"Glass is both a substance and an ideology." - Francois Roche

Words to write a book by and Engineered Transparency: The Technical, Visual, and Spatial Effects of Glass is the book. This one is for the architects, as it concerns itself primarily with glass as a building material and cultural phenomena. "Engineered Transparency brings together an extraordinary multidisciplinary group of international architects engineers manufacturers and critics to collectively reconsider glass within the context of recent engineering and structural achievements. In light of these advancements glass has reemerged as a novel architectural material offering new and previously unimaginable modes of visual pleasure and spatial experience."

Projects featured include SANAA's Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, Yoshio Taniguchi's MoMA expansion in New York City and Steven Holl's Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. With contributions by noted thinkers in the field of architecture and design including historians Kenneth Frampton Antoine Picon and Detlef Mertins; cultural critics Beatriz Colomina Joan Ockman and Reinhold Martin; engineers Werner Sobek Guy Nordenson and Richard Tomasetti; and architects Kazuyo Sejima, Steven Holl and Elizabeth Diller. "Engineered Transparency redefines glass as a 21st century building material and challenges our assumptions about its aesthetic structural and spatial potential."

And it could be yours, we're giving away our copy of the book. We will randomly select a commenter or twitterer on Friday and send them the book. Please leave a comment here with what you see right now outside your window. It's available at Amazon for $40.95 where you can also Look Inside.

UPDATE: @_plasmo_ in Melbourne, AUS is the random pick - she gets the Engineered Transparency book. Thanks to all who replied and commented! And special thanks to Princeton Architectural Press who will also be sending a copy to Architecture for Humanity.

More blog posts from H20Visions, a website sponsored by Kohler with a focus on smart sustainable design, where I've also been blogging for several weeks now. Clockwise from upper left; Designer Vinyl Figures Made of Wood, from the whimsical world of Carrara Island whose inhabitants could easily succeed as designer vinyl toys, but are actually made of wood, Affordable Sustainable, Chun-wei Liao's Transformer collection is a modular cardboard system that, true to its name, can be made into anything from a pendant light to sit down furniture, Self-sufficient Buildings, award-winning Philips Design probe project 'Off the Grid - Sustainable Habitat 2020′ explores new ways of developing sustainable housing, and Used Shades + Vintage Fabric = New (Fendi) Clutch Bags, yep, Fendi bags made of recycled venetian blinds. See all the posts here.

We got one too many a tote at New York Design Week, so we're giving one away. It's a copper colored Tom Dixon tote bag like the ones they had in Milan two weeks ago. Please leave a comment here with where you are right now (ie, in the office, at the coffee shop, on the dentist's chair reading blogs with your iPhone). We will randomly select a commenter or twitterer on Friday and send them the tote.

That Comet lamp that Tom Dixon mentions in our interview, we're giving one away. We'll choose a commenter or Twitter follower at random on Friday at midnite EST. All you have to do is leave a comment here or send us a reply via Twitter and tell us what city & country you are in. That's it.

UPDATE: @adnanio in Sharjah, UAE is the random pick - he gets Tom Dixon's Comet lamp. Thanks to all who replied and commented!

Congrats to Misha the experts at YLighting have chosen your room to light up (above with Tripode floor lamp inset).

Here's what Misha submitted for our YLighting My Room giveaway; "I live in a converted rag factory that is now a loft, on the outskirts of downtown LA. I recently built this wood wall from walnut flooring, I love the look, but it really sucks up the light. I have a huge backlog of New Yorkers piling up, and the only explanation for that must be the lack of a lamp to read by."

Per YLighting; "We made this pick because of all the submissions, this is the one that seemed most needy in terms of lighting. The dark walnut is beautiful, but as the submitter points out, it sucks up a lot of light, as does the dark sofa. It does not seem there is any other lighting source close by and nor any windows adjacent to the area. The selection of the Tripode will afford much needed general illumination of that area of the loft as well as a functional light for reading."

Thank you to all who submitted. More giveaways to follow.

Via Twitter: Giveaway: tell us what your favorites were from Milan'09, reply via Twitter and one lucky @'r will get ADC's YoungGuns6

You can also leave a comment here with your Milan '09 pick. Click here for more info on Moleskine/ADC Young Guns 6 Annual/The Undiscovered Letter the book. Deadline to submit your Milan'09 favorite is tomorrow at midnight PST.