Provides a framework for understanding of the legal, contractual and procedural implication of architectural practice. The book acts as a useful aide-memoire for students and practitioners based on the premise that smooth legal administration will provide the conditions under which client relations can be constructive and good design can be achieved.

The need to respond to the rapidly changing city climate is particularly urgent in the tropics where the urban transition is currently at its peak. While the need is clearly felt by the tropical urban dwellers, texts that provide an overview of the problem and indicate possible design solutions are rare. This comprehensive reference will be welcomed by student and practising architects as well as other built envronment professionals engaged with the environmental effects of building in worldwide warm and humid climates.

As buildings are responsible for fifty per cent of CO2 emissions, their design has become the focus of intense technical scrutiny. Knowing how to build more technically efficient, or ecologically responsible, buildings, and being able to assemble the social resources to do so, requires different forms of knowledge and practice. There is wide contestation over the optimal pathways to greener buildings design and great diversity in practices of sustainable architecture. This volume brings together leading researchers from across the European Union and North America both to illustrate the diversity of practice and to provide a critical commentary on this key debate. The reader is provided with an introduction to competing perspectives on the sustainable architecture debate, international exemplars of differing practice and an overview of new theoretical and methodological resources for understanding and meeting the conceptual, social and technical challenges of sustainable architecture.

This is a historically informed examination of architecture's perceived absence in surrealist thought, surrealist tendencies in the theories and projects of modern architecture, and the place of surrealist thought in contemporary design.
This book represents current insights into surrealism in the thought and practice of modern architecture. In these essays, the role of the subconscious, the techniques of defamiliarization, aesthetic and social forces affecting the objects, interiors, cities and landscapes of the twentieth century are revealed. The book contains a diversity of voices from across modern art and architecture to bring into focus what is often overlooked in the histories of the modernist avant-garde. This collection examines the practices of writers, artists, architects, and urbanists with emphasis on a critique of the everyday world-view, offering alternative models of subjectivity, artistic effect, and the production of meanings in the built world.

This book deals with one of the current major debates in planning: how to measure the quality and effectiveness of the output of the planning process. It deals with issues of defining quality, public sector management, the use of indicators and the planning process. Although case study material is drawn on UK practice this topic in universal and the authors include discussions of international practice and experience.

The building performance evaluation (BPE) framework emphasizes an evaluative stance throughout the six phases of the building delivery and life cycle: (1) strategic planning/needs analysis; (2) program review; (3) design review; (4) post-construction evaluation/review; (5) post-occupancy evaluation; and, (6) facilities management review/adaptive reuse.
The lessons learned from positive and negative building performance are fed into future building delivery cycles. The case studies illustrate how this basic methodology has been adapted to a range of cultural contexts, and indicates the positive results of building performance assessment in a wide range of situations.
*Practical advice on assessing and monitoring building performance.
*Illustrated with practical case studies.
*Written by a unparalleled team of international experts.

This book deals with one of the current major debates in planning: how to measure the quality and effectiveness of the output of the planning process. It deals with issues of defining quality, public sector management, the use of indicators and the planning process. Although case study material is drawn from UK practice this topic is universal and the authors include discussions of international practice and experience.

This is your essential one stop shop for information on starting and running a practice. Case studies and advice from practitioners, big and small, run alongside outlines of all the key topics, to give you an insight into the problems and challenges others have faced when setting up a design business. Accessible and informative, this handbook is the ideal first point of reference when starting a practice.
Architects have many different reasons for setting up in practice; equally, there are many ways of running your own business. This handbook helps you consider whether or not you should set up on your own, examining issues such as financing, office space, recruitment, IT and workingo ut a business plan. Some architects want to stay small, while others have ambitions to grow into large businesses. Some grow big accidentally. And then there are those who pick and choose their work carefully, and even turn down undesirable contracts, while others will grab at everything possible. This book woudl explore these different models and illustrate how different kinds of practice develop into successful businesses.
Importantly, the book will stress that these issues are crucial - you may be the best designer in the world, but unless your business is well managed you will fail. On the other hand, some successful architects spend a lot of time looking for new work and attending to management issues, rarely finding the time for design work. This book would illustrate how architects have struck a balance between these two extremes.
* Provides practical advice to show you how to make your business a success
* Based on real life examples, not theory, to give you a jargon free accessibleguide
* Gives clear and concise information guiding you directly to the key information you need

Architects are constantly looking for new methods to create large indoor spaces unhindered by columns and other supports. Tensile and cable-strut structures are one method of producing such spaces. They also enable the creation of different shaped spaces allowing architects more scope for innovation.
"Free-standing Tension Structures - From Tensegrity Systems to Cable-strut Systems" provides the background engineering needed to produce these wonderful structures.
Providing a complete background to the underlying structural engineering theories of tensegrity, this book will prove invaluable for all architects and engineers working on tensile structures.

This book brings together a series of new and historical case studies to show how different phases of globalization are transforming the built environment. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, the author draws on sociological, geographical, cultural and postcolonial studies to provide a critical account of the development of three key concepts: global culture, post colonialism, and modernity. Subsequent case studies examine how global economic, political and cultural forces shape the forms of architectural and urban modernity in globalized suburbs and spaces in major cities worldwide.

The first book to combine global and postcolonial theoretical approaches to the built environment and to illustrate these with examples, Spaces of Global Cultures argues for a more historical and interdisciplinary understanding of globalization: one that places material space and the built environment at the centre and calls for new theories to address new conditions.

This book brings together a series of new and historical case studies to show how different phases of globalization are transforming the built environment. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, the author draws on sociological, geographical, cultural and postcolonial studies to provide a critical account of the development of three key concepts: global culture, post colonialism, and modernity. Subsequent case studies examine how global economic, political and cultural forces shape the forms of architectural and urban modernity in globalized suburbs and spaces in major cities worldwide.

The first book to combine global and postcolonial theoretical approaches to the built environment and to illustrate these with examples, Spaces of Global Cultures argues for a more historical and interdisciplinary understanding of globalization: one that places material space and the built environment at the centre and calls for new theories to address new conditions.

This major new text presents a collection of recent writings on architecture and urbanism in the United States, with topics ranging from colonial to contemporary times. In terms of content and scope, there is no collection, in or out of print, directly comparable to this one. The essays are drawn from the past twenty years' of publishing in the field, arranged chronologically from colonial to contemporary and accessible in thematic groupings, contextualized and introduced by Keith Eggener.

Drawing together 24 illustrated essays by major and emerging scholars in the field, American Architectural History is a valuable resource for students of the history of American art, architecture, urbanism, and material culture.

The last quarter of the twentieth-century witnessed a burgeoning of interest in ecological or naturally inspired use of vegetation in the designed landscape. More recently a strong aesthetic element has been added to what was formerly a movement aimed at creating nature-like landscapes. The book advances a fusion of scientific and ecological planting design philosophy that can address the need for more sustainable designed landscapes. It is a major statement on the design, implementation and management of ecologically-inspired landscape vegetation. With contributions from people at the forefront of developments in this field, in both Europe and North America, it provides a valuable synthesis of current thinking.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203402871

Solar energy will play an important role in our future energy supply, to the advantage of both the environment and the economy. This book focuses on water-based solar heating technology, presenting basic principles on solar radiation and the solar heating system, including details on orientation and output, sizing, the solar collector, the solar circuit, heat exchangers, heat stores and overall system technology. A range of practical applications are described, such as multi- and single-family dwellings, pools, camp sites, sports facilities, schools and industry. The potential and diversity of solar energy is made clear with additional sections on solar electricity, passive solar and solar air heating.

Lavishly illustrated and accessibly written, Classical Architecture takes the reader on a journey through the history of this iconic architectural genre, starting with an introduction to its origins in ancient Greece, through its resurgence across Europe during the Renaissance, to its influence on modern-day architectural design in locations as diverse as Shanghai and Washington DC. Written by Professor of Architecture and established author Andrew Ballantyne, and illustrated with over 100 photographs, this book will prove invaluable to anyone wanting to explore and understand this important and pervasive architectural style. Classical architecture has developed through many styles to become the backbone of western architecture. It was refined in ancient Greece mainly in sacred places. This architecture of finely modelled columns was taken up by the Romans and spread across their empire, changing on the way, so by the time the Roman empire collapsed it had become an architecture of arches and vaults. The monuments were impressive, even as ruins, and inspired imitation in later ages.

The export of American architecture began in the nineteenth century as a disjointed set of personal adventures and commercial initiatives. It continues today alongside the transfer of other aspects of American life and culture to most regions of the world. Jeffrey Cody explains how, why and where American architects, planners, building contractors and other actors have marketed American architecture overseas. In so doing he provides a historical perspective on the diffusion of American building technologies, architectural standards, construction methods and planning paradigms. Using previously undocumented examples and illustrations, he shows how steel-frame manufacturers shipped their products abroad enabling the erection of American-style skyscrapers worldwide by 1900 and how this phase was followed by similar initiatives by companies manufacturing concrete components.

The book concentrates on fundamental texts in the study of architectural history with special reference to eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain. The texts under discussion address key themes or methods in the construction of architectural histories. Alongside this, philosophical or theoretical writings which address the abstract issues surrounding the main texts are presented as a kind of exegesis on the chosen texts. This together with an introduction and discursive essays which preface each of the sections present a transdisciplinary discourse around the discipline of architectural history.

Explore over 40 contemporary villas by today's most creative architects. Their brilliant architectural designs integrate the built structure and natural environment in open countryside and urban spaces, realizing ideal places. Villas in deserts, mountains, and meadows, with seaside or lakeside vistas, and in urban locations are all revealed in informative text and 560 gorgeous color photos and plans. Using modern techniques and au courant design theories, these contemporary villas invite Nature to participate in the design process, treating light, for example, as a deliberate design element. All of these highly individualistic villas deftly blend form and function. Clean-lined interiors eschew ornamentation, placing emphasis on the exhilarating response to voluminous space inside and infinite space viewed through walls of glass that erase the boundary between interior and exterior. This response cannot be experienced in traditional architecture. Homeowners, architects, interior designers, and all who are fascinated by contemporary architecture, with its new regard for Nature as design partner, will treasure this book.

The complex art of architecture embraces all of the concerns of the world's cultures. It meets the fundamental needs for shelter from the elements, but, almost from its origins, has acquired other purposes and meanings. The Selective Environment is an approach to environmentally responsive architectural design that seeks to make connections between the technical preoccupations of architectural science, and the necessity, never more urgent than today, to sustain cultural identity at a time of rapid global, technological change.