Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect and scholar, as well as the founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). PAU designs architecture meant to build up the physical, cultural, and economic networks of cities, with an emphasis on beauty, function, and user experience. PAU simultaneously advances strategic urbanism projects in the forms of master planning, tactical project advice, and advocacy. Chakrabarti is currently an Associate Professor of Practice at Columbia University?s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP). In 2013, Chakrabarti authored A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, arguing that well-designed cities are the ultimate key to solving America’s great national challenges. For his next chapter, Chakrabarti will become the new dean of the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design beginning in July 2020. Today Vishaan is sharing five things that make his life better in Friday Five. Photo courtesy uInterview
1. Leica M-Series Rangefinders

As a boy, my dream was to be a war photographer for Magnum or Black Star and jump out of planes with my Leica to capture what legendary photographer Henri-Cartier Bresson called ?the decisive moment.? My two Leica rangefinders ? film and digital ? now help me to read the cities in which we design our buildings, with lenses that blow my mind in terms of sharpness and bokeh. Never did jump out of planes, but pursuing great architecture can sometimes feel like war.
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