101  Things I learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick. (Amazon .co.uk / .com)

A friend loaned this book to me and before I hand it back, long overdue, I thought I’d write a few things about it. I read it through once, at the beginning of my loan from cover to cover, then again coming back and dipping when the book happened to appear on my radar as it did from time to time.

Perhaps this book, so beautifully presented with each small piece of writing on the right and a sketch to accompany it on the left, is a victim of it’s own beautiful presentation. In such a sparse form,  presentation is much more prominent than it might otherwise be. Taken separately or in isolation these items could be seen as unremarkable even inane. But it is certainly beautifully well done.

The tips are laid out with a natural flow, bookended by how to draw for Architects at the beginning, and at the end a submissive saying Architects only really mature by about 50. Some of the things are only quotes, while others are rules, or advice and tricks of the trade.

However what raises this book to one I would recommend is that it skirts around the question of what an Architect actually does, what mental attitude and approach to certain fundamental things you need in order to be an Architect. It is the closest thing I’ve read to a how-to book for being an Architect as it addresses the technical, the intellectual and the aspirational. For that alone I’d recommend it……it even relearned me a few things along the way……..

However this book isn’t a how-to manual either its more a missive to get you thinking in the right way, not so much what I learned in Architecture school as much as what I should know before I go to Architecture School, or long afterwards.