Rating: 
Summary: Buildings Come Alive!
Review: 'Buildings That Learn' covers the adaptation over time of buildings to tenant needs, often hindered by all of: the 'fixed solution in year xyza' aesthetic architects; the vagaries of the real-estate market; and the short-lifetime of modern buildings (quality not increased at same or better rate of increase in human life over centuries). Interestingly, software 'guru' Ed Yourdon flagged up similar problems hindering software productivity and quality in his 'Rise & Fall of the American Programmer' (e.g. non-customer focus, markets prices & labor costs, poor quality development etc..). Addressing the building layers (site, structure, skin, services, space plan and "stuff") through a logical sequence of chapters, to get the most out of this book deserves a thorough read rather than a surface glance. The deeply referenced & illustrated, entertaining chapters span: Flow- introduction and the time dimension; Shearing Layers- of the different rates of change in buildings; "Nobody Cares What You Do In There": The Low Road- easy adaptation in cheap buildings; Houseproud: The High Road- refined adaptation in long-lasting sustained-purpose buildings; Magazine Architecture: No Road- where tenants needs ignored for photo-aesthetics; Unreal estate- and markets sever continuity in buildings; Preservation: A Quiet, Popularist, Conservative, Victorious Revolution- to address incontinuity and frustrate innovators; The Romance of Maintenance- and preservation; Vernacular: How Buildings Learn from Each Other- and respect for design wisdom of older buildings; Function Melts Form: Satisficing Home and Office; The Scenario-buffered Building; and Built for Change- imagining buildings inviting adaption. Strengths include: the great depth of reference material, illustrations and evidence; easy-readability; an insiders' window on the international world of architects and civil engineers; and suitability for wide audience including lay-people interested in the built-environment and society, as well as complex systems architects (hard engineering or software development). Rarely the text becomes a bit rambling (more sidebars or bulleted lists?) and repetitive with unsupported assertions- but that is the only negative. Improvements could include an additional chapter cross-referencing (learning from?) 'adaptive systems', 'scenario planning' etc.. from the other professions that explicitly use these approaches to develop longer-term customer-centric complex adaptive systems. Overall a great read, that encourages re-evaluation of living and working space (don't accept those dis-functional anonymous boxes behind the trendy outer skin!). 'How Buildings Learn' is best read with both something like 'E-topia' by Mitchell (Architect and Computer Scientist at MIT) for a visionary (and sometimes contradictory) view of the future of the built environment; and Schumacher's 'Small is Beautiful' for a sustainable economic-development viewpoint.
Rating:
Summary: Explores Architecture and Change
Review: I learned of this book while previewing a presentation by a superior software professional working to come up with some principles and ideas for building flexible systems, and whose son (an architecture student) had sent a copy to her. Several metaphors that she included, taken from the book, were so compelling I had to buy a copy immediately. The book turns out to be interesting on many levels, interesting about buildings, unintentionally full of metaphors for software geeks like me, intriguing about what happens when concrete and steel meet the realities of change and human nature.
Now if I could only find a book about "How People Learn"...
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating book about how and why buildings change
Review: I read this book after reading several books by Christopher Alexander. I'd heard that Brand was inspired by Alexander's work, and I was pleased to find that Brand makes his own quite original contribution to the study of what makes buildings work -- and how we change buildings to make them work better. After reading this book, I gave a talk to my student housing co-op based on what Brand taught me. I began to think about the co-op buildings as "living things," and indeed, looking back only a year, I realized how much we had changed at the co-op: we had installed new windows (to be compliant with the fire code, plus they gave better soundproofing against noisy courtyard parties); we had added emergency lights to our hallways; replaced carpet; installed new locks to keep interlopers out. All these changes worked to subtly transform the environment, and over the course of a decade, the "same old building" has become a quite different place. Brand provides ample photographs, anecdotes, and theories to show how this happens.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating book about buildings changing over time
Review: I'm always fascinated with how seemingly impersonal forces effect changes over time. This book is about exactly that: Although people are responsible for changes to a building, over a long period of time and many owners the reasons for the changes become obscure and the effects of many different changes turn the structure into something unique. Brand includes hundreds of examples of "rephotography": Photos of a location taken at many times from roughly the same angle to illustrate the changes. (Among the best are 140 years of photos of San Francisco's Cliff House, which burned down at least twice.) He examines both structural and cosmetic changes to a building, as well as the ephemeral changes to the people and things inside a building which change much more rapidly. He also considers a few buildings which were designed from whole cloth, and as a result are both resistant to change, and decidedly more cold and unlivable regardless of their artistic merits. Brand's friendly, yet often opinionated, writing style is tremendously engaging, and unlike many non-fiction books there's rarely a sense that he's repeating the same ideas over and over: There's always something new here, more lovely photos to look at. And it imparts Brand's love of the organic, living man-made environment where the practical and the aesthetic merge into something entirely enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating book about buildings changing over time
Review: I'm always fascinated with how seemingly impersonal forces effect changes over time. This book is about exactly that: Although people are responsible for changes to a building, over a long period of time and many owners the reasons for the changes become obscure and the effects of many different changes turn the structure into something unique. Brand includes hundreds of examples of "rephotography": Photos of a location taken at many times from roughly the same angle to illustrate the changes. (Among the best are 140 years of photos of San Francisco's Cliff House, which burned down at least twice.) He examines both structural and cosmetic changes to a building, as well as the ephemeral changes to the people and things inside a building which change much more rapidly. He also considers a few buildings which were designed from whole cloth, and as a result are both resistant to change, and decidedly more cold and unlivable regardless of their artistic merits. Brand's friendly, yet often opinionated, writing style is tremendously engaging, and unlike many non-fiction books there's rarely a sense that he's repeating the same ideas over and over: There's always something new here, more lovely photos to look at. And it imparts Brand's love of the organic, living man-made environment where the practical and the aesthetic merge into something entirely enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: excellent, thought-provoking, calm
Review: I've hesitated to review this book because I'm personally suspicious of glowing praise. However, this book deserves it. Brand's starting point is the observation that most architects spend most of their time re-working or extending existing buildings, rather than creating new ones from scratch, but the subject of how buildings change (or, to adopt Brand's metaphor, how buildings learn from their use and environment) is ignored by most architectural schools and theorists. By looking at examples (big and small, ancient and modern), Brand teases out patterns of re-use and change, and argues (very convincingly) that since buildings are going to be modified many times, they should be designed with unanticipated future changes in mind. Of course, the same is true of programs, and I found again and again that I could substitute the word "program" for "building", and "programmer" for "architect", everything Brand said was true of computing as well (but much better written than any software engineering polemic I've ever read).
Rating: 
Summary: Great nuggets in a misguided Philosophy
Review: I've learned a lot from Brand's commonsensical, and in some ways, humanist approach. The delight he takes in the messy business of human life is exemplary. However, he sets up a false opposition - there's no real conflict between buildings which adapt and flow with change, and the grandeur of enlightenment monumentalism. The latter will undoubtedly benefit from paying more attention to flexibility, but needn't completely pack its bags in the process. I'm just back from the Sky Garden in Osaka - really, there's nothing Brand's wider philosophy could approve of in such a modernist temple, but it embodies aspects of humanity that an avowedly low-key architecture never could. For all that, HBL should be compulsory reading for all kinds of designers and engineers. Cheers!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and convincing
Review: In a review in _The Last Whole Earth Catalog_ (1971), author Stewart Brand wrote: "We're not into utopian thinking around here, preferring a more fiasco-by-fiasco approach to perfection." This perfectly captures the central thesis of _How Buildings Learn_: Once built, buildings do and must _change_ to fit the changing needs of their inhabitants. The interiors may be remodeled, roofs raised, additions made, plumbing and wiring added, rerouted or remodeled, & etc. Single-family brownstones become apartment buildings, homely warehouses may become lofts for artists and high-tech startups, and mansions may be turned into museums. Good buildings can be changed gracefully; bad ones resist change. Brand shows us many examples of each. In many cases, "vernacular" architecture -- rather plain structures that wouldn't earn a place in an architect's resume -- prove the most suited to change. Brand reserves considerable fury for prestiege projects that seem more to serve the architect's ego than the inhabitants' practical use. I'm not an architect, student of architecture, or what-have-you, so I don't know how this book ranks with other critiques of architecture. I can say that I found it immenseley informative, persuasive, and readable.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and convincing
Review: In a review in _The Last Whole Earth Catalog_ (1971), author Stewart Brand wrote: "We're not into utopian thinking around here, preferring a more fiasco-by-fiasco approach to perfection." This perfectly captures the central thesis of _How Buildings Learn_: Once built, buildings do and must _change_ to fit the changing needs of their inhabitants. The interiors may be remodeled, roofs raised, additions made, plumbing and wiring added, rerouted or remodeled, & etc. Single-family brownstones become apartment buildings, homely warehouses may become lofts for artists and high-tech startups, and mansions may be turned into museums. Good buildings can be changed gracefully; bad ones resist change. Brand shows us many examples of each. In many cases, "vernacular" architecture -- rather plain structures that wouldn't earn a place in an architect's resume -- prove the most suited to change. Brand reserves considerable fury for prestiege projects that seem more to serve the architect's ego than the inhabitants' practical use. I'm not an architect, student of architecture, or what-have-you, so I don't know how this book ranks with other critiques of architecture. I can say that I found it immenseley informative, persuasive, and readable.
Rating: 
Summary: Now a BBC TV series
Review: In July 97 the BBC aired a 6-part TV series called "How Buildings Learn." I was the writer and presenter. It got lovely reviews in the Brit press. I hope it gets picked up for US broadcast.
A British edition of the book (from Orion Books) came out at the same time as the TV series. It's better manufactured than the US edition from Penguin, so the 350 photos read more clearly. You can probably get a copy from Blackwells on the Web. Maybe Amazon will pick up the Brit edition as well?
However, the US edition has some harsh comments about buildings by architect Richard Rogers that were expunged from the British edition because he is aggressively litigious about all criticism.
| 
