My library (a historic private one, plus conservation lab/events venue) just got this book in.
It's a little pricey but if you can get it via an inter-library loan, go for it. Read it over the past month and while my place is pretty much up to these standards thanks to good planning, it was very insightful to me (as humble visitor services staff!). Extremely thorough about planning in ALL areas.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Care-Keeping-Cultural-Facilities/dp/0759123608/

These next ones don't have many reviews, and some are a few years old, but may also be worth looking at for sheer basics.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0759111987/

http://www.amazon.com/Museum-Administration-Introduction-American-Association/dp/0759102945/

Also, just check out top sellers (obviously, exclude the true-crime and fiction/novels) in the category on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16233621/


For general non-profit stuff, this one seems really well reviewed. A friend and I have been working on planning one, so I did a good deal of searching.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470547979/

"Architecture of Happiness" by Alain de Botton
A really great read about the 'humanness' of architecture and how different spaces affect behaviors.

"Finding Form" by Frei Otto. An incredibly unique and artistic exploration of lightweight form and surface geometries. Otto died this year like 2 days before they announced that he had won the Pritzker Prize.

"Citizens of No Place" by Jimenez Lai. An 'architectural graphic novel'. A bunch of semi-sequential short stories speculating the future of urban design and architecture, told through graphic novel. A very very fun read.

"Condemned Building: An Architect's Pre-Text" by Douglas Darden. Darden, a reluctant GSD grad, assembled this book of 'unbuilt architectures' that chronicles a bunch of high-concept projects rooted in a narrative of some kind (novels, poems, or original characters). A cool and different way to look at the act of 'building'.

Interaction Design

• About Face 3 by Alan Cooper
  
• Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
  
• Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell
  
• Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin
  
• Making Things Talk: (2011) (2007) by Tom Igoe
  
  Interior Design
  
  
• The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden, Jr. Codman
  
• Domino: The Book of Decorating by Deborah Needleman
  
• Design*Sponge at Home: A Guide to Inspiring Homes by Grace Bonney
  
• The Vintage/Modern Home by Katherine Sorrell
  
• The Fundamentals of Interior Design by Simon Dodsworth
  
  Landscape Architecture
  
  
• Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards by Leonard J. Hopper
  
• Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
  
• Landscape Graphics by Grant W. Reid
  
• Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• Design with Nature by Ian L. McHarg
  
  Lighting Design
  
  
• Stage Lighting Design by Richard Pilbrow
  
• The Architecture of Natural Light by Henry Plummer
  
• Painting With Light by John Alton
  
• Made of Light by Anthony Tischhauser
  
• Color, Environment and Human Response by Frank H. Mahnke & Rudolf H. Mahnke
  
  Product Design
  
  
• Sketching: Drawing Techniques from Product Designers by Koos Eissen
  
• Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
  
• The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
  
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
  Product Design
  
  
• In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World by John Thackara
  
• The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore
  
• Universal Methods of Design by Bruce Hanington & Bella Martin
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
• Mental Models by Indi Young
  
  Sound Design
  
  
• Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema by David Sonnenschein
  
• Designing Sound by Andy Farnell
  
• Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen by Michel Chion
  
• The Sound Effects Bible by Ric Viers
  
• Sound Theory Sound Practice by Rick Altman
  
  Urban Design
  
  
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
  * Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
  
• The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
  
• The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
  
  Web Design
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  
• HTML & CSS: Design and Build Web Sites by Jon Duckett
  
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird
  
• Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS by Ben Frain
  
• Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke
  

Exhibit Labels by Serrell is a great resource.

I also really like From Knowledge to Narrative by Roberts. Roberts walks through the process of creating an (actual) exhibit while balancing the various competing demands of the different groups that are working on the exhibit.

Congrats and good luck!

I know nothing about art, but I'm fairly confident in saying it can be explained by the subjective theory of value. Stuff is worth what people will pay for it. Of course that isn't very satisfying, but since I don't know anything, here is some relevant reading (academic and popular):

Planet Money did a podcast on it, and spoke to the author of "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art." They did another piece on non-modern art - valuing an Ansel Adams photo. William Baumol, of Baumol's Cost Disease, also wrote a paper on the subject (pdf).

As a related anecdote, a friend of mine is about to get a terminal degree in sculpting (MFA), and he says art is half in the creating and half in the explaining why your creation is valuable. He's cynical enough to call it marketing.

Cecil Balmond wrote a book I'd recommend: informal http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3791337769

He's Structural Engineer that has a lot of great projects imo, it's not strictly an engineer's solution. I think your background will most likely bring in a fresh perspective, you don't necessarily need the second degree to be involved in the design I guess it all depends on how much involvement and role you want in the design process. Not that i'm discouraging going for master's in architecture, it'd be a great experience.

For anyone interested in Labrouste, I highly recommend this book. In addition to the wonderful photographs, there also superb reproductions of his drawings, and well researched written content.

Here is a great book written by him with an abundance of images and material studies. If you can get a hold of it, your presentation is done haha. Best of luck.

:)

My thoughts are definitely skewed (on many things).

My #4 favorite book relative Freemasonry, is about masonry. And is my #1 favorite gift from a Brother.

https://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Architecture-Emily-Cole/dp/0821227742

Not sure if this is the kind of thing you're talking about, but if they love Mies then they'll love this:

http://www.amazon.com/Mies-van-Rohe-Critical-Biography-ebook/dp/B009PS2L5K/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449529241&sr=1-3&keywords=mies+van+der+rohe

Apple is offering this book in 13" x 16.25" for $299 for 450 pages, a plain white embossed cover, and maybe a dust jacket, but none shown in the photos. Sample photos appear to have ample white space, which is a great way to compose these photos, but it also cuts down on printing costs. It's worth noting that the pages and the cover are cut flush, which is a nice detail, but it's not a $100 detail.

Gustav Klimt: Complete Paintings in 12.5" x 18" is list price $200 for 676 pages, which includes several foiled pages. This book cost more to print than the Apple book, period.

The complete Da Vinci in 10" x 15" is list price $70 for 700 pages. This is probably closer to the quality of the Apple book.

Frank Lloyd Wright is 13" x 10" is list price $70 for 500 pages. This is pretty comparable in size to the smaller, $200 apple book (10.2" x 12.75").

Happy to have helped.

There is a series of books on Littlest Pet Shop. They call themselves the "ultimate handbook."

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=%22littlest+pet+shop%22+ultimate+handbook&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A%22littlest+pet+shop%22+ultimate+handbook

And there are plenty of books on unicorns. You just have to figure out what she might like.

A book of unicorn stories, a story about a unicorn, an arty one, one about the legends. Who knows? It might lead to her reading "The Last Unicorn" one day.

Here are a few...

https://www.amazon.com/Unicorn-Treasury-Stories-Poems-Carpet/dp/015205216X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524327153&sr=1-3&keywords=unicorn+stories

https://www.amazon.com/Unicorn-Adventure-Scratch-Sketch-Activity/dp/1441313176/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524326948&sr=1-1&keywords=unicorn+art

https://www.amazon.com/Unicorn-Tapestries-Metropolitan-Museum-Publications/dp/0300106300/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524326948&sr=1-5&keywords=unicorn+art

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=%22littlest+pet+shop%22+ultimate+handbook&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A%22littlest+pet+shop%22+ultimate+handbook

Good luck on this quest of yours to get your little sister to start reading.

EDIT: That last link didn't overwrite when I copied it. Here's the unicorn link I was trying to include...

https://www.amazon.com/Unicorns-Behind-Legend-Erin-Peabody/dp/1499805748/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524327591&sr=8-1&keywords=behind+the+legend+unicorns

Gregory Ain: The Modern Home as Social Commentary (https://www.amazon.com/Gregory-Ain-Modern-Social-Commentary/dp/0847830624)

Good book on a great architect that got marginalized due to his socialist leanings and sympathy for the communist party back in the McCarthy era. He would have been invited to build a Case Study home but the publishers were afraid of being associated with communism.

Fascinating to read about why a lot of people were building these modernist houses beyond just the aesthetics.

If you like the lecture and want to know more ochsendorf has a fascinating book called Guastavino Vaulting. His work at MIT and the research being done at the Block Research Group are great for anyone interested in vaulted shell form.

Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Guastavino-Vaulting-Art-Structural-Tile/dp/1616892447

http://www.block.arch.ethz.ch

Heidi Creighton: "William Krisel’s Palm Springs: The Language of Modernism" (https://www.amazon.com/William-Krisels-Palm-Springs-Modernism/dp/1423642325)

My wife and I love going to Palm Springs to explore some quintessential MCM architecture and home designs. Krisel designed some well-known home designs in Palm Springs.

We also met the author of this book and toured her lovely restored MCM home a few months ago.

There's a huge body of architecture to understand. I would highly suggest to start by reading this book by Jackie Gargus as an introduction to architectural history. Some other fantastic books are:

​

Complexity and Contradiction by Robert Venturi

Towards a new Architecture by Le Corbusier

Modern Architecture: A Critical History by Kenneth Frampton

Space, Time and Architecture by Sigfried Gideon

The Dynamics of Architectural Form by Rudolf Arnheim

​

For more contemporary readings on architecture I would suggest

Red is not a Color by Bernard Tschumi

S, M, L, XL by Rem Koolhaas

​

All of these will lead you to hundreds of more specific papers and discussions surrounding architecture.

This is one that I use in my classes. It's called "Analysing Architecture" by Simon Unwin. It isn't quite the same as Ching, but I think it is as good or better of a text.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Analysing-Architecture-Simon-Unwin/dp/041571916X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539334787&sr=8-1&keywords=analysing+architecture

I would like to contribute to a Self Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) , internet, White Hat exploration about whether or not space and time are quantized.

keywords: minimal length, fundamental length, fundamental units, discrete, quantized, quantum spacetime, space quantization, quantum geometry

related: causal dynamical triangulation, quantum regge calculus, causal sets, string theory,

The following NOVA article seems pretty good as a starter:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/are-space-and-time-discrete-or-continuous/

or one could start with this Forbes article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/14/are-space-and-time-quantized-maybe-not-says-science/#498917e558ea

​

Are atoms or the fundamental "particles" an expression of the quantization of spacetime?

Crystals and the Future of Physics

Philippe Le Corbeiller, Scientific American, Vol. 188, No. 1 (January 1953), pp. 50-57

https://books.google.ca/books?id=se5iE4DMPioC&pg=PA874&lpg=PA874&dq=space+quantization+crystals&source=bl&ots=LFsmkS_2Vk&sig=ACfU3U0ZA-i2WHj-kvwrskxtSvRmymR9nw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQiNzJz87kAhXJKDQIHce-AnUQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=space%20quantization%20crystals&f=false

Is a circular path finite or infinite?

https://hi.stamen.com/buckminster-fuller-and-the-beauty-of-bubbles-9fc3ff3a7c9f

"‘Inasmuch as the kind of mathematics I had learned of in school required the use of the XYZ coordinate system and the necessity of placing π in calculating the spheres, I wondered, “to how many decimal places does nature carry out π before she decides that the computation can’t be concluded?” Next I wondered, “to how many aribitrary decimal places does nature carry out the transcendental irrational before she decides to say it’s a bad job and call it off?” If nature uses π she has to do what we call fudging of her design which means improvising, compromisingly. I thought sympathetically of nature’s having to make all those myriad frustrated decisions each time she made a bubble. I didn’t see how she managed to formulate the wake of every ship while managing the rest of the universe if she had to make all those decisions. So I said to myself, “I don’t think nature uses π. I think she has some other mathematical way of coordinating her undertakings.””

— Buckminster Fuller, Your Private Sky, p.457

​

https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Fundamental+Length

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2012/01/planck-length-as-minimal-length.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29519848_Physics_with_a_fundamental_length

​

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-quantized-in-othe/

"There are several ways to answer this question. 1) There is no conclusive evidence that time is quantized, but 2) certain theoretical studies suggest that in order to unify general relativity (gravitation) with the theories of quantum physics that describe fundamental particles and forces, it may be necessary to quantize space and perhaps time as well. Time is always a 1-dimensional quantity in this case. 3) My own work, which combines new theoretical ideas with observations of the properties of galaxies, fundamental particles and forces, does suggest that in a certain sense time may indeed be quantized. To see this we need some background information; in this scenario, time is no longer 1-dimensional!"

file:///home/chronos/u-391da1270ad994c0701bc1addae6c54228cff888/MyFiles/Downloads/Physics_with_a_fundamental_length.pdf

​

"Amit Hagar, author of Discrete or Continuous?: The Quest for Fundamental Length in Modern Physics (Cambridge University Press, 2014),"

https://philpapers.org/rec/HAGLMT-2

https://philpapers.org/rec/HAGMLI-2

​

https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.135.B849

http://inspirehep.net/record/284928?ln=en

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/PT.3.2657

https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0703009

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/055032137890041X

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/lengths.html#compton_wavelength

​

I've seen several papers that mention a fundamental minimal length of around the Compton length resulting from generalizing Special Relativity. One was by T. G. Papadopoulos which I haven't been able to relocate yet, and a minimal length is part of the Unified Field Theory model developed by Dr. Mendel Sachs.

Quantum Mechanics and Gravity by Mendel Sachs, pg. 89

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Q5LuCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=mendel+sachs+fundamental+length&source=bl&ots=OAWWhRNyid&sig=ACfU3U38FLYq1Ldgz16zle7jRdzni46osw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_vMHszc7kAhWFKn0KHTQBBvsQ6AEwEnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=mendel%20sachs%20fundamental%20length&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_sets

"The causal sets program is an approach to quantum gravity. Its founding principles are that spacetime is fundamentally discrete (a collection of discrete spacetime points, called the elements of the causal set) and that spacetime events are related by a partial order. This partial order has the physical meaning of the causality relations between spacetime events."

One of my favorite MCM homes and a good collection of photos of it.

If you like A. Quincy Jones: https://www.amazon.com/Quincy-Jones-Building-Better-Living/dp/3791352652