Alexandra Lange

From building blocks to city blocks, an eye-opening exploration of how children's playthings and physical surroundings affect their development. Parents obsess over their children's playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle. Now, prominent design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children's pint-size landscape. Her fascinating investigation shows how the seemingly innocuous universe of stuff affects kids' behavior, values, and health, often in subtle ways. And she reveals how years of decisions by toymakers, architects, and urban planners have helped--and hindered--American youngsters' journeys toward independence. Seen through Lange's eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children's world--and your own.

How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids

The Design of Childhood

A portrait--by turns celebratory, skeptical, and surprisingly moving--of one of America's most iconic institutions, from an author who “might be the most influential design critic writing now” (LARB). Few places have been as nostalgized, or as maligned, as malls. Since their birth in the 1950s, they have loomed large as temples of commerce, the agora of the suburbs. In their prime, they proved a powerful draw for creative thinkers such as Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury, and George Romero, who understood the mall's appeal as both critics and consumers. Yet today, amid the aftershocks of financial crises and a global pandemic, as well as the rise of online retail, the dystopian husk of an abandoned shopping center has become one of our era's defining images. Conventional wisdom holds that the mall is dead. But what was the mall, really? And have rumors of its demise been greatly exaggerated? In her acclaimed The Design of Childhood, Alexandra Lange uncovered the histories of toys, classrooms, and playgrounds. She now turns her sharp eye to another subject we only think we know. She chronicles postwar architects' and merchants' invention of the mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. In Lange's perceptive account, the mall becomes newly strange and rich with contradiction: Malls are environments of both freedom and exclusion--of consumerism, but also of community. Meet Me by the Fountain is a highly entertaining and evocative promenade through the mall's story of rise, fall, and ongoing reinvention, for readers of any generation.

An Inside History of the Mall

Meet Me by the Fountain

Extraordinary architecture addresses so much more than mere practical considerations. It inspires and provokes while creating a seamless experience of the physical world for its users. It is the rare writer that can frame the discussion of a building in a way that allows the reader to see it with new eyes. Writing About Architecture is a handbook on writing effectively and critically about buildings and cities. Each chapter opens with a reprint of a significant essay written by a renowned architecture critic, followed by a close reading and discussion of the writer's strategies. Lange offers her own analysis using contemporary examples as well as a checklist of questions at the end of each chapter to help guide the writer. This important addition to the Architecture Briefs series is based on the author's design writing courses at New York University and the School of Visual Arts. Lange also writes a popular online column for Design Observer and has written for Dwell, Metropolis, New York magazine, and The New York Times. Writing About Architecture includes analysis of critical writings by Ada Louise Huxtable, Lewis Mumford, Herbert Muschamp, Michael Sorkin, Charles Moore, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Jane Jacobs. Architects covered include Marcel Breuer, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Field Operations, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Frederick Law Olmsted, SOM, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities

Writing About Architecture

Jane Thompson

When Ben Thompson opened Design Research in Boston in 1953, his innovative store became synonymous with modern interior design, lighting a public spark that still burns today, though the store itself is no longer. When the mass-produced furniture of impersonal department stores reigned supreme, this boutique retailer dared to provide a learned yet unpretentious environment for sleek design. Today, Design Research's legacy can be seen in the showrooms of Crate & Barrel and Design Within Reach. Through interviews, anecdotes and lush photographs, Design Research documents the array of household objects and furniture introduced to the American home through the legendary store that made good design available to all.

The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes

Design Research

In der pädagogischen Arbeit steht die professionelle Beziehung zwischen Klient und Pädagoge am Anfang. Die Zusammenarbeit mit Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung gestaltet sich oftmals nicht einfach. Verfügt einer der Partner nicht über die notwendigen zwischenmenschlichen Kompetenzen zur Konfliktverarbeitung, lassen sich Spannungen schwer regulieren. Probleme im sozialen Umgang und in der Kommunikation, fehlende Flexibilität im Handeln, stereotype Verhaltensmuster sowie ein augenscheinlich eingeschränktes Interesse am Aufbau einer dialogischen Beziehung können Folgen sein. Alexandra Lange beschreibt einen handlungsorientierten Zugangsweg, mit dem ein besseres Verständnis für die Problemlage der Beziehungspartner gefunden werden kann. Dabei stehen die Besonderheiten und speziellen Bedürfnisse von Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung im Fokus, um die Klienten in der Ausdifferenzierung ihrer Beziehungsfähigkeit zu unterstützen. Welche Faktoren im Lebensalltag wirken besonders belastend für den Aufbau von Beziehungen? Ausgewählte psychotherapeutische Erklärungsansätze liefern den theoretischen Rahmen für die beschriebenen pädagogischen Interventionsmöglichkeiten. Die Autorin weist Pädagogen den Weg zu Handlungsalternativen, um festgefahrene Beziehungsstrukturen aufzubrechen und Freiraum für Lernprozesse zu ermöglichen.

Alexandra Lange

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