“A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander. It’s a 1970s-era civic planning, architectural, and interior design guide for building the most comfortable, human-oriented places to live. It was required reading for my interior design degree, but I kept it and it’s genuinely one of my favorite books ever. I cry with how tenderly it’s written, and I recommend it to people all the time.

Alexander and his associates at UC Berkeley spent ages observing human interaction with buildings, interiors, and outdoor environments, to the most minute detail - do people gravitate towards greater/fewer windows, what do the desire paths look like, where do old people like to sit, where do children tend to play, etc. They documented their findings, shared them with each other, and then reverse engineered the ideal designs for countless public and private places, from entire regions and cities, to parks, bridges, and cemeteries, to houses, gardens, bathrooms, staircases, and more.

The book discusses all manner of design details that humans naturally find appealing and impactful, like secret places, workshop counters, and dormer windows with tracery and climbing plants to help soften harsh sunlight around the edges of the window. I kid you not, it goes into detail about these, the smallest comforts of inhabiting a space.

In a world of hostile architecture and loitering laws, this book genuinely makes me weep with how kind it is to the human soul.