019 at the Melbourne School of Design (MSD), The University of Melbourne, with the hope of complementing lectures by visitors to the school. Where lectures gave insight into projects, these conversations dive deeper into the ideas and processes behind the buildings - the players, places, forces, cultural imperatives and ideologies that buttress every work of architecture, but that are often obscured by the glamour of the finished output. A set of essays commissioned from writers both inside and outside the discipline of architecture offer fresh insights into the themes uncovered, rounding out this thought-provoking book.

While most attention is given to the booming mega-cities in China and the associated problems of over-population, the rural areas in China are being largely ignored. Yet, a sustainable development of the rural areas is precisely that, which will be decisive for China’s future. Through its rapid development into an industrial country, China now needs to tackle far-reaching problems such as increasing population, growing income gap between the poor and the rich, rural exodus, decreased agricultural production, and environmental pollution. Rural Urban Framework is a work group at the University of Hong Kong that not only researches the far-reaching changes of the last thirty years in China’s rural areas, but has also realized concrete projects aimed at improving supply and infrastructure on site. In this publication, the authors present for the first time the results of their research as well as their built projects in the Chinese backlands, and question whether China’s only future model lies in cities.

Writings on Architecture is an anthology of texts by George Baird, focusing on his on-going interest in planning and the built environment, something which is particularly manifest in his attention to the city of Toronto, where he is active in architecture, urban design and heritage preservation. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1962, and then from University College, London, England, Baird went on to teach architectural theory and design at the Royal College of Art, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, returning to Toronto in 1967. There, he founded his architectural practice, and joined the faculty of architecture at the University of Toronto and the faculty of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, where he was the G Ware Travelstead Professor of Architecture, and Director of the M Arch I and M Arch II Programs. From 2005 to 2009 Baird was Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. A principal author of the pioneering 1974 urban design study Onbuildingdowntown, he is the author/editor of numerous books, including Meaning in Architecture (with Charles Jencks), 1968; Alvar Aalto, 1969; The Space of Appearance, 1995; and Queues, Rendezvous, Riots (with Mark Lewis), 1995. The book includes an introductory essay by Louis Martin and is essential reading for those interested in architecture, architectural history and theory, urbanism and the built environment.

British architect and critic Paul Shepheard is a fresh new voice in current postmodern debates about the history and meaning of architecture. In this wonderfully unorthodox quasi-novelistic essay, complete with characters and dialogue (but no plot), Shepheard draws a boundary around the subject of architecture, describing its place in art and technology, its place in history, and its place in our lives now. At a time when it is fashionable to say that architecture is everything—from philosophy to science to art to theory—Shepheard boldly and irreverently sets limits to the subject, so that we may talk about architecture for what it is. He takes strong positions, names the causes of the problems, and tells us how bad things are and how they can get better. Along the way he marshals some unlikely but plausible witnesses who testify about the current state of architecture. Instead of the usual claims or complaints by the usual suspects, these observations are of an altogether different order. Constructed as a series of fables, many of them politically incorrect, What is Architecture? is a refreshing meditation on the options, hopes, possibilities, and failures of shelter in society.

This is a book about everything. Or, to be precise, it explores how everything is connected from code to culture. We think we're designing software, services, and experiences, but we're not. We are intervening in ecosystems. Until we open our minds, we will forever repeat our mistakes. In this spirited tour of information architecture and systems thinking, Peter Morville connects the dots between authority, Buddhism, classification, synesthesia, quantum entanglement, and volleyball. In 1974 when Ted Nelson wrote "everything is deeply intertwingled," he hoped we might realize the true potential of hypertext and cognition. This book follows naturally from that.

Foreword by Arthur Drexler. Introduction by Vincent Scully.

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design brings together the best of designer Michael Bierut's critical writing—serious or humorous, flattering or biting, but always on the mark. Bierut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut's intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov's Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it truth. In Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design, designers and nondesigners alike can share and revel in his insights.