Bjarne Mastenbroek Dig It Building Bound To The Ground

Dig deep into the origins of building. The ground, now often used as a passive foundation for going higher, is rife with possibilities. Bjarne Mastenbroek investigates the relationship architecture has, had, and will have, with site and nature. Dissecting structures from the past millennia, this nearly 1,400 page global survey, designed by...

Along with plan and elevation, section is one of the essential representational techniques of architectural design; among architects and educators, debates about a project's section are common and often intense. Until now, however, there has been no framework to describe or evaluate it. Manual of Section fills this void. Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis have developed seven categories of section, revealed in structures ranging from simple one-story buildings to complex structures featuring stacked forms, fantastical shapes, internal holes, inclines, sheared planes, nested forms, or combinations thereof. To illustrate these categories, the authors construct sixty-three intricately detailed cross-section perspective drawings of built projects—many of the most significant structures in international architecture from the last one hundred years—based on extensive archival research. Manual of Section also includes smart and accessible essays on the history and uses of section.

Over the past two decades, scholarship in architectural history has transformed, moving away from design studio pedagogy and postmodern historicism to draw instead from trends in critical theory focusing on gender, race, the environment, and more recently global history, connecting to revisionist trends in other fields. With examples across space and time—from medieval European coin trials and eighteenth-century Haitian revolutionary buildings to Weimar German construction firms and present-day African refugee camps—Writing Architectural History considers the impact of these shifting institutional landscapes and disciplinary positionings for architectural history. Contributors reveal how new methodological approaches have developed interdisciplinary research beyond the traditional boundaries of art history departments and architecture schools, and explore the challenges and opportunities presented by conventional and unorthodox forms of evidence and narrative, the tools used to write history.

In an era of high-tech and climate extremes, we are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. Enter Lo--TEK, a design movement building on indigenous philosophy and vernacular infrastructure to generate sustainable, resilient, nature-based technology. With a foreword by anthropologist Wade Davis and spanning 18 countries from Peru to...

The result of new research and travel on his part, this remarkable book displays Girouard's unique sense of style and is fired by the excitement that the architecture of the period still generates in him.

What happens to the landscape, to community, and to the population when vacated big box stores are turned into community centers, churches, schools, and libraries? America is becoming a container landscape of big boxes connected by highways. When a big box store upsizes to an even bigger box "supercenter" down the road, it leaves behind more than the vacant shell of a retail operation; it leaves behind a changed landscape that can't be changed back. Acres of land have been paved around it. Highway traffic comes to it; local roads end at it. With thousands of empty big box stores spread across America, these vistas have become a dominant feature of the American landscape. In Big Box Reuse, Julia Christensen shows us how ten communities have addressed this problem, turning vacated Wal-Marts and Kmarts into something else: a church, a library, a school, a medical center, a courthouse, a recreation center, a museum, or other more civic-minded structures. In each case, what was once a shopping destination becomes a center of community life. Christensen crisscrossed America identifying these projects, then photographed, videotaped, and interviewed the people involved. The first-person accounts and color photographs of Big Box Reuse reveal the hidden stories behind the transformation of these facades into gateways of community life. Whether a big box store becomes a "Senior Resource Center" or a museum devoted to Spam (the kind that comes in a can), each renovation displays a community's resourcefulness and creativity--but also raises questions about how big box buildings affect the lives of communities. What does it mean for us and for the future of America if the spaces of commerce built by a few monolithic corporations become the sites where education, medicine, religion, and culture are dispensed wholesale to the populace?

This design-savvy paperback uses beautiful photography of exploded and deconstructed objects to conjure the childlike joy of taking something apart to see how it works. In Things Come Apart, fifty design classics—arranged by size and intricacy—are beautifully displayed, piece by piece, exploding in midair and dissected in real-time, frame-by-frame video stills. Welcome to Todd McLellan’s unique photographic vision of the material world. The new paperback edition of the best selling Things Come Apart comes equipped with a fresh, design-savvy package, and includes five new projects that reveal the inner workings of some of the world’s most iconic designs. From SLR camera to mantle clock to espresso machine, from iPad to bicycle to grand piano, every single component of each object is made visible. In addition to showcasing the quality and elegance of older designs, these disassembled objects show that even the most intricate modern technologies can be broken down and understood. Stunning photography is interspersed with essays by notable figures from the world of restoration, DIY, and design innovation, who discuss historical examples of teardowns, disassembly, and reverse engineering. Things Come Apart conjures the childlike joy of taking something apart to see how it works, and will appeal to anyone with a curiosity about the material world.

Showcasing prominent commercial structures and the talented architects who brought them to life, these pictorial histories contain outstanding photography of some of the leading cities in the United States. Offering insight into the diversity and progression of metropolitan architecture, different firms represented in this series discuss the influences found in their featured work. Illuminating the unique and defining characteristics of each building, the process that brought it to fruition, and the impact each structure had on the community at large, these artistic chronicles will delight lovers of architecture, travel, and urban living. Expertly representing an eclectic selection of the area's most fascinating structures, this dazzling collection covers multifamily residences, civic projects, and top sporting stadiums--for the Diamondbacks, Cardinals, and Suns--as well as sharing a few secrets from renowned architects such as Perkins & Will, Architekton, and Optima.