Resources: Publications
A curated collection of books authored by our members, including practice guides and precedent studies.
Open Building for Architects: Professional Knowledge for an Architecture of Everyday Environment
2024
By Stephen Kendall and John Habraken
Open Building is an internationally recognized approach to the design of buildings and building complexes with roots in the way the ordinary built environment grows and regenerates. The Open Building approach recognizes that both stability and change are realities to be managed in the contemporary built environment.
Residential Architecture as Infrastructure: Open Building in Practice
2022
By Stephen Kendall
Countless residential Open Building projects have been built in a number of countries, some without knowledge of the original theory and methods. These projects differ in architectural style, building industry methods, economic system and social aims.
The Short Works of John Habraken: Ways of Seeing / Ways of Doing
2023
Edited by Stephen Kendall and John Dale
Few architects or scholars have so consistently and patiently pursued such a humane and culturally vital set of radical questions related to the behaviour of the built environment as N. John Habraken. From the publication of his first book in 1960, he has quietly helped redraw the map of architectural research, education, practice, design methods and theory.
Healthcare Architecture as Infrastructure: Open Building in Practice
2019
Edited by Stephen Kendall
Architects and healthcare clients are increasingly coming to recognize that, once built, healthcare facilities are almost immediately subject to physical alterations which both respond to and affect healthcare practices. This calls into question the traditional ways in which these facilities are designed.
Flexibility and Design: Learning from the School Construction Systems Development (SCSD) Project
2019
By Joshua D. Lee
This book questions flexibility as a design approach by providing a longitudinal analysis of an innovative architectural experiment called the School Construction Systems Development (SCSD) project. The SCSD pioneered the use of performance specifications to create an open, prefabricated, and integrated system of building components that provided four modes of flexibility.
Sustainable Design for Uncertain Futures: Dialogues on Time-Based Architecture
2025
Edited by Joshua Lee and Joseph Murray
This book introduces readers to 14 time-based strategies in architecture through a series of dialogues between leading experts. This format allows for a dynamic exploration of strategies ranging from Adaptive Reuse to Bio Design, revealing how each addresses the forces of change and can add adaptive capacity to the built environment. The book’s practical focus helps bridge the gap between theory and application, making this edited volume a resource both academics and practitioners.