On my radar: Amanda Levete's cultural highlights

Stirling prize-winning architect Amanda Levete trained at the Architectural Association and worked with Richard Rogers before joining Future Systems as a partner in 1989. She designed the shimmering carapace of Selfridges in Birmingham and thespace-age media centre at Lord's cricket ground. In 2009, she founded Amanda Levete Architects, where commissions have included the Victoria & Albert Museum extension. Next month Levete is taking part in the American Hardwood Export Council and Benchmark's The Wish List in which 10 designers create something in response to the question, "What have you always wanted in your home, but never been able to find?". The pieces will be exhibited at the V&A from 13-21 September as part of the London design festival.

Design: Transat Chair

Inspired by the deck chairs on a transatlantic liner – hence the name – Eileen Gray's chair in the V&A furniture gallery is like architecture in miniature. Every piece of the chair is doing exactly what it should. A sycamore frame supports the slung leather and chrome joints hold it all together. It makes me think of a languid afternoon in the Mediterranean looking out to sea, suggestive of sensualism and relaxation, lying back and reflecting.

Book: A Spy Among Friends

Ben McIntyre's biography shines a fascinating light on the cold war era. It reminds us how technology has fundamentally changed our modus operandi, yet the impossibility of ever truly knowing another remains eternal. This psychodrama reads more like a novel than a piece of historical research. It's hard to believe the antics and depth of subterfuge, and we learn that news footage from Kim Philby's press conference to confirm his "untruthful" innocence is still used as a training tool by MI6!

Building: Parrish Art Museum

I just came back from holiday in New York where I visited Herzog and de Meuron's Parrish Art Museum, a beautiful interpretation of Long Island vernacular and the artist's studio. It's so simple: two long top-lit barns with a wooden roof and raw concrete walls joined in the middle and set in a wild meadow. The architecture is the thing, not the content.

Park: Kensington Gardens

I've been running here since I was a student. You can take in a show at the Serpentine Gallery, wander the Italian gardens with their fountains, watch the model sailing boats being raced on the round pond and see the fabulous Henry Moore sculpture. Even though it's no longer my local park, I still go there for a run on Sunday mornings. Parks are one of London's greatest assets and Kensington Gardens is for me the most special.

Art: Building the Picture

This exhibition at the National Gallery on the nature of architecture in Italian Renaissance painting has many parallels with contemporary practice. The passage through a building, across multiple thresholds, is how we create narrative in architecture. Thresholds mark a moment of transition: they can be lengthened or shortened. And all are played out in the paintings.

Film: Boyhood

Richard Linklater's extraordinary trilogy that began with Before Sunrise has been surpassed by Boyhood. An intensely moving homage to growing up and parenting, the smallest details have as much poignancy as the main events. You feel as if you are inside the film rather than a voyeur.