Metaphoric Architecture : Transforming Ideas into 3d Form

Metaphoric Architecture focuses on a fundamental but often challenging part of the beginning design phases―how to take an abstract idea and transform it into a three-dimensional object, space, or building.

Through media experimentation, analysis of innovative case studies, and hands-on exercises, Abrams guides the reader through the early stages of design, which include site and precedent analysis, among other initial approaches. To comprehend design thinking, the visual arts, music, and film are examined in relation to architecture. Chapters demonstrate how abstract ideas inspired by paintings, music, and films, can be utilized in the spatial design process and transformed into habitable spaces. There are 22 exercises that increase in complexity to strengthen students’ abilities and promote the use of digital and manual representation in a back-and-forth motion. With 444 illustrations, this book demystifies the process of designing 3D form and space in a highly visual way.

It will be the ideal studio companion for beginning and intermediate students of both architecture and interior design, with a wide range of architectural lessons that include abstraction, design fundamentals, concept development, building design, case study analysis, and site-to-building relationships.

Michael C. Abrams is a Puerto Rican architect and Architecture Professor at the University of Maryland-College Park. Mr. Abrams is the author of the best-selling book The Art of City Sketching: A Field Manual―2nd ed. (Routledge, 2021). He has taught graduate and undergraduate architectural design studios, sketching and drafting courses, as well as the history of contemporary architecture at several colleges and universities along the East Coast and Midwest of the United States, such as George Washington University, Catholic University of America, Marymount University, and Columbia College Chicago, among other institutions. Mr. Abrams obtained a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a Bachelor in Environmental Design from the University of Puerto Rico. Michael has spent several years working in the profession in the United States, Spain, and Italy.