Foundations (For People Who Have Made Mistakes)

The Atrium Institute produces technical publications. This is their only book with a parenthetical in the title. They have not addressed this publicly.

The book covers foundations in the conventional sense — soil assessment, load calculations, drainage, the various ways a foundation can fail and what happens afterward — but the Institute has arranged the chapters in an unusual order, beginning with failure and ending with what the Institute calls 'the conditions for a second attempt.'

It is used as a course text at seven schools of architecture. It is also, according to the Institute's own records, the book most frequently purchased as a gift, by people who do not annotate the card with any explanation.

The dedication reads: 'For anyone who has had to begin again. Which is most of us. Which is, in the end, the point of a foundation.'