Mark Jarzombek & Vikramaditya Prakash 
A House Deconstructed [EPUB ebook] 

This book ‘deconstructs’ a single recently constructed house located in Seattle, WA, in an attempt to recover its backstory. The information is presented along four vectors – atoms, labors, sources and ingredients.


Though remarkably detailed, the A House Deconstructed contends that a huge proportion of what we ‘know’ about the house is unknowable, not because our epistemological instruments aren’t strong enough or calibrated precisely enough, but because things themselves are indeterminate, uncertain. This begs the question about agency. If we are to critique our profession and even improve some of its claims about Sustainability, then we must develop a more robust understanding of the building industry and the sourcing and making of materials. We must even develop a stronger awareness of the history of atoms and how architecture brings that history into a remarkable focus.

A propos de l’auteur

Vikramaditya Prakash is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington with adjunct appointments in Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and Planning, and Digital Arts and Media. He received his B. Arch. From India and his M.A. and Ph D from Cornell University. His books include Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India, Colonial Modernities (co-edited with Peter Scriver), The Architecture of Shivdatt Sharma, Chandigarh: An Architectural Guide, and One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash. His most recent publication is Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial (co-edited with Maristella Casciato and Daniel Coslett). He is also the host of the Architecture Talk podcast.