The Art of Architectural Grafting applies the ancient horticultural technique of grafting — joining old and new plants into a single thriving organism — to architecture and urban design, reframing adaptive reuse as a regenerative response to climate change.
About This Book
Jeanne Gang draws an unlikely but precise analogy: just as grafting joins two living plants to produce a more resilient whole, architecture can unite existing structures with new interventions to generate buildings that are culturally continuous and environmentally responsible. This is not a superficial metaphor. Gang works through the concept at multiple scales — tectonic, programmatic, formal, and regenerative — demonstrating how adaptive reuse, when approached through the logic of grafting, becomes a genuinely productive design methodology rather than a compromise. For architects and urbanists grappling with the ethics and practice of working within the existing built fabric, this book reframes the question entirely.
Key Features
- 184 pages of illustrated argument spanning architecture, urban design, and environmental theory
- Written by Jeanne Gang, one of America's most distinguished contemporary architects
- Published by Park Books
What You'll Discover
- How the horticultural practice of grafting — connecting old and new living plants — translates into a coherent architectural methodology for adaptive reuse
- The environmental case for reusing and expanding older structures as a broadly impactful strategy for combatting climate change
- How grafting as a paradigm operates across multiple scales, from tectonic detailing to programmatic and formal transformation
- The dual cultural and environmental value of reuse, and how preserving existing fabric can produce more resilient built outcomes
About the Author
Jeanne Gang is one of America's most distinguished contemporary architects. Her work spans architecture and urban design, with a sustained focus on how buildings can respond to environmental and social challenges at scale.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 184
- Dimensions: 240 x 165 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783038603436
- Publisher: Park Books
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and urban designers engaged with adaptive reuse, sustainability researchers, and practitioners seeking a theoretically grounded framework for working within the existing built environment.