"Book Briefs" are an ongoing series of posts with two- or three-sentence first-hand descriptions of some of the numerous books that make their way into my library. These briefs are not full-blown reviews, but they are a way to share more worthwhile books than I'm able to review.

From top to bottom in the photo above:

Air Structures by Will McLean and Pete Silver | Laurence King | 2015 | Amazon
Part of Laurence King's "Form & Technique" series (other titles include Deployable Structures and Generative Design), this little book's release was timely, coming just after Frei Otto's passing and him winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize last year. Although his projects are nowhere to be found in the book, his influence permeates throughout. Along with R. Buckminster Fuller, Otto pioneered doing less with more. And he looked to nature ? soap bubbles, spider webs ? to figure out how to do it. With air as their primary "building material," the projects in this book show that the desire to build lightweight ? and fun ? structures continues.
Spaces of Serenity: Small Projects for Meditation and Contemplation by Jeffrey S. Poss | ORO Editions | 2015 | Amazon
This appropriately small book collects six small projects architect Jeffrey S. Poss designed as responses "to the basic human desire to identify and seek creative ways to resolve the conflicts of living in the everyday world." He is also a pro...