Exercises in Architecture: Learning to Think as an Architect

This revised edition ofExercises in Architecture: Learning to Think as an Architectis full of new content, building on the success of the previous edition. All theoriginal exercises have been revised and new ones added, with the format changingto allow the inclusion of more supplementary material. The aim remains the same,to help pre- or early-course architecture students begin and develop their abilityto think as architects.

Learning to do architecture is tricky. It involves awakening abilities that remain dormant in most people. It is like learning language for the first time; a task made more mystifying by the fact that architecture deals not in words but in places: places to stand, to walk, to sit, to hide, to sleep, to cook, to eat, to work, to play, to worship...

This book was written for those who want to be architects. It suggests a basis for early experiences in a school of architecture; but it could also be used in secondary schools and colleges, or as self-directed preparation for students in the months before entering professional education.

Exercises in Architecture builds on and supplements the methodology for architectural analysis presented in the author's previous bookAnalyzingArchitecture: the Universal Language of Place-Making(fifth edition, 2021) and demonstrated in hisTwenty-Five Buildings Every Architect Should Understand(Routledge, 2015). Together, the three books, deal with the three aspects of learning any creative discipline: 1.Analysing Architectureprovides a methodology for analysis that develops an understanding of the way architecture works; 2.Twenty-Five Buildingsexplores and extends that methodology through analysis of examples as case studies; and 3.Exercises in Architectureoffers a way of expanding understanding and developing fluency by following a range of rudimentary and more sophisticated exercises. ...