Dwelling on Earth architecture book, The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home, Stefan Al architect
Dwelling on Earth Architecture Publication
4 March 2026
Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home
Stefan Al | W. W. Norton & Company | April 22, 2026
From the architect and urban-planning scholar behind Supertall comes this sweeping history of humanity’s most fundamental creation—the home—and its effects on the land, cities, and people themselves.
Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home
Americans spend, on average, 90 percent of their lives indoors, with two-thirds of that time spent in their homes. Globally, the construction and maintenance of residential buildings account for a staggering portion of carbon emissions. In this timely and fascinating work, architect and urban-planning scholar Stefan Al deftly weaves together archaeology, engineering, social history, and environmental science to explain how our homes have developed through the ages and in turn shaped civilization and the planet itself.
Village of Çatalhöyük, Turkey, ca. 6700 BC:
Illustration by Dave Dugas
From tiny pit-houses in the Levant and Mesoamerica thousands of years ago to soaring skyscrapers in Dubai, New York, and Shanghai today, Dwelling on Earth takes readers on a swift and absorbing tour of the evolution of human habitation. Whisking readers from ancient Pompeii to contemporary Hong Kong, industrial-age Liverpool to postwar Levittown, Al shows how our choices in housing have both reflected and affected ideas about gender roles, privacy, and comfort. Discover how seemingly mundane elements—like door-knockers and corridors—have altered everyday interactions, and how material choices have remade the planet’s surface. He also confronts the darker side of domesticity, exposing the unintended consequences of our architectural choices across millennia, including smoke-filled Neolithic dwellings, deadly fires in crowded Roman apartment buildings, and worsening social isolation in car-dependent suburbs. Finally, he examines the myths and reality of future housing, including 3D-printed homes and space architecture built by robots.
Bosco Verticale, Milan, Stefano Boeri Architetti, 2014:
illustration : Dave Dugas
Drawing from personal experiences across global cities and professional insights, Al illuminates how our choices in housing continue to influence everything from social relationships to climate change, ultimately arguing that understanding this rich history is crucial for building a more sustainable future. With billions more people needing housing in the coming decades, Dwelling on Earth reveals how we might transform humanity’s defining challenge into our greatest opportunity.
Publication Information
Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home
Stefan Al
W. W. Norton & Company
320 pages | 6 × 9 in
Illustrations by Dave Dugas
Hardcover | ISBN 978-1-324-06572-2 | $31.99
Publication date: April 22, 2026
Available from W. W. Norton and all major booksellers.
About the Author
Stefan Al is a New York-licensed architect, tenured professor, and the author and editor of ten books. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and he has appeared on CNN, NPR, and the Science Channel. A former TED Resident, he has designed buildings and masterplans worldwide, including the 2,000-foot Canton Tower — briefly the world’s tallest structure.
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Prior Praise for Stefan Al and Supertall (W. W. Norton, 2022)
“A thoughtful inquiry into the new generations of skyscrapers… There is a lot of rich history here, well and concisely told.”
— Paul Goldberger, New York Times Book Review
“Gripping… Al explains these esoteric technical challenges in lucid fashion.”
— Anthony Paletta, Wall Street Journal
“Stefan Al turns the jumbled skylines of our biggest cities into a powerful story of human possibility… this astonishing synthesis reveals how skyscrapers have made us who we are and can help us become who we want to be.”
— Andrew Blum, bestselling author of Tubes and The Weather Machine
“A fascinating and necessary book.”
— Gwendolyn Wright, Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
“Fascinating and extraordinarily worthwhile.”
— John Tammy, Forbes
Dwelling on Earth architecture book images / information received 040326
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Richard Neutra and the Making of the Lovell Health House, 1925-35
photo © Grant Mudford
Rem Koolhaas / OMA + AMO Source Books in Architecture 14
Managing Energy Use in Modern Buildings: Case Studies in Conservation Practice
The Handbook of Urban Morphology
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