Book Launch for Buildings for People and Plants with WORKac

“We don’t think of buildings as isolated objects. Rather, we enlist their power to frame, reexamine and reinvent relationships–between citizens and cities, public and private space, the individual and the collective, inside and outside, and people and plants.”

Explore ten recent architectural projects by WORKac and their connections to the surrounding environment in Buildings for People and Plants, a thoughtfully curated architectural publication by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, the New York-based design firm's co-founders. The compelling volume, featuring ten of WORKac's most recent projects, such as the North Boulder Library, the Rhode Island School of Design's Student Success Center, and the Miami Museum Garage, navigates through the interconnected realms of architecture, environment, and social sustainability.

Make new connections between built work and community. Enjoy a visual explosion of contemporary uses of color, material, form and energy of life. Let’s honor the joyful celebration of architecture’s possibilities!

More about the book:

The book includes an introductory essay by Andraos and Wood and a visual presentation that showcases how their architectural projects engage with their specific cultural and environmental contexts to support both people and plants. It also includes a conversation with the two architects, conducted by the Orange County Museum of Art's director Heidi Zuckerman, a critical essay by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, and an appendix with detailed information on the featured projects round out this volume. It is a visual treat that extends the narrative of their previous book, WORKac: We'll Get There When We Cross That Bridge, and showcases their latest explorations in architecture and community-centric design.

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Co-founded by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, WORKac believes in the power of architecture and design to engage environmental and social concerns, and to create new possibilities for the future. Their work throughout the US and around the world emphasizes a deep engagement with local cultures, climates and histories. Their focus is on public, cultural, and civic projects that re-invent how we live, work and experience the world together. They aim to integrate architecture, landscape, and ecological systems and draw resolute realism together with polemical optimism to move beyond the projected and towards the possible.

Amale Andraos AIA, HFRAIC, co-founded WORKac in 2003 with Dan Wood. She is a Principal of the firm as well as a Professor and Dean Emeritus of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and the first woman to have become dean of the school. During her tenure as dean, Andraos also served as Architecture Advisor to the President and Special Advisor for the Climate School. Andraos is recognized as a thought leader, contributing widely to the field through her lectures and writings. Her publications include Architecture and Representation: the Arab City, co-edited with Nora Akawi, a critical engagement of contemporary architecture and urbanism in the Middle East. Andraos has taught extensively and is currently on the faculty at Columbia GSAPP. Andraos has served on numerous juries, advisory and selection committees. She currently serves on the Advisory Council for the New Museum’s incubator space New Inc, in New York. She recently served as the Chair of the Aga Khan award, was the President of the PHI Competition in Montreal, and until recently served on the Walton Foundation Committee, amongst others. Andraos was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

Dan Wood FAIA co-founded WORKac in 2003 with Amale Andraos. He is a Principal of the firm, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the Former Vice President for Design Excellence of the New York Chapter of the AIA. Wood is a licensed architect in the States of New York, Rhode Island, and Colorado and is LEED certified. His publications include Buildings for People and Plants, We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge, 49 Cities, and Above the Pavement, the Farm! in collaboration with Amale Andraos. Wood has taught extensively, most recently at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), and as the William B. and Charlotte Shepherd Davenport Visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture. He held the 2017 Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the University of Toronto and the 2013–14 Louis I. Kahn Chair at the Yale School of Architecture. He also held both the Trott and Baumer Visiting Professorships at Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture and the Friedman Professorship at UC Berkeley. Wood is originally from Rhode Island.

Head Hi in the City is an Archtober pop up shop and program space at Center for Architecture spotlighting recently released architecture publications selected to celebrate the festival theme of Shared Spaces and a commitment to deepening our relationships with the places we inhabit. Featuring books and design objects for sale, as well as weekly events including book launches, talks, and the New York Architecture & Design Book Club gathering, Head Hi in the City is an extension of Head Hi, New York’s premiere architecture and design-focused bookstore and cultural organization bridging architecture, design, and art via projects, reading materials, and public programming.