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Architecture and Culture

Architecture and Culture

Author(s): Gregory H. Tew , Amrita Raja

Edition: 1

Copyright: 2025

Pages: 238

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$89.25 USD

ISBN 9798385153114

Details KHPContent 180 days

Faculty Review Copy

This textbook explores how forces beyond design—including money, politics, and the environment—shape our buildings. It investigates how architecture both reflects and influences the cultures that create it, examining how people have built and lived in spaces over time. By understanding the successes and failures of buildings from around the world, the book advocates for creating inclusive, equitable, and climate-responsive architecture.

Gregory H. Tew

Greg Tew is a designer and educator with international recognition and awards for his work as an architect, interior designer, and industrial designer. Throughout his career, Greg has attempted to create memorable designs from a pragmatic focus on problem solving. That strategy has led to publication of his work in leading design and news publications around the world including: Detail, Architectural Review, l’architecture d’aujourd’ hui, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Los Angeles Times, ARCHITECT, Ottagono, Metropolitan Home, Architecture, Interior Design, Interiors, and Gourmet, as well as the books XS: Big Ideas, Small Buildings and PreFab: Adaptable, Modular, Dismountable, Light, Mobile Architecture.

As an academic, Greg has taught architecture and interior design and has won numerous awards including the Virginia Tech Sporn Award for Teaching Introductory Courses—that prestigious award is the only university-level teaching award where the winner is nominated by students and selected by a committee of students. Greg was also inducted as a member of the Virginia Tech Academy of Teaching Excellence.

His primary focus in teaching during the past 10 years has been the ongoing development of Design Appreciation, a course focused on the grand challenge of our time—imagining a way of living that is unquestionably better than the life we live today and that is also sustainable.

Amrita Raja

Amrita Raja, AIA is an architect, critic, and educator, currently teaching at Virginia Tech. Her academic research explores equity and justice in the built environment. Recent work includes Say Their Names!, a proposed space for reflection, conversation, and protest shortlisted as a finalist in Virginia Tech’s Call for Public Art, and The Counter-Canon Project, an archive of under-represented voices in architectural history. Her writings on the built environment have appeared in publications including The Architect’s Newspaper, Dwell, Metropolis, and The Washington Post. Amrita's professional experience spans the globe, with projects in the US, Europe, UK, and the Middle East, traversing scales from private residences to masterplans. She is the former president of the AIA United Kingdom, and has served on the AIA International Region Board and the AIA National Members’ Voice Taskforce.

 

This textbook explores how forces beyond design—including money, politics, and the environment—shape our buildings. It investigates how architecture both reflects and influences the cultures that create it, examining how people have built and lived in spaces over time. By understanding the successes and failures of buildings from around the world, the book advocates for creating inclusive, equitable, and climate-responsive architecture.

Gregory H. Tew
Gregory H. Tew

Greg Tew is a designer and educator with international recognition and awards for his work as an architect, interior designer, and industrial designer. Throughout his career, Greg has attempted to create memorable designs from a pragmatic focus on problem solving. That strategy has led to publication of his work in leading design and news publications around the world including: Detail, Architectural Review, l’architecture d’aujourd’ hui, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Los Angeles Times, ARCHITECT, Ottagono, Metropolitan Home, Architecture, Interior Design, Interiors, and Gourmet, as well as the books XS: Big Ideas, Small Buildings and PreFab: Adaptable, Modular, Dismountable, Light, Mobile Architecture.

As an academic, Greg has taught architecture and interior design and has won numerous awards including the Virginia Tech Sporn Award for Teaching Introductory Courses—that prestigious award is the only university-level teaching award where the winner is nominated by students and selected by a committee of students. Greg was also inducted as a member of the Virginia Tech Academy of Teaching Excellence.

His primary focus in teaching during the past 10 years has been the ongoing development of Design Appreciation, a course focused on the grand challenge of our time—imagining a way of living that is unquestionably better than the life we live today and that is also sustainable.

Amrita Raja
Amrita Raja

Amrita Raja, AIA is an architect, critic, and educator, currently teaching at Virginia Tech. Her academic research explores equity and justice in the built environment. Recent work includes Say Their Names!, a proposed space for reflection, conversation, and protest shortlisted as a finalist in Virginia Tech’s Call for Public Art, and The Counter-Canon Project, an archive of under-represented voices in architectural history. Her writings on the built environment have appeared in publications including The Architect’s Newspaper, Dwell, Metropolis, and The Washington Post. Amrita's professional experience spans the globe, with projects in the US, Europe, UK, and the Middle East, traversing scales from private residences to masterplans. She is the former president of the AIA United Kingdom, and has served on the AIA International Region Board and the AIA National Members’ Voice Taskforce.