In eleven pointed and sometimes provocative conversations, the author - an architect and professor of architecture - tries to use a critique of contemporary urban planning to develop principles for re-establishing the discipline. In seven programmatic projects, he shows how these principles can be implemented in urban fragments and what a fresh start of that kind can look like, as high-quality craftsmanship. Both the conversations and the projects envisage a calm modern city which can measure itself against the historic city, is materially and culturally sustainable, and can provide a home for our multifaceted society.

Since the beginning of the century, the field of architecture has fervently turned its attention to documenting the contemporary urban condition. Every city been has been examined as a repository of architectural concepts, scrutinized as an urban manifesto, and recorded as a series of found objects. The Ordinary articulates a potential genealogy for this practice and for the genre of books derived from it. Organized around conversations with the authors of three seminal texts that document the city-Denise Scott Brown's Learning from Las Vegas (1972), Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York (1978), and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto's Made in Tokyo (2001)-this volume traces the history of these "books on cities" by examining the material they recorded, the findings they established, the arguments they advanced, and the projects they promoted. These conversations also question the assumptions underlying this practice and whether in its ubiquity it still remains a space of opportunity.

Whilst there are some studies of architecture in Scotland post-devolution, writings on design are largely non-existent. Designs on Democracy seeks to fill that gap and ranges over the debates concerning architecture, urbanism, design and the Creative and Cultural Industries and the policies, people and places that stimulate and animate them. The book also tells a story about Scotland's creatives -where they work and how their ideas and what they create and design contribute to Scotland's democratic culture and identity.

No other contracts are more widely used in the construction industry than the American Institute of Architects' standard forms. "The American Institute of Architects Official Guide to the 2007 AIA Contract Documents" offers unparalleled insight into the AIA's extensive portfolio of contract documents, helping the reader understand the forms and how to implement them.

This guide is divided into two parts: Part One, "The AIA Standard Documents, " examines the role of AIA Contract Documents, their history, and how the documents are written and updated. It also reviews the educational and supporting resources that are part of the AIA's contract documents program; Part Two, "The AIA Documents Companion, " describes agreements in detail, including the purpose and rationale for provisions. Separate chapters cover the owner-contractor, contractor-subcontractor, owner-architect, and architect-consultant agreements. The guide concludes with a chapter describing pivotal legal cases that have helped shape and interpret AIA contracts.

Samples of the most commonly used contracts are in print in the appendix, and an accompanying CD-ROM has samples of all AIA Contract Documents (in PDF format for Mac and PC computers) that released in 2007, as well as the Integrated Project Delivery Family of documents that released in 2008. This book is invaluable for construction project owners, attorneys, contractors, subcontractors, design professionals, and others involved in the procurement, management, and delivery of building projects. It is also recommended for students and young professionals seeking a degree, certification, or licensure.

In this fun and intellectually stimulating book, readers can recreate a number of London's most renowned Brutalist buildings. Opening with an informative history of the origins and philosophy of Brutalist architecture, the book then focuses on 9 buildings, including the Barbican Estate, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower and the National Theatre. The first part of the book looks at the significance of each of these buildings, with a short chapter on each, complete with texts and images. The second part of the book consists of a series of 9 pre-cut and folded buildings, printed on heavy card stock, that readers can detach and construct with easy-to-follow instructions. At once fun and informative, this unique book offers a challenging and entertaining approach to architecture.

PR has become an essential part of running a successful architectural practice, with the media profile of an architect becoming an important factor in the awarding of high-profile jobs. Internationally renowned institutions purposefully seek out the 'star architect' for prize commissions. The printed media, however, remain a minefield for the uninitiated. Architecture has to compete directly with film, theatre, literature, art and music for space on the arts pages of the broadsheets and consumer magazines. How should architects submit material about their work to the national and specialist design press?

This book, one of the first of two titles in the distinctive Architecture in Practice series, provides a specially tailored approach for architects who want to know how to engage with public relations and appeal to the media. It discusses how they should position themselves at large, demonstrating what works for whom and why. Key insights are provided by case studies of the media frenzy surrounding projects such as the Millennium Bridge in London and the World Trade Centre in New York. It also features interviews with publicists who have worked on campaigns with the likes of Santiago Calitrava, Frank Gehry and Norman Foster, and with leading editors, correspondents and journalists of the architectural world.

Oops! Forgot to include a door! Every year new architecture students make the same mistakes, forgetting the same essential elements in their studio work. This handy guide provides basic tips and hints to help students make the most of their work, all accompanied by the author's witty and beautiful illustrations. The Architecture School Survival Guide is a life-saving and entertaining resource for any first-year student.

In our imaginings of Paris, painter and graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) has no small role to play. In his prints, posters, paintings, and drawings, the artist immortalized the city's Belle Epoque nightlife and put the northern neighborhood of Montmartre on the global map of creative-hedonist hotspots. The son of old French nobility, Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have been drawn early on to visions of a demimonde, centering his attention on the dance halls, cabarets, and brothels of Montmartre and adopting famed dancers and singers as his subjects, most notably Jane Avril. His works include both lively performance scenes and quiet, tender "after-hours" portraits such as The Sofa and In Bed. Stylistically, he mastered both bold graphics, as celebrated in his promotional posters of Jane Avril, and a loose yet evocative sketchwork. Though he died aged just 36, due to complications from alcoholism and syphilis, Toulouse-Lautrec's cultural influence was immense. This introductory book takes a walk through his world of singers, dancers, musicians, and prostitutes to reveal an artist of great humanity, striking figurative skill, and a pronounced sense for the energy and stories of a city. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

From its founding as a Royal Burgh in the twelfth century and through its growth and development as an internationally renowned hotbed of science, education, literature and culture, to its current status as home of the Scottish Parliament and the largest financial centre in the UK outside London, Edinburgh has a proud and distinctive identity. This extraordinary history is embodied in the many fine buildings that have shaped the 'Athens of the North'. Edinburgh in 50 Buildings explores the history of this rich and vibrant city through a selection of its greatest architectural treasures. From the elegance of the neoclassical and Georgian New Town to the controversial Parliament building, this unique study celebrates the city's architectural heritage in a new and accessible way. Local author Jack Gillon guides the reader on a tour of the city's historic buildings and modern architectural marvels.

Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brooklyn Bridge, most of which have never been published, appear in this edition of Alan Trachenberg's "Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol." In the new afterword Trachenberg explores the history of Hart Crane's "The Bridge," especially the poem's integral relationship with the powerful photography of Evans.
" Brooklyn Bridge] is familiar in so many movies, in so many stage sets and, as Mr. Trachtenberg shows in this brilliant . . . book, it is at least as much a symbol as a reality. . . . Mr. Trachtenberg is always exciting and illuminating."--"Times Literary Supplement
""The book is a skillful and insightful synthesis of materials about Brooklyn Bridge from such diverse fields as history, engineering, literature and art. Essentially it asks the question of why Brooklyn Bridge achieved such great impact on the nineteenth century American imagination and why it has continued to have a significant impact on twentieth century art and literature. In addition to its exploration of the bridge's symbolic significance, which includes perceptive analyses of such particular works as Hart Crane's great poem cycle and the paintings of artists like Joseph Stella, the book also includes a solidly researched account of the conception, planning and construction of the bridge. Trachtenberg's account of the intellectual and cultural sources of the bridge is particularly fascinating in its demonstration of the convergence of many different philosophical and ideological currents of the time around this great engineering enterprise, illustrating as effectively as any discussion I know the complex interplay of ideas and material culture."--John G. Cawelti, University of Chicago
"Alan Trachtenberg's "Brooklyn Bridge" is a fascinating story, the philosophic genesis of the idea in Europe, John Roebling's heroic effort to translate it into masonry and steel, and the meanings that Americans attached to the physical object as an emblem of their aspirations."--Leo Marx, Amherst College, author of "The Machine in the Garden"

People associate the term Brutalism with concrete and, in the UK, with the Welfare State - just one thin slice of the Brutalist canon. Brutalism is not a style. It reveals enduring architectural ideas and interests that have emerged at different times and in different places, prompted by social and political ideals and technological conditions. Richly illustrated with unique, high-quality photographs, this book explores Brutalism through the lens of twelve distinct, occasionally competing, definitions, as a living and evolving entity. Redefining Brutalism offers insight into how these buildings were designed and constructed, their underlying social contexts, and how Brutalism triggered various other movements such as High-tech and Postmodernism. This book is a lens through which to see the present as much as the past.

What "really constitutes an architectural atmosphere," Peter Zumthor says, is "this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty ... under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way." Zumthor's passion is the creation of buildings that produce this kind of effect, but how can one actually set out to achieve it?

In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Peter Zumthor describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his houses. Images of spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or books that inspire him. From the composition and "presence" of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect of light, this poetics of architecture enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the process of house design.

A boxed set in four volumes, each volume in the series represents a core sample of the firm at this moment in time, highlighting a grouping of four major projects that share a common theme but not necessarily the same typology or program. The themes are threads that weave the work together and as a whole define the design philosophy of the firm. The firm's emphasis on sustainability is a current that runs through the narrative of each book. Each book focuses on design process and collaboration. Each project is presented in depth and will underscore the methodology, aesthetics, techniques and ethos of the firm. With future volumes planned, these sets will track the progression of ideas that evolve over time through the work that enacts the ideas, and informs the work to come.
FUSE - Blurring the boundary between landscape and building. From the scale of the building to the scale of the city, these projects integrate architecture, building systems thinking and natural systems. This philosophy takes the landscape and ecological forces that are the context and incorporates them within the design of the building, urban planning, and infrastructure design.
EVOLVE - Repositioning and Adaptive Re-Use of existing buildings. These projects investigate buildings as artifact and re-construe them for a new life as the original architecture degrades and the mission of the buildings change. Analysis of original design intent, construction methods, ornamentation and the cultural processes that have been enacted on the building over time form the basis of design. Fundamental architectural relationships, building envelope and circulation are re-thought and restructured to create new uses and relationships, completely transforming these spaces.
FILTER - Integration of culture and climate into sustainable architecture. FX Fowle practices a contemporary language of modernism, one that contrasts sharply from the original ethos of universalism and the tabula rasa. The specificities of climate and culture impact the design of form and program in FX Fowle buildings. The lenses of culture and climate are necessarily specific to the location and cultural values of each project and ultimately create an integral sustainability.
FLEX - Derived from a programmatic interpretation that re-thinks building mission, function and performance in office buildings, education, cultural institutions. FXFOWLE's process begins with finding the values of the institution, identifying its community, and then working to embody this in the architecture. The design achieves this through form finding, envisioning new types of interior circulation that encourages particular kinds of interactions, and creating gathering spaces that are fine tailored to the institution. The architecture sets the stage for interactions of the community and ultimately works to develop a new relationship between the individual and the institution

This book offers the first systematic analysis of the cultural and religious appropriation of Andalusian architecture by Spanish historians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To date this process of Christian appropriation has generally been discussed as a phenomenon of architectural hybridisation. However, this was a period in which the construction of a Spanish national identity became a key focus of historical discourse. As a result, cultural hybridity encountered partial opposition from those seeking to establish cultural and religious homogeneity. Spain's Islamic past became a major concern in this period and historical writing served as the site for a complex negotiation of identity. Historians and antiquarians used a range of strategies to re-appropriate the meaning of medieval Islamic heritage as befitted the new identity of Spain as a Catholic monarchy and empire. On the one hand, the monuments' Islamic origin was subjected to historical revisions and re-identified as Roman or Phoenician. On the other hand, religious forgeries were invented that staked claims for buildings and cities having been founded by Christians prior to the arrival of the Muslims in Spain. Islamic stones were used as core evidence in debates that shaped the early development of archaeology, and they also became the centre of a historical controversy about the origin of Spain as a nation as well as its ecclesiastical history.

Research in the creative fields of architecture, design, music and the arts has experienced dynamic development for over two decades. The research in these practice- and arts-based fields has become increasingly mature but has also led to various discussions on what constitutes doctoral proficiency in these fields. The term 'doctorateness' is often used when referring to the assessment of the production of doctoral research and the research competence of research students, but in architecture and the arts, the concept of doctorateness has not yet attained a clearly articulated definition. The assessment of quality has been practiced by way of supervising, mentoring and the evaluation of dissertations but much less discussed. This book offers perspectives on how to qualify and assess research in architecture, music and the arts. It creates a broader arena for discussion on doctorateness by establishing a framework for its application to creative fields. The book is grouped into three sections and includes contributions from international experts in the various fields working in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK. The first section offers general frameworks for further conceptualising doctorateness in the fields in question. It is followed by a section that describes and discusses various experiences, concerns and visions on the production and assessment of doctoral research reporting from doctoral programmes in different stages of development. The third section includes future-oriented perspectives on knowledge-building processes, and asks how the ongoing, profound changes in academia could influence the concept of quality in both doctoral process and product. The book presents different perspectives on research assessment practices and developments of relevant criteria in the practice-based and creative fields of architecture and the arts. The contributions propose ways of framing this issue conceptually, show the need for awareness of the specific context and tradition programmes develop and give proposals for various potential trajectories for the future.

Offices should provide the atmosphere of encouraging creativity and staff energy. Fall in Love with Office features 43 projects from a variety of practices all in full colour with diagrams. Included are cutting edge office designs for Skype, Facebook, Cisco, Google, PwC, Deloitte, MTV and Net-A-Porter