Building Community: New Apartment Architecture

Building Community is an in-depth, wide-ranging survey of contemporary apartment buildings, not as raw canvases for interior decoration but as a building type of growing significance. An introduction traces the history of multiple-occupancy housing through its most innovative 20th-century exemplars, from the urbane blocks of Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage in Paris to the landscaped housing estates of Weimar Germany and the visionary schemes of Le Corbusier.

The core of the book presents 39 recent or ongoing projects by leading international studios and rising talents, ranging from social housing and micro-apartments to urban villages, megastructures, and innovative high-rises. Each project is explored for how it enriches the lives of residents and the city, documented with drawings and photographs from both the street and inside. The book also includes interviews with contemporary masters of apartment design such as Michael Maltzan, Lorcan O’Herlihy, Edouard François, and Bjarke Ingels.

As cities grow more crowded, the book argues, it is critical to produce creative housing that enhances life for inhabitants, communities, and the urban environment as a whole.