An investigation into how place and context affects critical design development in an architectural site related programme. Architects were shortlisted for this project for their particular (and sometimes contrasting) modes of working with site specificity within European and American contemporary architectural practice. All the architects selected are working at an international level within their field and display a high level of intelligence and sensibility within their designs.This book offers the reader a chance to understand the deeper thinking of the individual interviewees. This insight can enhance significantly an appreciation of some of the key issues in contemporary architectural practice today.The reader gains an intimate portrait of the concerns, thoughts and feelings of these architects as they reflect on their own practice in the midst of their working challenges and successes. It reveals a more intricate individually nuanced reading of site, meaning and context. It offers the reader a series of studies in the form of interviews which should inspire future and current architects to consider issues of context in greater depth.