Dreaming of the desert? This book has you covered, from modernist to adobe architecture

Desert Dreaming is the perfect book to chase those autumn blues away, as part of the world, at least, is heading fast towards colder weather and shorter days. Authored by writer and regular Wallpaper* contributor Jessica Ritz, this new title for publisher Gibbs Smith zooms into the desert architecture of North America and the often-minimalist styles of living, and building, in arid landscapes.

Explore the homes in 'Desert Dreaming'

The new book, full title Desert Dreaming: Design in the Southwest and Beyond, offers a thorough look into residential architecture in the challenging, hot climates and barren landscapes of the US deserts. Tracking the country's four corresponding key territories - the Chihuahuan, Mojave, Sonoran and Great Basin regions - the book spans from homes in the popular style of desert modernism to the equally appealing vernaculars in adobe and earth-building techniques.

The book is a fascinating journey across time and territory, discussing challenges and opportunities the desert environment brings - and how architects and builders' ingenious solutions not only overcame them, but produced results that fascinate and command our attention to this day.

'Desert dwellers are a unique bunch. Indigenous populations, settlers, subsequent native-born denizens, transplants, and seekers - who run the gamut from exploitatively opportunistic to earnestly enlightened - are made of hardy stuff. Tough realities can quickly dispel any romanticized ideals. It takes a certain constitution to be lured by the punishing realities of parched ecosystems where what sustains all life forms is extra precious,' writes Ritz in the book's introductory essay.

Featured projects include striking schemes by architects that often grace our pages too - from Wallpaper* Best Use of Material 2026 winners DUST and their New Mexico house Sombra de Santa Fe, to the origami shapes of OPA's Shapeshifter House in Nevada and an elegantly austere Arizona home by architecture studio A-I-R.

'Nature is the best designer,' Ritz concludes in her opening essay. 'Even the most confident architects concede this basic point and extract its lessons. Compelling tensions arise when human beings make their mark on a tabula rasa that comes with significant constraints.'

'From millennia-old adobe building traditions to sleek, innovative modernism and recent experiments that land somewhere in between the poles on this spectrum, desert-based design best evolves in tandem with people and places - whether at high or low elevation, in a coastal or rain shadow area. And, much like the residents themselves, its buildings and interiors are startlingly diverse.'

'Desert Dreaming: Design in the Southwest and Beyond', Jessica Ritz, Gibbs Smith, $50

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