April 2023 MBR The Architecture Shelf

The Architecture Shelf

A Book on Making a Petite Ecole
Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample, MOS
Actar D
c/o Actar Publishers
440 Park Avenue S, 17th FL, New York, NY 10016
http://actar.com
9781638400677, $48.74, HC, 158pp

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Making-Petite-%C3%89cole/dp/1638400679

Synopsis: As part of the 2019 Biennale d'architecture et de paysage in Versailles, France, MOS constructed Petite Ecole, a small, open-air pavilion to house educational workshops for children. It is a place for looking and making, and for making and looking, constructed with 688 aluminum pieces modeled, flattened, cut, folded, prefabricated, shipped, and then assembled onsite. It is made to be taken down and reassembled elsewhere. It is designed to be easily understood, made of simple building elements: a long, low roof with columns and stacked beams holding it up.

Undertaken during various design workshops, single page design exercises written by architects were assembled into a large book and given to children. "A Book on Making a Petite Ecole" features an expanded collection of these exercises. Each exercise includes playful illustrations of its steps, starting a conversation about how designers look at, think about, teach, and imagine the foundations of design. Alongside these, the design process of the pavilion is included, as its own design exercise, from colorful illustrations of each step of the pavilion's construction, to actual construction photographs and photographs of the completed pavilion being occupied.

"A Book on Making a Petite Ecole" considers basic questions of design pedagogy, abstraction, accessibility, experimentation, and equity, while considering and reconsidering architecture.

Critique: Novel, original, informative, and fun, "A Book on Making a Petite Ecole" is a large coffee-table style (9.5 x 0.8 x 12.8 inches, 2.5 pounds) volume, "A Book on Making a Petite Ecole" is a unique and very special addition for personal, professional, elementary school, and community library Architecture collections in general, and Architectural collections for children ages 3-6 in particular.

Editorial Note #1: Michael Meredith (https://soa.princeton.edu/content/michael-meredith) is a principal of MOS, an internationally recognized architecture practice based in New York, and Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture. His writing has appeared in Artforum, LOG, Perspecta, Praxis, Domus, and Harvard Design Magazine. Meredith previously taught at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, the University of Michigan, where he was awarded the Muschenheim Fellowship, and the University of Toronto.

Editorial Note #2: Hilary Sample (https://www.arch.columbia.edu/faculty/359-hilary-sample) is the IDC Professor of Housing Design and Sequence Director of the Core Architecture Studios at GSAPP, and Co-Founder of the New York-based architecture and design studio MOS. Since its establishment in 2003, MOS has won major national and international awards and been recognized in significant publications. Monographs about the studio include an issue of El Croquis and Selected Works (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016).

An Architect's Address Book
Robert Lemon
ORO Editions
31 Commerical Blvd., Suite F, Novato, CA 94949
www.oroeditions.com
9781954081963, $45.00, HC, 300pp

https://www.amazon.com/Architects-Address-Book-places-shaped/dp/1954081960

Synopsis: "An Architect's Address Book" by Robert Lemon (an award-winning Canadian architect with a special interest in historic buildings) is a memoir in 18 chapters of the places Robert Lemon has lived, studied, and worked over the past six decades.

Some are of places that he has visited many times and are important to his career. Studying architecture and conservation, Lemon has lived in Ottawa, Paris, London, Rome, and York. My work has involved projects in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Dorset, the High Arctic, and Xi'an. Other stories are about visiting the buildings of Andrea Palladio and Carlo Scarpa in the Veneto, Arne Jacobsen and Kay Fisker in Denmark, and five iconic 20th-century houses in France, in company of colleagues.

Most of the chapters focus on someone influential to Lemon's career; and his vast interest in food is a thread through most stories.

Critique: A fascinating and unusual approach to writing an autobiography or memoir, "An Architect's Address Book: The Places That Shaped A Career" by Robert Lemon is an extraordinary, informative, and interesting life story that will have particular appeal to readers with an interest in residential architecture, architectural project planning, and the business aspects of architecture. "An Architect's Address Book" will prove to be a welcome and unique addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library American Biography collections and supplemental curriculum Architecture studies lists.

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