About Star Architecture

Cities across the world have been resorting to star architects to brand their projects, spark urban regeneration and market the city image internationally. This book shifts the attention from star architects to star architecture, arguing that the process of deciding about and implementing relevant architectural and urban projects is not the product of any single actor. Star architecture can, in fact, be better studied and understood as assembled by multiple actors and in its relationship with urban transformation. In its 18 chapters, the book presents a multidisciplinary collection of expert contributions in the fields of urban planning, architecture, media studies, urban economics, geography, and sociology, consistently brought together for the first time to deal with this topic. Through a vast array of case studies and analytical techniques touching over 20 cities in Europe, the book shows the positive and more problematic impacts of star architecture with reference to the preservation of built heritage, tourism and media. The book will be of interest to architects, sociologists, urban planners, and public administrators.

Transnational Architecture and Urbanism combines urban planning, design, policy, and geography studies to offer place-based and project-oriented insight into relevant case studies of urban transformation in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. Since the 1990s, increasingly multinational modes of design have arisen, especially concerning prominent buildings and places. Traditional planning and design disciplines have proven to have limited comprehension of, and little grip on, such transformations. Public and scholarly discussions argue that these projects and transformations derive from socioeconomic, political, cultural trends or conditions of globalization. The author suggests that general urban theories are relevant as background, but of limited efficacy when dealing with such context-bound projects and policies. This book critically investigates emerging problematic issues such as the spectacularization of the urban environment, the decontextualization of design practice, and the global circulation of plans and projects. The book portends new conceptualizations, evidence-based explanations, and practical understanding for architects, planners, and policy makers to critically learn from practice, to cope with these transnational issues, and to put better planning in place.

Collects the best of Kamin's writings for the Chicago Tribune from the past decade.

The founder of Architizer.com and practicing architect draws on his unique position at the crossroads of architecture and social media to highlight 100 important buildings that embody the future of architecture. We’re asking more of architecture than ever before; the response will define our future. A pavilion made from paper. A building that eats smog. An inflatable concert hall. A research lab that can walk through snow. We’re entering a new age in architecture—one where we expect our buildings to deliver far more than just shelter. We want buildings that inspire us while helping the environment; buildings that delight our senses while serving the needs of a community; buildings made possible both by new technology and repurposed materials. Like an architectural cabinet of wonders, this book collects the most innovative buildings of today and tomorrow. The buildings hail from all seven continents (to say nothing of other planets), offering a truly global perspective on what lies ahead. Each page captures the soaring confidence, the thoughtful intelligence, the space-age wonder, and at times the sheer whimsy of the world’s most inspired buildings—and the questions they provoke: Can a building breathe? Can a skyscraper be built in a day? Can we 3D-print a house? Can we live on the moon? Filled with gorgeous imagery and witty insight, this book is an essential and delightful guide to the future being built around us—a future that matters more, and to more of us, than ever.

Most architectural standards references contain thousands of pages of details, overwhelmingly more than architects need to know to know on any given day. The updated and revised edition of Architecture Reference & Specification contains vital information that's essential to planning and executing architectural projects of all shapes and sizes, all in a format that is small enough to carry anywhere. It distills the data provided in standard architectural volumes and is an easy-to-use reference for the most indispensable--and most requested--types of architectural information.

This book explores interventions that are noteable for their creative and sensitive design, planning or management of the landscape. The featured projects aim to promote interaction between people and the environment by responding to a broad range of human habitats and natural ecosystems in diverse social, cultural and ecolological contexts. In their response to context these projects evolve into Land Art, which is to be understood as a fusion between sculpture, architecture, and landscape architecture. The goal is to draw out the emotions of the spectator who is confronted by these determined, composed enviironments. The structure of this book is inspired by the poet's journey in Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, from which we borrow the narrative structure and symbolic landscape imagery: the circles of Hell, the terraces of Mount Purgatory and the celestial spheres of Heaven.

Polemics and reflections on how to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Architecture depends—on what? On people, time, politics, ethics, mess: the real world. Architecture, Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself. Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect's best-laid plans—at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy. Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Mixing anecdote, design, social theory, and personal experience, Till's writing is always accessible, moving freely between high and low registers, much like his suggestions for architecture itself.

Includes some contributions from Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) students, graduates and faculty, such as K. Michael Hays, Sanford Kwinter and Michael Meredith.