What is the future of architecture? Such a question grows more compelling the more we think about cities as vast networks in which infrastructure and sustainability are two sides of a very complicated dynamic, and the way we build teaches important lessons about who we are.

Not only that, suggests Marc Kushner in "The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings" (TED/Simon & Schuster, $16.99, 176 pages), but "the world's 1.75 billion smartphones are fundamentally changing the way architecture is consumed."

... Yes, consumed ... for part of Kushner's point is that architecture is (or should be) not just practical but aesthetic: art with which we interact.