One of my friends gave me a copy of the book, Siteless: 1001 Building Forms by François Blanciak as a gift a few years ago, and I use it often for reference images and inspiration for my drawings. Although I'm not an architect and this is an architecture-inspired book, the forms in it are great for drawing inspiration, creature parts, or just fun eye candy.
Siteless, published in 2008, includes 1001 different building forms — "structural parasites, chain link towers, ball-bearing floors, corrugated corners, exponential balconies, radial facades, crawling frames, forensic housing" and more. The forms are all drawn freehand and laid out 12 per page, in no particular order. Besides the title of each form, the book contains few words, which I'm glad for because it allows me to get lost within the shapes as a reader. The end of the book demonstrates what it's like for these shapes to be constructed in real life, at an architectural site in Tokyo.
The book is a great resource for artists and designers who draw things like architecture, interiors, products, and so on, and therefore a great reference book to have on hand, but it's also great for general inspiration as well. Art students, architects, interior designers, furniture designers, product designers, and graphic designers, take note: This is a great book to have on hand and I would highly recommend it
From the MIT Press site:
Its author, a young French architect practicing in Tokyo, admits he "didn't do this out of reverence toward architecture, but rather out of a profound boredom with the discipline, as a sort of compulsive reaction." What would happen if architects liberated their minds from the constraints of site, program, and budget? he asks. The result is a book that is saturated with forms, and as free of words as any architecture book the MIT Press has ever published.
