Drifting Symmetries: Projects, Provocations, and other Enduring Models by Weiss/Manfredi

Sustainable structures from New York-based architecture firm Weiss/Manfredi.

In an era when the dual challenges of climate change and social isolation loom large, Drifting Symmetries emerges as a pivotal exploration of architecture's role in shaping a sustainable and connected future. Weiss/Manfredi's groundbreaking work transcends the boundaries between landscape, infrastructure, and architecture by reinventing sites in response to environmental and social challenges. Presented in this comprehensive volume of projects and parallel research, their work demonstrates a multidisciplinary approach that invents new settings for public life by exploring the gradient between nature and architecture.

Featuring Weiss/Manfredi’s most acclaimed built works alongside historical precedents and insights from Thom Mayne, Barry Bergdoll, Walter Hood, Nader Tehrani, Tatiana Bilbao, James Corner, Meejin Yoon, Rahul Mehrotra, Hashim Sarkis, Sarah Whiting, and many others, Drifting Symmetries is more than a showcase of projects; it's a manual for expanding the terrain of contemporary architecture to construct more resilient settings for contemporary life.

Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi are cofounders of Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism based in New York City. Weiss is also the Graham Chair Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Manfredi is also a senior design critic at Harvard Graduate School of Design. 

Eric Bellin is an assistant professor of architecture at Thomas Jefferson University’s College of Architecture and the Built Environment.