SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hello everyone,
I am a Student of Architecture,i am writing my Architecural dissertation on the "Exploration of Architectural Concepts in modern day science fiction helping architects imagine futuristic cities".I need you guys to suggest me some great science fiction/dystopian novels with something to do with architecture and no alien invasions stuff.Suggest anything,it would be a great help. Lets explore this topic together

I think you're going to have difficulty finding SF novels that both describe interesting architectural concepts without aliens or some kind of conflict. An obvious example is "Dune" which has varied architectural styles, or the Warhammer 40K hive cities.

To my knowledge, at least one influential SF author (Bruce Sterling) has been involved in architectural futurism.

But assuming you're looking for stuff written for an audience which isn't particularly interested in architecture, the subgenre sometimes called hard SF* which is concerned with speculation about the future rather than fantastical stuff may be of interest.
A famous example: Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson features among many other things (it's a largish book) characters involved in designing and building first bases and then urban environments on Mars. It also features quite a few crackpot theories and some arguments about the interaction between psychology/sociability and habitat as well as descriptions of non-residentials feats of engineering.
Lots of works in that subgenre have at least descriptions of massive feats of engineering and construction machinery if not characters actually involved in designing buildings. Authors are often interested in how stuff might be designed under different environmental constrainsts than the ones we are familiar with: low/zero gravity, thin/no atmosphere, lack of sunlight (for protection against radiation) and so forth.
For various reasons, most concept-heavy SF is short fiction rather than book-length works. I know this isn't what you requested but perhaps you might be interested in checking anthologies dedicated to the subgenre. Some of the ones edited by Jonathan Strahan would qualify for instance. Maybe there even is an anthology dedicated to futuristic construction or urbanism out there.
In any case, there's a whole lot of SF that tangentially involves a little architecture, especially if spaceship interiors qualify. If you'd care to specify further what exactly you're looking for or tell us how the works you tried so far were lacking relative to your needs, perhaps I could recommend a few titles.

*beware though: some people will call anything including the most pulpy alien invasion stuff hard SF as long as it features tech porn

Also, I found this when searching for a title I half-remembered before thinking about Red Mars: https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads...
Search and you shall find...

The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne might be one that you'd want to look into. The plot centers around a floating "bridge" across the Arabian Sea that harvests energy and also acts as a refuge and trail for people on the run.

Also, it's more a blend of genre than straight-up SFF, but Perdido Street Station is extremely focused on the city of New Crobuzon, which has a lot of interesting and creative architecture, but probably not something that modern architects would want to emulate...

Anika wrote: "Hello everyone,
I am a Student of Architecture,i am writing my Architecural dissertation on the "Exploration of Architectural Concepts in modern day science fiction helping architects imagine futur..."

If you want to pm me with your email address and book format preference I will send you a copy of my book 'The Fence' . It contains passing references to a few architectural concepts and materials, only one of which currently exists in a more modest form (to my knowledge!) And - no aliens!

Or... saving you some time, I could cut and paste a few relevant pages.

I would suggest the "Bridge Trilogy" by William Gibson consisting of Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties. The first and third books center around the Golden Gate Bridge, which has become an improvised favela but interesting details regarding futuristic notions of urbanism abound in all three novels. Gibson's original vision for the Bridge was as a vignette called "Skinner's Room" which he wrote for Visionary San Francisco, a 1990 museum exhibition exploring the future of San Francisco. You can find the text of it here and there on the web.

I would also recommend Queen of Angels by Greg Bear, which envisions a hyper-urbanized and ultra-wired Los Angeles.

Here's the text of "Skinner's Room" on Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Bz1...

RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA by Arthur C. Clarke has a magnificently designed space world. On a totally different tack, Dorthy Sayers wrote a play ZEAL OF THIY HOUSE about the architect who built Canterbury Cathedral.

The title character of China Mountain Zhang is training to become an architect. There's one section dealing with his design training which was very interesting I thought.

What a great idea! I would second Rendezvous with Rama, and would add, if dystopian is, as you mentioned, okay, The Wool/ Silo series, as well as Sand both by the same author). The Deaths Gate Saga by Weis also has detailed descriptions of the seven worlds it contains, including sleeping conditions, methods of transportation, building types and general city organization.

The one that pops into my mind first is Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds ... only the bizarre architecture in that one was the result of an alien nanovirus, not human (or alien) planning.

It certainly fits the dystopian element mentioned in the OP.

About a year ago there was an issue of Engineering News - Record that included a number of science fiction short stories that featured architecture and engineering.

I found it.
ENR (Engineering News-Record)
November 4th, 2013 enr.com
Imagining the Future - Ten Construction Science Fiction stories from the readers of ENR.