Drifting Symmetries: Projects, Provocations, and Other Enduring Models

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.

“Our work and this book are inspired by social and environmental design challenges that increasingly elude disciplinary boundaries,” said Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi. “This book is both projective and reflective, weaving together the loose ends of architecture, ecology, infrastructure, and history to create new opportunities for design and future action.”

WEISS/MANFREDI’s most acclaimed built works are featured alongside parallel research of historical precedents across geographies and centuries. With an essay by Thom Mayne and reflections by Barry Bergdoll, Tatiana Bilbao, James Corner, Charles L. Davis II, Edward Eigen, Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Walter Hood, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, David Leatherbarrow, Andrea Leers, Paul Lewis, Rahul Mehrotra, Hilary Sample, Hashim Sarkis, Nader Tehrani, Sarah M. Whiting, Xu Tiantian, and Meejin Yoon, 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.