Theory of architecture Books

Book SynopsisArchitecture that is meant to have a sensuous connection to life calls forthinking that goes far beyond form and construction. In his texts, Peter Zumthor articulates what motivates him to design his buildings, which appeal to the visitor's heart and mind in so many different ways and possess a compelling and unmistakable presence and aura. Now in its third edition, this book has been expanded to include two new essays: „Architecture and Lanscape” deals with the relationship between the structure and its surroundings, with the secret of the successful placement and topographical integration of architecture. In „The Leis Houses”, Peter Zumthor describes the genesis of two wooden houses in the town of Leis in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, thus thematizing the special challenge of integrating contemporary architecture into a traditional architectural context.

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Book SynopsisWhat “really constitutes an architectural atmosphere”? Peter Zumthor says, is “this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty ... under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way.” Zumthor’s passion is the creation of buildings that produce this kind of effect, but how can one actually set out to achieve it? In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Peter Zumthor describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his houses. Images of spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or books that inspire him. From the composition and “presence”‎ of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect of light, this poetics of architecture enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the process of house design.

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Book SynopsisThe standard work on Heino Engel’s structure systems is now available at an attractive price. On the basis of excellent drawings and model photographs, the book examines the various forms of structure systems and explores the relationship between structure system and architectural form in clear and concise prose. In the presentation and explanation of this highly complex discipline, this volume differs fundamentally from other publications on the subject, as the author focuses entirely upon structure systems without regard for the usual technical details. Featured here are typical structure systems and models in lieu of the more commonly treated special designs and completed buildings. As a reference work, the book provides an indispensable repertoire of forms for modern architectural models, summarizing traditional approaches and offering a source of new ideas at the same time.

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Book SynopsisMore than ever, architecture is in need of provocation, a new path beyond the traditional notion that buildings must serve as vessels, or symbols of something outside themselves. Non-Referential Architecture is nothing less than a manifesto for a new architecture. It brings together two leading thinkers, architect Valerio Olgiati and theorist Markus Breitschmid, who have grappled with this problem since their first encounter in 2005. In a world that itself increasingly rejects ideologies of any kind, Olgiati and Breitschmid offer Non-Referential Architecture as a radical, new approach free from rigid ideologies. Non-referential buildings, they argue, are entities that are themselves meaningful outside a vocabulary of fixed symbols and images and their historical connotations. For more than a decade, Olgiati and Breitschmid's thinking has placed them at the forefront of architectural theory. Indispensable for understanding what the future might hold for architecture, Non-Referential Architecture will become a new classic. The book's first edition, published in May 2018 by Simonett & Baer, was sold-out within months. This revised and slightly redesigned new edition makes this key text available again.

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Book SynopsisThe name Montessori is widely and inextricably associated with an entirely child-centered and careful pedagogy and education of children. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was an Italian physician, reform educator, and philosopher whose ideas and work have remained influential throughout the world ever since the 1910s. Her educational concept covers entire development from infancy to young adulthood. It is based on the image of the child as a “builder of his or her self” and therefore uses for the first time the form of open teaching and free work in a prepared learning environment. Montessori schools became trend-setting educational institutions early on, and their concept strongly reflects in their architecture and equipment. Montessori Architecture is the first book that comprehensively addresses architectural design, construction, the use of materials in and the furnishing of educational spaces according to Montessori’s ideas. The book’s first part explores spatial and design principles that make up good kindergarten and school buildings. In the second part, nine case studies are featured in detail through photographs, plans, and concise texts. These examples are located in Europe (Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain) as well as in tropical countries (Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Sir Lanka). Thus, this highly illustrative volume offers practical advice and a wealth of information that is of utmost importance for the design of school buildings in general.

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Book SynopsisFrom one of the world’s top experts on the economics of skyscrapers—a fascinating account of the ever-growing quest for super tall buildings across the globe.The world’s skyscrapers have brought us awe and wonder, and yet they remain controversial—for their high costs, shadows, and overt grandiosity. But, decade by decade, they keep getting higher and higher. What is driving this global building spree of epic proportions? In Cities in the Sky, author Jason Barr explains all: why they appeal to cities and nations, how they get financed, why they succeed economically, and how they change a city’s skyline and enable the world’s greatest metropolises to thrive in the 21st century. From the Empire State Building (1,250 feet) to the Shanghai Tower (2,073 feet) and everywhere in between, Barr explains the unique architectural and engineering efforts that led to the creation of each. Along the way, Barr visits and unpack

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Book Synopsis"‘Truth and Lies in Architecture’ delves deep into the soul of architects and their work." — Naser Nader Ibrahim, Amazing Architecture This is a collection of provocative essays that journey into the vexed circumstance of contemporary architectural practice. The nature of the great cultural, social, political, environmental, and consumerist challenges facing the contemporary architect are explored, interpreted, and questioned, while drawing connections from architecture theory, philosophy, science, literature, and film sources in an attempt to negotiate the territory between the truth and lies in architecture. These essays written by a leading Australian architect represent a level of comprehensive critical awareness rarely found within the architectural profession and one would be hard pressed to find another comparable figure in contemporary architectural practice. The entire argumentation is impressive, challenging, intellectually at the highest level and beautifully written.Trade Review"‘Truth and Lies in Architecture’ delves deep into the soul of architects and their work." - Naser Nader Ibrahim, Amazing Architecture

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Book SynopsisPeter Eisenman-world-famous for his Holocaust Memorial in Berlin (2005)-confronts historicism with theory and the analysis of form, whose distinguishing features he regards as the foundation of architectural composition. The architect illustrates his observations with numerous, extremely precise hand drawings. Eisenman wrote The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture, his dissertation, in 1963 at the University of Cambridge. The dissertation was first published as a facsimile edition by Lars Muller Publishers in 2006. The original content of the publication is now available again-the book is reprinted in a smaller format. "I knew what I wanted to write," Eisenman says of the dissertation. "An analytic work that related what I had learned to see, from Palladio to Terragni, from Raphael to Guido Reni, into some theoretical construct that would bear on modern architecture, but from the point of view of a certain autonomy of form." Hence the title of his research.

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Book SynopsisUrban Grids: Handbook for Regular City Design is the result of a five-year design research project undertaken by professor Joan Busquets and Dingliang Yang at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The research that is the foundation for this publication emphasises the value of open forms for city design, a publication that specifically insists that the grid has the unique capacity to absorb and channel urban transformation flexibly and productively. Urban Grids analyses cities and urban projects that utilise the grid as the main structural device for allowing rational development, and goes further to propose speculative design projects capable of suggesting new urban paradigms drawn from the grid as a design tool. Text in Spanish.

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Book SynopsisPhilosophy exercises a massive influence on contemporary architectural culture and the understanding of the built environment. Discussions of architects and architectural academics are heavily loaded with theoretical ideas, concepts and views imported from the works of philosophers. At the same time this architectural employment of philosophy rarely goes beyond the tendency to mine philosophical works for ideas, words and phrases and use them, often without much understanding, in order to promote architectural agendas and embellish theoretical claims made by architects and academics. The book presents the history of this phenomenon for the past 100 years. It describes and analyses numerous, often funny, entertaining as well as embarrassing, examples of false intellectual pretence and pompous but incompetent philosophical posturing by prominent architects and architectural academics of the era and their efforts to bamboozle readers, colleagues and the general public. The book presents a powerful criticism of modernist views on architecture and argues that the rise of obfuscation and philosophical posturing among architects and architectural academics is a defensive strategy intended to draw attention away from the failure of Modernism in architecture.

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Book SynopsisLars Spuybroek is Professor of Architectural Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA. He is the author of NOX: Machining Architecture (2004), The Architecture of Continuity (2008), Research & Design: The Architecture of Variation (2009) and Research & Design: Textile Tectonics (2011). He is an award-winning architect with his practice NOX.Trade Review... exhilarating to watch elements of Ruskin's thought being taken on ... The Sympathy of Things is energetic, well written and full of examples. -- Matthew Reynolds * Times Literary Supplement *This is a dazzling, provocative, baffling, and sometimes vexing manifesto. The Sympathy of Things is an unforgettable book. * Carlyle Studies Annual *The term 'brilliant' is often misused in reviews, but the opening chapter on 'the digital nature of gothic' is truly scintillating. * Architectural Research Quarterly *Hundreds of threads that make an astonishingly rich tapestry ... Ruskin has at last found an interpreter with the breadth of learning and a poetic imagination to make his perceptions relevant to our own day. * Architectural Review *The author envisions a radical future for design and technology ... This book is undoubtedly a rich and original source of ideas for anyone across the many disciplines that increasingly care about materiality in the past, present or future. * Theory, Culture & Society *In this remarkable study, Spuybroek treats us to an astonishingly fresh upgrade of John Ruskin, who ends up no longer inhabiting an antique past but talks to us directly. Spuybroeck shows how Ruskin's aesthetic actually works, cutting through clouds of vagueness to get at a wonderfully algorithmic, procedural tactics with limpid clarity. But there's much more: something like a distinctive ontology emerges when we study Ruskin this way. This ontology radically decenters the human from its meaning-making position in the cosmos, allowing all kinds of other entities to show up without the usual visas and interrogations. What results is truly an ecology of things, making Ruskin sharply relevant for our age. * Professor Timothy Morton, Rita Shea Chair in English, Rice University, USA *The Sympathy of Things is a stirring call to action; an amazing reconstruction of the ideas of the Victorian sage John Ruskin; and, above all, a visionary look at the inner life of things. Lars Spuybroek makes the case that aesthetics is first philosophy, and proposes a radical new aesthetics for the digital age. -- Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English at Wayne State University, USAIf Spuybroek, like Ruskin, does not shake your design and aesthetic concepts, you haven’t understood him. -- Charles JencksThe Sympathy of Things is an astonishing and visionary work. I have never before come across a book so brimming with insight, written with such feeling, and so keenly in touch with life. Ostensibly a meditation on the oeuvre of John Ruskin, what Lars Spuybroek offers us is an intoxicating meditation on art, architecture and design that soars above the ponderous deadweight of thing-theory to luxuriate in the unruly and exuberant proliferation of the things themselves. * Professor Tim Ingold, Chair of Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen *Table of ContentsForeword Preface 1. The Digital Nature of Gothic 2. The Matter of Ornament 3. Abstraction and Sympathy 4. The Radical Picturesque 5. The Ecology of Design Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe terms 'analogue architecture' and 'oldnew architecture' are key aspects of the teaching of Miroslav Sik at the ETH Zurich. During his first period there (1983-1991), Sik worked as Senior Assistant at the Chair of Fabio Reinhart and was in effect the spokesman of an architectural movement that became renowned far beyond the borders of Switzerland and is still influential today. In 1986/1991, the compact movement presented itself to the public with a touring exhibition and an accompanying large-scale 'Swiss Box', including chalk perspective drawings of its projects. Miroslav Sik worked as a Full Professor at the ETH Zurich between 1999 and 2018 during his second period there. Since the 1990s, Sik's theory and teaching have formed an important pillar of Swiss and international architectural history. This extensive volume contains the best 90/120 works respectively by students from both periods of Miroslav Sik's teaching, including plans, project descriptions and perspective diagrams. Some of the presented students went on to become renowned contemporary Swiss architects. This volume also includes the most important manifesto-like texts by Miroslav Sik and enlightening essays on the movement of analogue and oldnew architecture.

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Book SynopsisBeloved and contemplated by philosophers, architects, writers, and literary theorists alike, this book examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself.Trade ReviewPraise for Gaston Bachelard:"[Bachelard] is neither a self-confessed and tortured atheist like Satre, nor, like Chardin, a heretic combining a belief in God with a proficiency in modern science. But, within the French context, he is almost as important as they are because he has a pseudo-religious force, without taking a stand on religion. To define him as briefly as possible – he is a philosopher, with a professional training in the sciences, who devoted most of the second phase of his career to promoting that aspect of human nature which often seems most inimical to science: the poetic imagination ..."– J.G. Weightman, The New York Times Review of Books"[Bachelard] reminds me of skilled chess players who take the biggest pieces with pawns."-Michel Foucault (trans.)Praise for Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves:"Any hope or fear that the experimental novel was an aberration of the twentieth century is dashed by the appearance of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, the first major experimental novel of the new millennium. And it's a monster. Dazzling."-Washington Post Book World"An intricate, erudite, and deeply frightening book." - The Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisA collection of writings that sets out Kengo Kuma's theories of architecture, but also a left field critique of where the architecture world finds itself today. Kengo Kuma is one of Japan's leading architects and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo. Widely known as a prolific writer and philosopher, he proposes architecture that opens up new relationships between nature, technology and human beings. Through a series of thought-provoking essays, he unveils his vision of architecture as a dynamic interplay between tradition and innovation, critiquing the megastructures and capitalist influences of the 20th century and challenging readers to reconsider the role of architecture in shaping our world. Drawing from diverse disciplines including art history, philosophy and literature, Kuma crafts a narrative that transcends the boundaries of traditional architectural theory, presenting a compelling manifesto for a new era of design one that dismantles hard concrete volumes into points, lines and planes that celebrate the simplicity and sustainability of human connection.

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Book SynopsisMichael Sorkin's iconic list is now in a handsome printed package, a perfect gift for any architect, student of architecture, or design-savvy urbanist. By turns poetic and humorous, practical and wise, this book is a joyful celebration of the craft of architecture. A posthumous book by critic, architect, urban theorist, and educator, Michael Sorkin (1948-2020), 250 Things An Architect Should Know is filled with details that architects love to obsess over, from the expected (golden ratio and the seismic code) to the unexpected (the heights of folly and the prismatic charms of Greek islands.)

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Book SynopsisInscriptions: Architecture Before Speech presents a theory of contemporary architecture that spans the work of 112 practices in 750 images. Against the popular characterization of contemporary architecture as a centerless field where anything goes and everything is possible, this book argues that much recent work belongs to a collective undertaking. Underneath the impression of kaleidoscopic difference produced by the rapid circulation of design images is a shared mechanism, an agreement about how architectural objects emerge from the procedures of design. This mechanism, which we call inscription, manages to both offer fundamentally intelligible form to architecture’s audiences and advance the field toward novel outcomes. The ensuing work is nothing less than democratically optimistic in its wide appeal and challenging in its cuts against convention.Featuring essays by Catherine Ingraham, Lucia Allais, Stan Allen, Phillip Denny, Edward Eigen, Sylvia Lavin, Antoine Picon, and Marrikka Trotter, Inscriptions offers a broad array of critical perspectives on work that defines architecture’s second decade of the twenty-first century.

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Book SynopsisArchitecture, Film, and the In-Between: Spatio-Cinematic Betwixt brings together some of the most prominent thinkers in contemporary architectural discourses with an investigation of the filmic imagination of architectural in-betweenness, as well as the in-between spaces within the architectural structure of filmic expression. 32 col illus.

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Book SynopsisIn With Reference, Soo Chan of SCDA explores the fundamentals of architecture - going back to inspirations and precedents, examining basic building blocks and core values - in search of a universal spatial vocabulary for contemporary practice. As practice becomes increasingly globalised and fragmented, the applied design language has to absorb nuances of climate, craft, culture, and place. Through a rich diagrammatic analysis of seminal projects by SCDA as well as masters of architecture around the world, With Reference argues for the revival of a rule-based design language.

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Book SynopsisA manual, monograph, and call to action, Toward an Urban Ecology points to the future of landscape architecture's role in making resilient, sustainable, and community-oriented spaces. Kate Orff, 2017 MacArthur Fellow, has an optimistic and transformative message about our world: we can bring together social and ecological systems to sustainably remake our cities and landscapes. Part monograph, part manual, part manife­sto, Toward an Urban Ecology reconceives urban landscape design as a form of activism, demonstrating how to move beyond familiar and increasingly outmoded ways of thinking about environmental, urban, and social issues as separate domains; and advocating for the synthesis of practice to create a truly urban ecology. In purely practical terms, SCAPE has already generated numerous tools and techniques that designers, policy makers, and communities can use to address some of the most pressing issues of our time, including the loss of biodiversity, the loss of social cohesion, and ecological degradation. Toward an Urban Ecology features numerous projects and select research from SCAPE, and conveys a range of strategies to engender a more resilient and inclusive built environment.Trade Review"Those familiar with landscape architecture and urban design today are no doubt already aware of the originality of this practice and would likely expect this book - part manual, part manifesto, and part monograph - to follow suit. The book’s ambition is nothing short of reconceiving urban landscape design as a form of activism.... SCAPE’s Manufestograph begins to address how we as a discipline can actually effect change. Of all the things this requires—design vision, enabling policies, strategic funding streams, creative partnerships, innovative maintenance strategies, feedback loops, new representation strategies—the most important message this book imparts is the tireless advocacy that change requires, and which SCAPE is able to model. I want to be doing this. We all should be doing this. SCAPE has got something important going. And we have to believe it will make a difference." - Journal of Architectural Education "A beautiful book with engaging full-page color photography that delves into Breakwaters, their Rebuild by Design project in Staten Island, and others." - The Dirt "Kate Orff is an optimistic and creative force in the world of climate adaptive design. Her book is part monograph and part a clarion call for the need of meshing the social and environmental to deal with the future problems of our planet." - Land8 "Cities have multiple connections to the biosphere. Today they are all negative, destructive. This book shows us in great detail and with splendid clarity how we can turn them positive. It goes well beyond standard solutions as it brilliantly explores the biosphere and makes discoveries." - Saskia Sassen, Professor, Columbia University and author of Expulsions "[This book is] a call to action on urban ecology and climate change, with landscape as the principal medium. Kate Orff's Toward an Urban Ecology is a presentation of ground-breaking projects by SCAPE, and the principles and strategies that underlie their success. Human societies cannot successfully mitigate and adapt to the stresses of climate change without a new state of mind, and landscape architects and artists have an essential role to play....required reading for landscape architects." - Anne Whiston Spirn, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of The Granite Garden

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Book SynopsisPart memento mori for architecture, and part invocation to reimagine the design values that lay at the heart of its creative purpose.Buildings, although inanimate, are often assumed to have “life.” And the architect, through the act of design, is assumed to be their conceiver and creator. But what of the “death” of buildings? What of the decay, deterioration, and destruction to which they are inevitably subject? And what might such endings mean for architecture''s sense of itself? In Buildings Must Die, Stephen Cairns and Jane Jacobs look awry at core architectural concerns. They examine spalling concrete and creeping rust, contemplate ruins old and new, and pick through the rubble of earthquake-shattered churches, imploded housing projects, and demolished Brutalist office buildings. Their investigation of the death of buildings reorders architectural notions of creativity, reshapes architecture''s preoccupation with good form, loosens its vanit

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Book SynopsisMeeting children as equals is not only a question of pedagogical attitude. Designing Spaces for Children shows how architecture and interior design can promote childhood development. Based on historical and current concepts of progressive education, the book sketches design principles for building daycare centers and schools that can also be transferred to other spaces, such as pediatric clinics. Rooms can invite discovery; they can promote communication and social interaction, strengthen self-confidence, and be places of retreat or landscapes for play. For years, the Berlin architectural firm baukind has been creatively balancing the strict legal requirements and architectural possibilities of architecture suitable for children—always with a view to children’s needs. The book presents realized projects, such as the Kita Weltenbummler in Berlin, and aims to foster the equal involvement of children in the design of our environment.

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Book SynopsisThis work explores the social and cultural hierarchies established in 18th-century France to illustrate how the conceptual basis of the modern house and the physical layout of the modern city emerged from debates among theoretically innovative French architects of the 18th-century.Table of ContentsIllustrations Illustration Credits Preface Acknowledgments 1: Paris: The Image of the City 2: Revolutionary Space 3: Character and Design Method 4: The Neoclassical Interlude 5: The System of the Home 6: Landscapes of Eternity 7: The Space of Absence Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBuilding Theories speaks to the value of words in architecture. It addresses the author's fascination with the voices of architects, engineers, builders, and craftspeople whose ideas about building have been captured in text. It discusses the content of treatises, essays, articles, and letters by those who have been, throughout history, committed to the art of building. In this, Building Theories argues for the return of a practice of architectural theory that is set amongst building, buildings, and builders. This journey of close reading reinterprets the words of Vitruvius, Alberti, de L'Orme, Le Camus de Mézières, Boullée, Laugier, Rondelet, Semper, Viollet-le-Duc, Hübsch, Bötticher, Berlage, Muthesius, Wagner, Behrendt, Gropius, and Arup. With chapters dedicated to texts from antiquity, the Renaissance, and the nineteenth century, and with a critical eye on architectural theory popularized in the Anglo-Saxon world post-1968, readers are introduced to a wider,Trade Review"Trubiano reminds us that it is precisely the serial historic identity crisis of the architect around the irreconcilable meeting of thought and material that is architecture’s shapeshifting impetus for renewal. In a moment when architectural imagination around the becoming-of-things is more critical than ever, she navigates the minefield of past moralism, zealotry, despair and naïve hope with not another disciplinarian rappel a l’ordre, but an inspired coaxing of every architect, no matter how estranged from matter, back into the fray of the building site where materials feature as nature’s protagonists in the drama of construction. With cunning and rigour Trubiano exposes the opposition of text and material as false in order to harness anew the transformative power of making and its mutuality."Francesca Hughes, author of The Architecture of Error: Matter, Measure and the Misadventures of PrecisionTable of Contents1. Thinking through Building 2. Building and the Treatise 3. Architect as Builder and Thinker 4. Matter(s) Hidden in Plain Sight 5. Lost in Translation 6. From Aesthetics to Ethics, and back 7. Design and Construction - Walter Gropius and Ove Arup 8. The Composite Mind Re-Builds Theory Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisChristopher Alexander is a Vienna-born, British-American architect and theorist and the father of the pattern language movement, popularised in his pivotal 1968 book, A Pattern Language, with Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, as well as the 1979 follow-up, The Timeless Way of Building. Lesser known but as essential to understanding Alexander's work is his theory of 'systems generating systems' which explains that systems as a whole are created by 'generating systems', and, if we wish to make things which function as 'wholes', we shall have to invent generating systems to create them. Taking the Eishin Campus outside Tokyo, built between 1983 and 1989, as its example, Shifting Patterns is the first book to examine Alexander's theory of 'systems generating systems' and its application to a building design. It brings together essays from an interdisciplinary, international cast of experts, including Eva Guttmann, Gabriele Kaiser, Ernst Beneder, Walter Ruprechter, Hisae Hosoi, Christian Kuhn, Ida Pristinger, and Norihito Nakatani, as well as conversations with Hajo Neis and Takaharu Tezuka to investigate the application of this theory to the school and university complex, the largest project Alexander has realised based on pattern language. Among the issues discussed are topicality, interdisciplinary and internationality, and culture transfer. The essays also look at the design-build movement as an antithesis to today's standardised and commerce-driven architectural production.

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Book SynopsisArchitecture is commonplace. We inhabit it and use it; it is constantly present; it serves as foreground and background and usually has a story to tell. Numerous volumes are devoted to its typology, history, construction, and design. But apart from its most illustrious makers, we know almost nothing about the people who conceived it: the architects. What Kind of Architect Are You?, the question most architects encounter when they reveal their profession, is difficult to answer. What Kind of Architect Are You? showcases a panoply of architectural practices to a reading audience that shares an interest in the profession. Topics range from the theoretical to design build, from installations that challenge our preconceptions to the set of TV shows on home remodelling, from instructing future architects in the US to expanding the reach of the profession worldwide. The collection offers a glimpse into a vast array of professional possibilities and points out meaningful alternatives to the prevailing myth of the 'starchitect'. It provides those in search of an architect with insights into how we work and helps them to formulate expectations. It challenges practitioners to think introspectively and examine how they fit into the architectural spectrum. And finally, the collection documents the cross-section of cultural and architectural practice across America. The reader may find that the 'voice' varies throughout the collection. That variation is consistent with the variety of architects included in fact, it underscores the myriad of responses to What Kind of Architect Are You?

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Book SynopsisThe first art book containing the work of Spanish photographers Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda. For Anna and Daniel, every unique story needs a unique location to be told in. Luckily for them, there are plenty of beautiful places on our planet waiting to be discovered. Set in all sorts of real-life environments, their images do not only celebrate constructions all over the world but also the cities they were built in. In ‘Happytecture’, Anna and Daniel challenge us to look at the immediate world around us in a way we’ve never seen it before, unfolding the hidden beauty of street elements such as doors, windows and other urban vernacular to which we might tend not to give a second look. The result is a visual love letter to architecture and urban design that is both personal and relatable.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of essays by architect Mario Gooden investigates the construction of African American identity and representation through the medium of architecture. These five texts move between history, theory, and criticism to explore a discourse of critical spatial practice engaged in the constant reshaping of the African Diaspora. African American cultural institutions designed and constructed in recent years often rely on cultural stereotypes, metaphors, and cliches to communicate significance, demonstrating "Africanisms" through form and symbolism-but there is a far richer and more complex heritage to be explored. Presented here is a series of questions that interrogate and illuminate other narratives of "African American architecture," and reveal compelling ways of translating the philosophical idea of the African Diaspora's experience into space.

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Book SynopsisExplores the unexpected perceptual consequences of architecture.Trade Review"Arnheim was the best kind of romantic. His wisdom, his patient explanations and lyrical enthusiasm are those of a teacher." * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisDesign thinking is a powerful process that facilitates understanding and framing of problems, enables creative solutions, and may provide fresh perspectives on our physical and social landscapes. Not just for architects or product developers, design thinking can be applied across many disciplines to solve real-world problems and reconcile dilemmas. It is a tool that may trigger inspiration and the imagination, and lead to innovative ideas that are responsive to the needs and issues of stakeholders.Design Thinking: A Guide to Creative Problem Solving for Everyone will assist in addressing a full spectrum of challenges from the most vexing to the everyday. It renders accessible the creative problem-solving abilities that we all possess by providing a dynamic framework and practical tools for thinking imaginatively and critically. Every aspect of design thinking is explained and analyzed together with insights on navigating through the process.Application of designTrade Review"Andrew Pressman’s exemplary new book is an accessible, readable, and eminently usable introduction to design thinking. The book encourages individual experimentation and flexibility, empowering readers to make the design thinking process their own." — Marilys R. Nepomechie, FAIA, ACSA Distinguished Professor, Florida International UniversityTable of ContentsPart 1: Processes 1. Design Thinking Overview 2. Building Blocks of Design Thinking 3. Tools and Strategies Part 2: Applications 4. Politics and Society 5. Business 6. Health and Science 7. Law 8. Writing Index

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Book SynopsisBuilding is one of very few endeavours that are physically connected to the surface of the earth, fixed and enduring. Nevertheless, for centuries, especially in the West, we have considered ourselves separate and above nature, drifting away, defining our own systems and order, and using the ground as a nothing more than a passive foundation. Other times we sought connection, drawing on nature for ritual and religion, fortified protection, and ecological balance. This global compendium of nearly 1,400 pages brings architecture back in harmony with Earth’s surface. For years, Bjarne Mastenbroek and his architectural firm, SeARCH, have delved into the relationship architecture has, had, and will have with its surroundings, seeing buildings as landscapes that fit into their site without dominating or disturbing it. For Dig It!, they have dug deep into the history of building culture and brought to light fascinating examples of this philosophy—some well known, some previously overlooked. From African churches chiseled from rock and Chinese villages dug into terrains to Parisian housing vibrantly overgrown and a villa built into the cliffs of Capri (famously featured in the film Le Mépris starring Brigitte Bardot), this book dissects structures from the past millennia. Part atlas, part encyclopedia, it highlights traditional vernacular practices, reconsiders all-time favorites, and celebrates contemporary examples across the globe. Designed by Mevis & Van Deursen, the extensive collection features analytical drawings from SeARCH and photo essays by Iwan Baan. Dig It! acknowledges an effort to reconnect architecture and landscape and merge building with ground. Separated into six chapters (or “strategies”)—Bury, Embed, Absorb, Spiral, Carve, and Mimic—this remarkable survey reveals humanity’s connection to the earth through building culture: clever and utterly relevant for the challenges that we have and will face in both urban and natural environments.Trade Review“A global tour of buildings that have a strong relationship to the earth.” * canadianarchitect.com *“Explores past and present examples of how humans have interacted with and lived on the ground.” * designweek.co.uk *“Dig it! Building Bound to the Ground explores innovative, sustainable, and technically stunning approaches to architecture.” * thisiscolossal.com *“Mankind destroys the skin of the earth at an unprecedented scale. The time has come for a fundamental reset.” * Bjarne Mastenbroek *

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Book SynopsisThis update of a classic text folds the new field of neuroscience for design into well-established environment-behavior (E-B) methods and approaches.Trade Review"I have rarely read a more fascinating book. Zeisel manages to provide easy-to-understand explanations of novel applications and familiar concepts." -- The Fulcrum"What John Zeisel does better than anyone else is to link social science research to design practice." -- Dr Francis Duffy, RIBA, founder, DEGW Architects and Planners"This book’s emphasis on the emerging connection between neuroscience, physical environment, and health improvement provides environmental designers with new and important keys to creating better supportive environments for everyone, including people living with Alzheimer’s." -- Elizabeth Brawley, author of Design Innovations in Aging"The design community is ripe for a revival of research, especially for ideas and practices that inform design’s contribution to human experience. Zeisel invites us into the tent to inspire us with the biggest idea of all: that neuroscience can help us create places that enhance the performance of our brains." -- Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director, Adaptive Environments"This extremely readable yet profound book provides every architect, building client, and policy maker with the practical steps needed to create buildings that ‘work’ and then to learn from both their successes and their mistakes to create even better buildings in the future. Illustrated case studies clearly demonstrate the constructive impact that Zeisel’s approach can have in design practice." -- Victor Regnier FAIA, professor of architecture and gerontology, University of Southern California

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Book SynopsisNow in its fifth edition, Analysing Architecture has become internationally established as the best introduction to architecture. Aimed primarily at those studying architecture, it offers a clear and accessible insight into the workings of this rich and fascinating subject. With copious illustrations from his own notebooks, the author dissects examples from around the world and all periods of history to explain the underlying strategies in architectural design and show how drawing may be used as a medium for analysis.In this new edition, Analysing Architecture has been revised and expanded. Notably, the chapter on How Analysis Can Help Design' has been redeveloped to clearly explain this crucially important aspect of study to a beginner readership. Four new chapters have been added to the section dealing with Themes in Spatial Organisation, on Axis', Grid', Datum Place' and Hidden'. Material from the ''Case Studies'' in previous editions has been redistributed aTrade Review"Probably the best introductory book on architecture."Andrew Higgott, Lecturer in Architecture, University of East London, UK"A truly amazing book on how to analyze a building. A must read for all young architects."Fatema, Goodreads.comTable of ContentsPreface to this New Edition. Introduction. Architecture as Intellectual Structure and Identification of Place. Basic Elements of Architecture. Modifying Elements of Architecture. Elements Doing More Than One Thing. Using Things That Are There. Primitive Place Types. Architecture as Making Frames. Geometries of Being. Ideal Geometry. Themes in Spatial Organisation: 1. Space and Structure. 2. Parallel Walls. 3. Axis. 4. Grid. 5. Datum Place. 6. Stratification. 7. Transition, Hierarchy, Heart. 8. In-between. 9. Inhabited Wall. 10. Hidden. 11. Refuge and Prospect. Temples and Cottages. How Analysis Can Help Design. Postscript. Acknowledgements. Bibliography and References. Index.

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