"Nikos Salingaros is a mathematician who's also a brilliant thinker about architecture and urbanism. 'Solid' doesn't begin to hint at his virtues and talents, but isn't it nice when you encounter 'solid' in the world of the arts? Salingaros has worked closely with Christopher Alexander, and has become a major architecture theorist in his own right." -- Ray Sawhill.

"This is an interesting compilation of some of the important roots and evolutions of modernism and its latest development, the De...

The 1977 book A Pattern Language was a landmark in the design world, introducing a methodology that has become influential across many fields. Among them are software and “design patterns,” and important spinoff technologies like wiki (the basis of Wikipedia) and Agile Methodology. Yet curiously, the field where pattern methodology began – the built environment – has lagged conspicuously. As one remedy, a number of long-time collaborators with the original book’s lead author have f...

In this brief, accessible volume, the authors – an urban philosopher and a mathematician-physicist – explain the surprising new findings from the sciences that are beginning to transform environmental design in the modern era. Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros explore fractals, networks, self-organization, dynamical systems and other revolutionary ideas, describing them to non-science readers in a direct and engaging way. The book also examines fascinating new topics of design, includi...

More than a decade in the making, this is a textbook of architecture rich with design techniques and useful for every architect whether a first-year students or experienced practicing architects. The book teaches the reader how to design by adapting to human needs and sensibilities, yet independently of any particular style. It explains much of what people instinctively know about architecture, and puts that knowledge for the first time in a concise, understandable form. There has not been su...

All human-made structures are “incomplete,” according to author Michael Mehaffy – that is, they embody abstract information that necessarily leaves out essential aspects of reality. This important concept from mathematics and philosophy has new relevance for today’s human challenges, Mehaffy argues. For “incompleteness” need not be a problem – but we must understand its nature, and be prepared to work toward a “right adjustment of the process of abstraction,” in the words o...

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Cities are experiencing a renaissance today, because we've begun to understand how they really work -- and how to make them work better for people.

This book is a lively, readable account of two revealing figures in the history of that renaissance: the urban economist Jane Jacobs and the architect Christopher Alexander. Their key insights have shaped several generations of scholars, professionals, and activists. However, as the book argues, this renaissance is still immature, and more must be...

The Modern movement began in the 1920s when a small group of young architects felt all that had gone before should be rejected and that architectural design should start afresh. This fresh start, they declared, should be based on modern technology and a new, modern approach to life. Their innovations became the 20th century’s dominant movement in architecture, crystallizing into the international style of the 1920s and '30s. In Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture, Malcolm Millais exp...

The world loves Paris for its beauty. But Paris is in peril. Despite polls and lawsuits showing that residents oppose skyscrapers, the city’s leaders have started developing colossal skyscraper projects at the old gates of the city. They destroy the traditional street furniture that adds to the charm of Paris. The city is becoming filthy. In this book, forty-nine experts, many of them Parisians, show that Paris City Hall threatens to damage Paris irreparably. They call on the world to aid P...

The 1977 book A Pattern Language was a landmark in the design world, introducing a methodology that has become influential across many fields. Among them are software and “design patterns,” and important spinoff technologies like wiki (the basis of Wikipedia) and Agile Methodology. Yet curiously, the field where pattern methodology began – the built environment – has lagged conspicuously. As one remedy, a number of long-time collaborators with the original book’s lead author have f...