Francis D.K. Ching

A paperback edition of Francis D.K. Ching's book, Architecture:  Forms, Space and Order, had been sitting on my desk for less than a day when my colleague and friend Mark Webb spotted it and became pretty animated. He started talking about the book in a way that made it seem it was a given that we both should be completely familiar with it.  I had, in fact, just picked up my copy at a used bookstore without ever having heard of Ching or knowing anything about his highly influential body of work. I soon learned that Webb and many other architecture and landscape architecture students (beyond yours truly) read Ching's work early on in their studies.  Feeling as though I'd missed out on something important in my education, I dove into the text and soon came to understand why my friend