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A riveting investigation of a beloved library caught in the crosshairs of real estate, power, and the people's interests by the reporter who broke the story.In a series of cover stories for "The Nation" magazine, journalist Scott Sherman uncovered the ways in which Wall Street logic almost took down one of New York City's most beloved and iconic institutions: the New York(...)
Patience and fortitude: power, real estate, and the fight to save a public library
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A riveting investigation of a beloved library caught in the crosshairs of real estate, power, and the people's interests by the reporter who broke the story.In a series of cover stories for "The Nation" magazine, journalist Scott Sherman uncovered the ways in which Wall Street logic almost took down one of New York City's most beloved and iconic institutions: the New York Public Library. In the years preceding the 2008 financial crisis, the library's leaders forged an audacious plan to sell off multiple branch libraries, mutilate a historic building, and send millions of books to a storage facility in New Jersey. Patience and Fortitude is at once a readable history of the library's secret plans, and a stirring account of a rare triumph against the forces of money and power.
Archive, library and the digital
Ten shades of green
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Contemporary buildings, like contemporary forms of urban development, are major contributors to the environmental crisis. In this book documenting a major traveling exhibition organized by the Architectural League, curator and critic Peter Buchanan uses ten buildings that combine environmental responsibility and design excellence to argue that sustainability is not just(...)
Ten shades of green
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Contemporary buildings, like contemporary forms of urban development, are major contributors to the environmental crisis. In this book documenting a major traveling exhibition organized by the Architectural League, curator and critic Peter Buchanan uses ten buildings that combine environmental responsibility and design excellence to argue that sustainability is not just good for the planet but offers architects new opportunities for creativity and innovation. He shows that there is no single route to sustainability and no such thing as a green aesthetic. Rather, through a range of building types, he demonstrates that increased awareness of a building’s setting combined with advances in technology create unlimited opportunities for responsive design. Generously illustrated with four-color photographs and plans, the book includes work by an international roster of architects, including Norman Foster, Neutelings Riedijk Architecten, Herzog + Partner, and Renzo Piano.
Green Architecture
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With its reliance on extracted materials and an intense use of resources, the process of construction begs the question whether real sustainability in architecture and planning is possible. For some, a short-term solution is "greenwashing": adopting strategies of simulated commitment instead of investing in actual change toward fewer emissions. NGOs have called out large(...)
On architecture and greenwashing: The political economy of space vol. 1
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With its reliance on extracted materials and an intense use of resources, the process of construction begs the question whether real sustainability in architecture and planning is possible. For some, a short-term solution is "greenwashing": adopting strategies of simulated commitment instead of investing in actual change toward fewer emissions. NGOs have called out large companies for "low integrity" pledges, pointing out the systemic ecological injustice that the built environment creates through material, wealth and labor extractivism. As institutionalized and commodified greenwashing hollows out the term, how do architects and designers position their work beyond a flattening universalistic understanding of sustainability? The first volume of a forthcoming series, "On architecture and greenwashing" is a collection of essays that presents a cross section of positions on architecture and its political economies, and explores ways to correct course in the face of the climate crisis.
Architecture ecologies
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Through a lively poststructuralist and postcolonial framework, this book explores issues of preservation, identity, meaning, and change, comparing how the Chandigarh we see today compares to the original plans and drawings. But this book also asks whether Chandigarh’s aesthetics, as well as the ethical tenets on which it was based, are still relevant to urban planning and(...)
Le Corbusier's Chandigarh Revisited: Preservation as future modernism
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Through a lively poststructuralist and postcolonial framework, this book explores issues of preservation, identity, meaning, and change, comparing how the Chandigarh we see today compares to the original plans and drawings. But this book also asks whether Chandigarh’s aesthetics, as well as the ethical tenets on which it was based, are still relevant to urban planning and architecture today. What lessons, if any, does the utopian ethos within modernism offer in the face of the climate crisis, rising authoritarianism, and the digital explosion? Via chapters focused on the hydrologics of the master plan, the symbolism of the Capitol buildings, and the archeology of the unbuilt Museum of Knowledge, this book makes the future-preservation case for Chandigarh as an ‘open’ work, a project that was set up by design to be ‘completed’ by others in times yet to come.
Architecture Monographs
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The logistics of agricultural society resulted in global warming and hardwired dangerous ideas about life-forms into the human mind. Dark ecology puts us in an uncanny position of radical self-knowledge, illuminating our place in the biosphere and our belonging to a species in a sense that is far less obvious than we like to think. Morton explores the logical foundations(...)
Dark ecology : for a logic of future coexistence
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The logistics of agricultural society resulted in global warming and hardwired dangerous ideas about life-forms into the human mind. Dark ecology puts us in an uncanny position of radical self-knowledge, illuminating our place in the biosphere and our belonging to a species in a sense that is far less obvious than we like to think. Morton explores the logical foundations of the ecological crisis, which is suffused with the melancholy and negativity of coexistence yet evolving, as we explore its loop form, into something playful, anarchic, and comedic. His work is a skilled fusion of humanities and scientific scholarship, incorporating the theories and findings of philosophy, anthropology, literature, ecology, biology, and physics. Morton hopes to reestablish our ties to nonhuman beings and to help us rediscover the playfulness and joy that can brighten the dark, strange loop we traverse.
Environment and environmental theory
Collections of nothing
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King, a professor at Santa Barbara, has spent decades collecting things that nobody else would want: food packages and labels (he has about eighteen thousand), illustrations snipped from old dictionaries (seven thousand), linings of "security" envelopes (eight hundred patterns), "the mute, meager, practically valueless object, like a sea-washed spigot, its mouth stoppered(...)
Collections of nothing
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King, a professor at Santa Barbara, has spent decades collecting things that nobody else would want: food packages and labels (he has about eighteen thousand), illustrations snipped from old dictionaries (seven thousand), linings of "security" envelopes (eight hundred patterns), "the mute, meager, practically valueless object, like a sea-washed spigot, its mouth stoppered by a stone." What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one. "I lost and found myself in remote topical aisles of scholarship-wreck," he says of his hours in Yale’s library, reading the most obscure books he could find. His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all.
Design Theory
Unfinished: ideas, images, and projects from the Spanish pavilion at the 15th Venice Biennale
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Spain was one of the countries where the practice of architecture has been most affected by the economic crisis. There are few places on earth where such large numbers of buildings were built in such a short period of time. The lack of reflection over whether these projects were necessary or valid resulted in the subsequent abandonment of many buildings when their(...)
Unfinished: ideas, images, and projects from the Spanish pavilion at the 15th Venice Biennale
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Spain was one of the countries where the practice of architecture has been most affected by the economic crisis. There are few places on earth where such large numbers of buildings were built in such a short period of time. The lack of reflection over whether these projects were necessary or valid resulted in the subsequent abandonment of many buildings when their completion or maintenance was discovered not to be economically viable. Their appearance throughout Spanish territories has generated a collection of unfinished buildings where the factor of time was eliminated from the formula for making architecture. The publication gathers examples of architecture produced during the past few years, born out of renunciation and economy of means, designed to evolve and adapt to future necessities and trusting in the beauty conferred by the passage of time.
Contemporary Architecture
The tenant class
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What if there is no housing crisis, but instead a housing market working exactly as intended? What if rent hikes and eviction notices aren’t the work of the invisible hand of the market, but of a parasitic elite systematically funneling wealth away from working-class families? With clarity and precision, Tranjan breaks down pervasive myths about renters, mom-and-pop(...)
The tenant class
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What if there is no housing crisis, but instead a housing market working exactly as intended? What if rent hikes and eviction notices aren’t the work of the invisible hand of the market, but of a parasitic elite systematically funneling wealth away from working-class families? With clarity and precision, Tranjan breaks down pervasive myths about renters, mom-and-pop landlords, and housing affordability. In a society where home ownership is seen as the most important hallmark of a successful life, Tranjan refuses to absolve the landlords and governments that reap massive profits from the status quo. The tenant class must face powerful systems of disinformation and exploitation to secure decent homes and fair rent. Drawing upon a long, inspiring history of collective action in Canada, Tranjan argues that organized tenants have the power to fight back.
Humans and cities
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In Toronto, a paradox persists: amidst a widely acknowledged housing crisis, construction has ground to a halt. As of mid-2025, home starts have plummeted, and predictably, families are departing the province for more affordable regions. Building, by its nature, isn’t something that can change course quickly or easily. This needn’t mean that all creativity is stifled.(...)
Impossible Toronto: On the courtyard learning from European blocks
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In Toronto, a paradox persists: amidst a widely acknowledged housing crisis, construction has ground to a halt. As of mid-2025, home starts have plummeted, and predictably, families are departing the province for more affordable regions. Building, by its nature, isn’t something that can change course quickly or easily. This needn’t mean that all creativity is stifled. Architects can still draw and urbanists can still write. Imagination persists. ''On the Courtyard'' has been created in this spirit. The culmination of a year-long architectural study collaboratively conducted by Studio VAARO and Gabriel Fain Architects, it marks the first of a series of research projects exploring building designs that could be suitable for, but are currently unbuildable in, Toronto. Funded by The Neptis Foundation, ''On the Courtyard'' examines European courtyard blocks and identifies opportunities for and challenges to their integration into Toronto’s urban landscape.
Architecture in Canada
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What if we were no longer allowed to build new structures? Questions like this — and many others — are raised in the exhibition "What If: A Change of Perspective by the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB)." The DGNB is a non-profit association based in Stuttgart that has been advocating for future-oriented and responsible building for 18 years. With the DGNB(...)
What if: A change of perspective. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen DGNB
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What if we were no longer allowed to build new structures? Questions like this — and many others — are raised in the exhibition "What If: A Change of Perspective by the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB)." The DGNB is a non-profit association based in Stuttgart that has been advocating for future-oriented and responsible building for 18 years. With the DGNB Certification System, it has developed an internationally recognised planning and optimisation tool for assessing sustainable buildings and districts. The exhibition invites visitors to question conventional ways of thinking and to rediscover the essence of sustainable architecture: buildings and districts that offer people a good home, remain affordable, and provide design-driven answers to the climate crisis. A central narrative traces the evolution of sustainable building, accompanied by six thematic sections and the award-winning projects of the German Sustainability Award for Architecture.
Green Architecture