Built Unbuilt by Julien De Smedt and Julien Lanoo
Frame Publishers, 2017
Paperback, 328 pages

Back in 2011, when I reviewed JDS Architects' Agenda: Can We Sustain Our Ability to Crisis" alongside a few other monographs, I described the format of Agenda as a "diary."& That book's many projects by Julien De Smedt ? both on his own and with Bjarke Ingels as PLOT ? were structured via timeline: a year in the life of JDS that started with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The new monograph, Built Unbuilt, sets aside a chronological format in favor of two halves: built works and unbuilt projects. Nevertheless, parts of the book have a casualness that makes them read like a diary.

[Spread from "Built"]
The first half of the book, "Built," is where the co-authorship comes across: Julien De Smedt is the architect, the head of the firm that designed the buildings, and Julien Lanoo is the photographer capturing them in context and in use. The photos come across as most important on these pages, since the words and drawings are minimal, the photos take up the most real estate (usually one to a page but sometimes, as with Casa Jura above, filling a two-page spread), and therefore the photos are the primary means for readers to understand JDS's built works. There are about 30 buildings and pieces of furniture in the book, ranging from chairs and tables to housing and a ski jump.

[Spread from "Unbuilt"]

The secon...