The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho

The Death and Life of Great American Cities — Jane Jacobs

Educated — Tara Westover

The Fountainhead — Ayn Rand

House of Light — Mary Oliver

In Praise of Shadows — Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up — Marie Kondo

Make Something Wonderful — Steve Jobs Archive

Meditations — Marcus Aurelius

Nightlands: Nordic Building — Christian Norberg-Schulz

So Good They Can't Ignore You — Cal Newport

The Timeless Way of Building — Christopher Alexander

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — Marielle Heller

Before Sunrise — Richard Linklater

Castle in the Sky — Hayao Miyazaki

Dead Poets Society — Peter Weir

The Devil Wears Prada — David Frankel

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — Michel Gondry

Everything Everywhere All at Once — Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

Hamnet — Chloé Zhao

Howl's Moving Castle — Hayao Miyazaki

Interstellar — Christopher Nolan

Kiki's Delivery Service — Hayao Miyazaki

La La Land — Damien Chazelle

Lewerentz Divine Darkness — on Sigurd Lewerentz

Minari — Lee Isaac Chung

Nomadland — Chloé Zhao

Perfect Days — Wim Wenders

Princess Mononoke — Hayao Miyazaki

Sentimental Value — Joachim Trier

Spirited Away — Hayao Miyazaki

Train Dreams — Clint Bentley

Up — Pete Docter

Inventing on Principle — Bret Victor, a talk

Magic Ink — Bret Victor, an essay

Stop Drawing Dead Fish — Bret Victor, a talk

The Humane Representation of Thought — Bret Victor, a talk

Dynamicland — Bret Victor and collaborators

My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge — Laurel Schwulst, an essay

Andrej Karpathy — lectures, notes, code, and posts

Perfume Area — a collaborative fragrance-review project by Sydney Shen and Laurel Schwulst

Seasons in Pentameter — a time-sensitive website orchestrated and designed by Laurel Schwulst with Marie Otsuka and Tiger Dingsun

Artists Space — Laurel Schwulst's website direction for the New York arts nonprofit, created with Taichi Aritomo and Mark Beasley

Chloé Zhao — b. 1982

Christopher Alexander — 1936–2022

Christopher Nolan — b. 1970

Frank Lloyd Wright — 1867–1959

Fred Rogers — 1928–2003

Hayao Miyazaki — b. 1941

Mary Oliver — 1935–2019

Sigurd Lewerentz — 1885–1975

Toshiko Takaezu — 1922–2011

Claude Monet — 1840–1926

Gustav Klimt — 1862–1918

Pierre-Auguste Renoir — 1841–1919

The art islands — Seto Inland Sea, Japan

Avenue of the Giants — Humboldt County, California

Carmel-by-the-Sea — Big Sur, California

Chichu Art Museum — Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan

Cosanti — Paradise Valley, Arizona

David and Gladys Wright House — Phoenix, Arizona

Grundtvig's Church — Copenhagen, Denmark

Honpukuji Water Temple — Awaji Island, Hyōgo, Japan

Inujima Seirensho Art Museum — Inujima, Okayama, Japan

La forêt des murmures — Teshima, Kagawa, Japan

Pacific Valley Bluffs Trailhead — Big Sur, California

Sandspit Beach — Morro Bay, California

Taliesin West — Scottsdale, Arizona

Alvar Aalto — 1898–1976

Bjarke Ingels Group — est. 2005

Carlo Scarpa — 1906–1978

Colectivo C733 — est. 2019

Diller Scofidio + Renfro — est. 1981

Foster + Partners — est. 1967

Francis Kéré — b. 1965

Frank Lloyd Wright — 1867–1959

Hiroshi Nakamura — b. 1974

Hiroshi Sambuichi — b. 1968

Kengo Kuma — b. 1954

Mauricio Rocha — b. 1965

Moshe Safdie — b. 1938

Olson Kundig — est. 1966

Peter Zumthor — b. 1943

Pezo von Ellrichshausen — est. 2002

SHoP Architects — est. 1996

Sigurd Lewerentz — 1885–1975

Snøhetta — est. 1989

Sou Fujimoto — b. 1971

Tadao Ando — b. 1941

Tatiana Bilbao — b. 1972

The 48 Laws of Power — Robert Greene

Anthem — Ayn Rand

Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It — M. Nolan Gray

Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre Dumas

The Creative Act: A Way of Being — Rick Rubin

The Death of Ivan Ilyich — Leo Tolstoy

The Design of Everyday Things — Don Norman

Discourses — Epictetus

Gone with the Wind — Margaret Mitchell

Harrison Bergeron — Kurt Vonnegut

Here Is New York — E. B. White

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams

The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems — Jef Raskin

The Image of the City — Kevin Lynch

Ishmael — Daniel Quinn

Life Between Buildings — Jan Gehl

Life of Pi — Yann Martel

Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor E. Frankl

Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell

On the Shortness of Life — Seneca

The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power — Katherine Morgan Schafler

The Power Broker — Robert A. Caro

Siddhartha — Hermann Hesse

Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe

Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman

Tuesdays with Morrie — Mitch Albom

When Breath Becomes Air — Paul Kalanithi

“A City Is Not a Tree” — Christopher Alexander

“A Project of One’s Own” — independent projects, intrinsic motivation, and becoming an AI-native builder

“How to Do Great Work” — curiosity, taste, persistence, and finding work uniquely suited to you

“How to Get Startup Ideas” — discovering products where architecture, design, and AI overlap

“Taste for Makers” — how good design can be learned, recognized, and made structural

“Is There Such a Thing as Good Taste?” — a companion inquiry into taste and judgment

“Do Things That Don’t Scale” — improving early products through unusually close attention to users

“Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” — protecting uninterrupted design and building time

“Cities and Ambition” — how places shape what people imagine and pursue

“Keep Your Identity Small” — evolving beyond fixed labels such as architect, designer, or founder

“Before the Startup” — learning powerful things, following curiosity, and letting projects precede startup theater

Laws of UX — Jon Yablonski

Human Interface Guidelines — Apple

Interaction Design — Rauno Freiberg

AI Skills for Design Engineers — Emil Kowalski