Woods Dangaran

A masterful combination of classically modernist inspiration with comfortable California twenty-first-century living. Architects Brett Woods and Joseph Dangaran are devotees of midcentury modernism who are committed to expressing classic modern tenets in a manner perfectly suited to twenty-first-century living. In addition to restoring multiple 1960s houses, including Craig Ellwood’s 1965 Moore House, Woods + Dangaran have created spectacular new residences that have made them one of the newest stars on the Los Angeles architecture scene. As C Magazine noted, “Brett Woods and Joseph Dangaran are continuing the spirit of California’s great builders, designing for future decades.” Woods + Dangaran favors rich color palettes and materials, metals that shine, leathers that soften, and clean lines that reveal their work’s modernist soul. The homes they design are filled with vintage furniture and rugs juxtaposed against custom finishes and details to feel contemporary yet classic and familiar. As Woods stated in Architectural Digest, “There’s no contradiction in building something modern and building something that people can live in. You don’t need to sacrifice the virtues of comfort and graciousness to feel attuned to contemporary life.”

A lavish volume on the stunning interiors and houses of this award-winning design and architecture firm, best known for its exceptional craftsmanship and refined sophistication drawn from the founders' Mexican heritage. Ezequiel Farca and Cristina Grappin challenge stereotypes and think globally, designing luxury vacation homes in Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, and Cancun, Mexico, and more recently Southern California and Europe. Their studio focuses on creating holistic spaces, which are a perfect blend of timeless design and comfortable functionality, using natural materials and elegant details. Understated luxury is a common theme of their residential interiors, with custom-designed furnishings and artisanal pieces sourced from around the world and an emphasis on serenity, simple forms, and a soft, warm palette. Featured are more than sixteen residential and commercial projects, presented up close and with plans, including a mezcal bar located in a landmark building in Oaxaca; a Venice Beach town house designed for the owners' private art collection; and interiors and design of a Benetti Crystal luxury yacht. An interview with Michael Webb reveals the architects' thought processes and influences

Residential design forms the core of Steven Ehrlich's award-winning architectural practice. Sixteen houses are presented here, designs characterized by the fusion of powerful modernist forms with the cultural, climatic, and contextual particulars of place. Ehrlich spent six years living, teaching, traveling, and studying indigenous vernacular architecture in North and West Africa. During that time he was immersed in the visceral power and raw beauty of “Architecture Without Architects” and dazzled by settings like the luminous Zaria Mosque in Nigeria, the textured hill towns of Tunisia, the maze-like souks of Fez, the protected and intimate courtyard houses of Marrakesh, the gravity-defying raised forts of Ghana, and the interconnected desert cities of Algeria. At the same time Ehrlich had a deep commitment to modernism, with its focus on minimalism, honesty in materials, and rooted connection to the land. Over a thirty-year career he has brought these two strands together in the houses he has designed in the desert landscape of Southern California and the Southwest. There are commonalities in these houses—generous volumes, visual clarity, large windows, interlocking rooms, protected courtyards, structural honesty, richly textured materials, and a connection to nature—but each home is a new beginning, a chance to learn and to create a spatial experience.

Dense observation of the landscape, climate, culture, and existing uses and patterns of the site were worked out in conversation with the client's mission to mitigate environmental challenges; Faulkner Archi- tects brings together site and home both phenomenologically in the design and technologically through sustainable features and practices. Technically a remodel, the house utilized the footprint of the existing house as a basis for a new floor plan. An existing fireplace was wrapped in concrete to serve as a major structural element anchor- ing the new architecture. This avoided additional grading and left the hillside open and natural. It also placed the new home directly under the shade of the old oaks, in intimate relationship with the trees surrounding it. This award-winning home is located on an eight acre, ex-urban property at the base of the Oakland Hills near San Francisco Bay. Formed of concrete and wrapped with Corten steel panels, the net zero energy res- idence is an elegant, low maintenance re- sponse to its context which is draped in rich green foliage and majestic native oak trees. - A comprehensive examination of the home, including exterior and interior photography, sketches, plans, and process imagery - First ever book published exclusively on the work of Faulkner Architects - Commentary by the architect provides insights into the design and decision-making process - A sustainable, zero-net energy home designed in sympathy with its surrounding - Text contributions by Rick Joy, Renee Chow and Thomas Chastain

From family houses to historic restorations, hotels, and high-tech office spaces—the architectural firm of Roger Ferris + Partners has pursued uncommonly diverse projects at vastly different scales, all with an approach to design that synthesizes imagination and logic. Whether a 1,500-square-foot house on a narrow lot overlooking Long Island Sound, or the Royal Bank of Scotland’s US headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut—with a six-story glazed atrium and a “courtyard in the sky” on the roof of its two-story trading floor—a building that is “well conceived and artfully executed, cannot help but be beautiful.” Among Ferris’ major projects are a golf clubhouse that has turned a conservative typology on its ear with bladelike forms inspired by a racing engine turbine, and a partially sunken service entrance in which impresario Robert Wilson has staged theatrical productions. A design for a restaurant includes not only a central, glass-enclosed kitchen elevated 18 inches above the floor, but an art installation that periodically projects scrolling text on the dining room wall. In every project, the fulfillment of the client’s functional needs is rendered in the most elemental and legible way, resulting in both formal elegance and dramatic power.

This book focuses on food, non-food, and industrial packaging applications of polymers, blends, nanostructured materials, macro, micro and nanocomposites, and renewable and biodegradable materials. It details physical, thermal, and barrier properties as well as sustainability, recycling, and regulatory issues. The book emphasizes interdisciplinary research on processing, morphology, structure, and properties as well as applications in packaging of food and industrial products. It is useful for chemists, physicists, materials scientists, food technologists, and engineers.

Striking, innovative, and dramatically sited, the twenty-nine projects in Tom Kundig: Working Title reveal the hand of a master of contextually astute, richly detailed architecture. As Kundig's work has increased in scale and variety, in diverse locations from his native Seattle to Hawaii and Rio de Janeiro, it continues to exhibit his signature sensitivity to material and locale and to feature his fascinating kinetic "gizmos." Projects range from inviting homes that integrate nature to large-scale commercial and public buildings: wineries, high-performance mixed-use skyscrapers, a Visitor Center for Tillamook Creamery, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and the Wagner Education Center of the Center for Wooden Boats, among others. Tom Kundig: Working Title includes lush photography, sketches, and a dialogue between Tom Kundig and Michael Chaiken, curator of the Kundig-designed Bob Dylan Archive at the Helmerich Center for American Research.