20 Minutes in Manhattan A Book by Michael Sorkin www.goodreads.com It begins with a trip down the stairsThoughts on stairsThey are something that has been buried(an architectural stem cell that might transform itself into any organ for living)The grid and its difficulties+41 More The MezzaninePsychogeographyTilted Arc architectureurbanismcitieshomewalking
Two Hundred Fifty Things an Architect Should Know An Essay by Michael Sorkin www.readingdesign.org The distance of a whisper.CornersWant, need, affordWhat the brick really wants.Borders+3 More 136 things every web developer should know before they burn out and turn to landscape painting or nude modelling architecturedesigncollections
Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42º N Latitude A Book by Michael Sorkin www.goodreads.com The source code for SimCityLocal Code: 3,659 Proposals About Data, Design & The Nature of Cities regulationslawcities
Most cities were mostly built by improvisation In Architecture Without Architects, Bernard Rudofsky documented the ways in which most cities were mostly built by improvisation, following no consistent formal design. Building was added to building, street to street, their forms adapting to different site conditions in the process of extension. Rudofsky thought that this hidden order is how most settlements of poor people develop and that the work of improvising street order attaches people to their communities, whereas 'renewal' projects, which may provide a cleaner street, pretty houses, and large shops, give the inhabitants no way to mark their presence on the space. Richard Sennett, The Craftsman I am hereNon-architects urbanism