A compelling mixture of manifesto and manual, Places for Strangers builds on the set of principles and attitudes that have long driven London-based mae Architects to advocate a new position on urban design and architecture, while also elucidating an approach to actually producing critically engaged design.

Originally written for such newspapers as the Guardian or professional organizations such as the Architects’ Journal, the essays featured here are polemic in their nature, aimed at illustrating the sociopolitical, ethical, and formal concerns that must be navigated in architecture today. Complementing the essays are contemporary analyses and revisitations of a number of mae’s projects that serve to illustrate how the firm’s core principles—themselves always in a state of renegotiation—can be enacted in actual designs and building projects. The result is sure to inspire creative new thinking about architecture and its place in contemporary society.