The Interior Design Productivity Toolbox: Checklists and Best Practices to Manage Your Workflow by Phyllis Harbinger Once you read the e-myth you'll understand this pick. There are infinite ways of "being an architect" and each firm runs its own way. That said, systematizing and automating your routine tasks is the number one way to freedom, clarity, organization, and more time and headspace for the fun stuff. It will also make your projects go smoother and who doesn't want that? Enter the Id toolkit, which contains around fifty checklists for processes ranging from meetings and onboarding prospective clients to lists for designing wine cellars and home spas. This book is worth more than it's weight in gold. It's written and targeted to interior designers, but the vast majority of it applies to architects' work too. Bonus, all the checklists are downloadable word files via a password in the book. This is the best immediately actionable book I can recommend for day to day design work operations.

Theory + Design Process

This would have been my favorite section when I was an architecture student.

Architecture and Disjunction by Bernard Tschumi ......This is by far my most marked up, underlined, and starred architecture book. If you are feeling stuck this is the book to shake you up. In a way, it is a book of questions; questioning why things are the way they are, posing questions for the reader to ponder. His ten page chapter, "Questions of Space" reads like a trippy barrage that takes you from a room to outer space to consciousness, linguistics, and politics. And you thought architecture was just a floor plan.

Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier - One of my first architecture books. When it comes to "un-learning", which I think is essential to becoming an architect, this book should be at the top of the pile. Corbu was living through the changes of the Machine Age and was drawn to the naked truth of machine design. He wanted to create architecture that was as truthful to its use as a machine is to its use. A classic that should be on every architect's shelf.

Thinking Architecture by Peter Zumthor - Thinking architecture is a collection of essays and lectures that Zumthor gave, it feels like an intimate conversation. This book feels like fragments of a Tarkovsky movie, except you don't need the attention span of a saint to follow. When you are in the weeds of construction documents, RFI's, AFP's, and need a mind refresher, pick up Thinking Architecture.

Tadao Ando Conversations With Students by Tadao Ando - Ando has always been one of my favorite architects since I "discovered" him at my undergrad architecture school library. His designs are so calm and clean that I expected a calm demeanor, but it was the opposite. Ando expressed a tenacity and persistence and explained in this book how that tenacity is essential in realizing your dreams. With some years under my belt, I've learned to understand this. It takes a strong willfulness to achieve that calm; otherwise it would be washed away by all the "necessities" of building and, to put it bluntly, corner cutting that could ensue with a less vigilant architect at the help. In a more unorthodox moment of vigilance, he punched a construction worker for throwing a cigarette into a concrete mix. Whatever it takes! I open this book whenever I need this kind of medicine.

S,M,L,XL by Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau - This was a monumental, ground shifting book when it came out in 1995. Before then, architecture books were mainly stiff "portfolios" or theoretical treatises. The landscape is different now, see KM3 by MVRDV and more recently, Yes is More by Bjarke Ingels for example. This reads as a maniacal heart racing ride-along with renegade architects on the run. Diary entries, unashamed messy models and sketches, a dictionary running throughout the book in the margin, and construction photos all work together in a novel way to give the reader a front row seat in a fast moving and high profile architecture firm. Just get it and enjoy the ride. S,M,L,XL is one architecture book that could go in any category; because of the unique insight during the design process I put it here.

Informal by Cecil Balmond - I went to the University of Pennsylvania's Architecture program for my master's degree in no small part because Cecil Balmond was teaching there. At the time he was leading Arup, one of the largest engineering firms in the world, and the hands on collaborator with many famous architects, namely Rem Koolhaas, Alvaro Siza, Shigeru Ban, and Daniel Libeskind, to name very few. Informal is a unique companion book to S,M,L,XL in that Balmond was a frequent collaborator with Koolhaas, so you can get a glimpse of the same projects through a different lens. You follow a project and see the discarded ideas along the way. Seeing the design thinking from the engineer's point of view who isn't shackled by the obvious solution but the best one is a treat. Lest any architect think that all structural engineers are just calculators, show them Informal.

Architecture Workbook: Design Through Motive by Sir Peter Cook - Peter Cook was a main member of the neofuturist architecture group, "Archigram" in the 1960's. He is basically an architecture superstar before "starchitects" existed. The Archigram projects were so out of this world you could call them instigations more than projects. Fortunately for us, he didn't "grow out of this phase" and his built work is as exciting as his early sketches, see Kunsthaus Graz in Vienna for example. This book is divided into different motives, such as "Architecture as Theater" and "Can We Learn From Silliness?". The former chapter includes a thorough analysis of food kiosks across Europe. Sir Cook's writing reads as clear and conversation theory that is fun and engaging.

Construction

When you start working in an architecture firm and are tasked with drawing part of a building in design, you will invariably get stuck and have to look around the office for advice. In many firms, there is a technical "guru" who will be the go-to. You will find yourself asking what you think is a simple question, only to get an thirty minute answer that is the culmination of a life working in the field. Do not let your iPhone attention span ruin this teaching moment. If you are lucky enough to work with someone like this, ask them many questions! In the meantime, here are a couple easy to understand technical books to help you get started.

Building Construction Illustrated by Francis Ching - the gold standard for simple to understand yet buildable diagrams. Clear and discrete details in varying situations with explanations, what more could you ask for?

Graphic Guide to Frame Construction by Rob Thallon - If you find yourself working on wood frame construction, this is an excellent starter book to help you understand how framing works and how to start detailing under many different conditions. When you know how carpenters frame, you set yourself up for success because you can speak their language. It will also help you when you are creating unusual designs, because you will understand WHY typical details are the way they are. When you understand the rules on this level, it makes breaking the rules that much easier.