Leven Betts

"Leven Betts: Pattern Recognition" features 18 projects from the firm’s critically acclaimed first decade. The diverse portfolio of projects included run the gamut in scale from furniture and exhibition design to townhouse and city plans. Well grounded in the realities of construction – Leven's resume includes a stint in a metal fabrication shop, while Betts spent two years as a project manager at a construction firm – the spare but elegant work of Leven Betts is characterized by a distinctive blend of materials, light, and texture. Featuring numerous photos, drawings, and diagrams, "Leven Betts: Pattern Recognition" invites architecture professionals and students to explore a unique design process and discover their own powers of observation. David Leven and Stella Betts are principals of Leven Betts in Manhattan. Their architecture has been highlighted in numerous magazines and books.

Rising stars in Boston's design scene, architects Eric Howeler and J. Meejin Yoon have in a single decade developed a reputation for radical experiments in architectural form. Their design methodology--what they call an "expanded practice"--combines intense research with interdisciplinary experimentation. Howeler and Yoon's sensational, competition-winning lighting entry for the 2004 Athens Olympics exemplifies their fearless approach: without any prior experience in public space interactive design, the firm constructed a luminous, interactive soundscape installation at the base of the Acropolis. White Noise White Light featured a field of semiflexible fiber-optic strands that emitted white light and white noise in response to the movement of pedestrians. The project, an enormous success, enchanted a multitude of visitors who moved amidst the cilia of light. Expanded Practice presents twenty-nine recent projects by this young firm encompassing a broad range of scales and media. The projects, divided into distinct but often overlapping research themes, include a museum courtyard program inspired by the Voronoi cell-packing algorithm (PS1 Loop); an outdoor light installation featuring hovering cones that capture and interact with solar energy, rainwater, and sound (Hover); a garment designed to turn inside out as it unravels (Mobius Dress); and a landscape design that weaves technology and texture into an integrated and interactive landscape (Tripanel). Packed with drawings, diagrams, and photographs of each project's design process, Expanded Practice provides an inspirational look into one of the most exciting young firms working in architecture today.

"How have faster modes of communication and travel caused us to rethink traditional notions of place and identity? Must we inhabit architecture in order to identify ourselves, or do new notions of identity render architecture inconsequential? Inhabiting Identity challenges the notion of habitation as fixed and defined and seeks to engage its dynamic, transformative, and mutable qualities." "Inhabiting Identity exhibits the work of six up-and-coming architects who have investigated these issues. Their work not only challenges our sense of habitation but teaches us to think beyond the normal and the mundane. By making use of unusual materials while maintaining creative ideas, they investigate the role of modern technology in our daily lives."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Pattern-making is ubiquitous in both the natural and manmade world. The human propensity for pattern recognition and fabrication is innate. Encompassing the historical, vernacular and parametric, this title explores the creation, materialisation and theorisation of some of the world's most significant and spectacularly patterned spaces. It investigates how interiors, buildings, cities and landscapes are patterned through design, production and manufacturing, use, time, accident and perception. It also brings into focus how contemporary advanced spatial practices and CAD/CAM are now pushing patterns to encompass a greater range of structural, programmatic, aesthetic and material effects and properties. Extending patterns far beyond the surface notion of style and decoration, Patterns of Architecture assesses how and why the deployment of patterns is shaping the future of architecture. Analysed through a multidisciplinary and international series of essays and designs from architects, engineers, academics, researchers and expert professionals in the field. Key contributors include: Hanif Kara, Patrik Schumacher and Alejandro Zaera-Polo.

[A]bout major competition events in architecture, landscape architecture and public art around the world.

In this collection, Andrew Zuckerman, beloved photographer of Creature and Bird, moves from fauna to flora, turning his lens onto the most beautiful specimens of the plant kingdom. Spectacular close-up images of 150 flower species, both exotic and familiar, are lovingly captured in Zuckerman's bold yet sensitive signature style. Showcased against pure white backgrounds, the complexity of color and structure in each specimen is revealed—creating flower portraits of astonishing radiance and detail. Zuckerman's award-winning minimalism serves as the perfect foil for these lush natural wonders. A rich visual tour of nature's most beloved beauties, this substantial tome is a timeless treasure for flower lovers, garden enthusiasts, photography buffs, and collectors of Zuckerman's work.