Our design challenge was to translate the spaces of an innovative building dedicated to new media into print form.

Our thinking about the book’s design was informed by the thinking behind the building’s design. For example, the architects’ proposal for this building was that a museum dedicated to new media should not only present work, but also produce that work. Furthermore, the relationship between production and presentation was constantly changing: interlaced, compared, and contrasted throughout the building both a continuity of materials and a weaving of activity. We worked directly with several vendors to understand their capabilities and to find a way to produce a piece that, to our knowledge, had never been previously produced.

A sticker on the front of the package states that the book is not a book, yet it continues a series of publications on architecture at the University of Michigan with a trim size of 6 1/2 x 9 inches, which is an economical trim size when printed on a 28 x 40-inch sheet. The book was designed not as a series of 64 pages, but rather as a pair of two-sided signature sheets that were continuously printed, folded, trimmed, studied and critiqued.

The project has raised the profile of the book series and sends a message that the University of Michigan Architecture Program is engaged in the critical advancement of ideas in the material world. A book isn’t simply image on a flat sheet, but rather a series of events, spaces and materials linked by their experience in time.