Bolles Wilson

The Luxor is a significant milestone in the Suvre of Bolles + Wilson. As a major public building it pursues themes first tested in the 1993 new city library in Münster: a characteristic plan form, an intervention that redefines its context, and a synthesis of the abstract with a spatial warmth, an ambience that communicates directly and subliminally to a wide audience base. The architecture of this German/Australian duo does not fit easily into conventional architectural genres. Smallness, intimacy, and precise details characterise their work, just like an increasing number of urban interventions that have made a major impact on cities like Hengelo, The Hague or Magdeburg. The design of the Luxor Theatre, the process of its realisation, Bolles + Wilson's surrounding urban fields and, most importantly, the internal life in the building engendered by the architecture are fully presented in this book.

This fully illustrated guide to the planning and design of pre-school facilities for children is supported by a broad range of case studies, drawn from around the world. Both new buildings and adapted premises are covered. Essays on social development and childcare put the projects in context. Based on extensive research, Kindergarten Architecture offers the designer a unique survey of the best designs in kindergarten architecture. Two new kindergarten buildings are added to the case study section and the author provides guidance on the practical implications of recent changes to pre-school education. Contains two new case studies, 1. Corning Child Development Centre, New York and 2. Bornehaven De Fire Arstider, Copenhagen.

Catherine Slessor, Managing Editor of The Architectural Review, one of the world's leading architectural magazines, is the coordinating editor of this volume. Being at the forefront of design professionals worldwide, her selection of projects has ensured

This book is conceived as evidence supporting the qualities of dense, urban living, and as a hopeful antidote against sprawl. Necessity and investigation are prerequisites for the design of housing: Total Housing refers to the need to understand that social, environmental, and economic factors affect form, and that living space is a base for our increasingly complex and varied societies. This new survey into multi-family housing focuses on the responses proposed by architects who are dealing with the dynamic and diverse demands of contemporary society. Featuring works by Lacaton - Vassal, BIG, + JDS, Sadar Vuga Arhitekti, Ryue Nishizawa, FOA, SHoP, and many emerging new architects, this volume is not a simple catalog, but rather a studied collection of inventive projects.

Libraries and Learning Resource Centres is a comprehensive reference text examining the changing role and design of library buildings. Critical evaluations of international case studies demonstrate the principles of library design. Available for the first time in full colour, the second edition of the work focuses particularly on the important question of access and design in public libraries. Updated case studies and technical data allow the professional architect to use the book directly in planning library projects. Providing guidance on balancing the needs of the collection and the user, Libraries and Learning Resource Centres will be of value to all professional architects involved in library planning.

An idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, accompanied by the author’s own witty illustrations. In Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy, architect Peter Wilson offers a Grand Tour of Grand Tours, providing an idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, illustrated by his own witty watercolors and sketches. Wilson chronicles the reasons that people throughout history have traveled to Italy—ranging from “To Be the Subject of an Equestrian Painting by Uccello in Florence Cathedral” to “To Rebuild Herculaneum in Malibu” (the desire of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the 1970s)—while giving readers a deeper understanding of Italy’s architectural habitat and cultural mythology. In Wilson’s narratives and anecdotes, place names function as talismans; the events may not tally with recorded history, or with the exact topographies of actual places. Wilson offers historical reworkings, appropriations, and an architect’s scrutiny of certain Italian tropes. He recounts that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, set out “To Flee England Out of Embarrassment” after breaking wind when he bowed to Queen Elizabeth I; French novelist Stendhal went “To Discover an Anti-France”; and an English architect went “To Get Some Ideas for a Mausoleum.” At the first Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1980, a dapper architect found that he had come to Italy “To Fall Overboard in a White Suit,” the artist Cy Twombly went simply “To See,” and Wilson himself found that he was “Captured by the Ospedale Degli Innocenti,” enchanted by the sight of Brunelleschi’s architrave.

Short essays by respected architects and theorists around the question: What is an architect in today's society?