RIBA Bookshops

Elite Kedan

Elite Kedan (Editorial/Creative Director), AIA, RA, is a registered architect in the states of New York and Florida; currently practicing in Miami, and is an Adjunct Professor on the faculty of Florida International University. She received her architectural education at Cornell University (B.Arch) and The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University (M.Arch, MAUD). She worked for two years as a designer at Moshe Safdie Architects in Jerusalem, and upon returning to the States, worked in architecture firms in Boston and New York before opening her own office in Miami in 2005 focusing on residential and housing projects.

F. Jonathan Dreyfous

F. Jonathan Dreyfous (Editor), AIA, RA, Partner CR Studio,, earned a Master of Architecture degree from The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He also has received two degrees—in European History and in Architectural History—from Brown University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, became a Ford Foundation Scholar and graduated magna cum laude. Jon has worked in architectural firms in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. Prior to coming to New York, he apprenticed at the office of Gunther Behnisch in Stuttgart, Germany, collaborating on the design for the IBN Forestry Research Institute.

Craig Mutter

Craig Mutter (Editor), AIA is an architect practicing in New York and Boston. He earned a Master of Architecture degree from The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He also received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia. Craig worked for four years in Boston with Kennedy & Violich Architecture before receiving the Rotch Traveling Scholarship in 1996.He returned to New York and worked as an Associate at Polshek Partnership Architects and Architecture Research Office. His projects include the Entrance Lobby and Plaza at the Brooklyn Museum and the Expansion to the Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. He is currently an Associate at Ann Beha Architects in Boston.

George Beane. Metropolis Magazine, December 28, 2009.

Provisional documents the work of nine American architecture firms, exploring each ones methodology and the influence of new technologies on its practice. The book is separated into alternating sections of essays, images, and interviews with partners from firms like Gehry Technolgies, Lewis, Tsurumaki, Lewis, and SHoP. Generally, the interviews deal more with the evolution of each firm than the ways digital technologies can alter design practice on a fundamental level. (That subject, which could be at the books heart, tends to elicit a frustrating tautology: computers redefine the design process by redefining the design process.) Still, the interviewees have interesting things to say about their process, and they point to trends among the most creative firms in the industry. Mostly, these have to do with the increasing interconnectedness between architecture and fields like engineering and technology-consulting, and with the variety of the products that result from those collaborations. Computer renderings and diagrams, and photographs taken at various stages of project completion, help make the connection between the early stages of software-aided renderings, actual building construction, and finished designs.