A stunning exploration of the design of design, Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn will irrevocably alter your sense of place, space, and the artifacts that shape them.
While writing a book about the Media Lab at MIT, Brand became curious - then fascinated - by the contrast between the impractical, awful, sleek I.M. Pei-designed Media Lab building he worked in and the lovable, functional, ugly Building 20 (a "temporary" structure built in WWII that stands nearby). Comparing the Media Lab, known formally as the Wiesner Building, with Building 20 prompted him to explore what makes buildings successful.
Brand brings his software sensibilities to the hard environments of building construction. He embraces upgrading, modularity, maintenance, and user manipulation as essential to creating precocious buildings. He also finds inspiration in the works of Christopher Alexander, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley whose The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language articulate the kind of organic, evolutionary approach to architecture that How Buildings Learn so admires. Brand wants buildings to be a medium of design for the people who live and work in them. As he puts it, "Evolutionary design is healthier than visionary design."
How Buildings Learn is beautifully crafted, smoothly written, filled with pithy aphorisms ("Function Melts Form"), and elegantly illustrated with sketches and photographs of buildings evolving. With a touch of ingenuity, this could be a brilliant CD-ROM or Hypercard stack.
Brand's Whole Earth Catalogs and The Media Lab each captured a moment in time. But How Buildings Learn will endure as long as the buildings it describes. Of course, How Buildings Learn is a misnomer: this is really a book about how people learn. Yes, they tend to learn the hard way. But the mistakes they make can be illuminating.
Besides, how can anyone dislike a book about buildings by someone who lives in a renovated tugboat?
How Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand, US$30. Viking: (800) 253 6476, +1 (212) 366 2229.
STREET CRED
How Buildings Learn Cinemania '94
