An inspiring collection of design ideas for patio construction, this book will help you discover ways to transform ordinary outdoor spaces into perfect outdoor environments. Over 200 beautiful color photographs show patios of all shapes and sizes, from quaint and picturesque, to grand and elegant, for any kind of budget. Your dreams will turn into exciting design realities as you visually explore dozens of patios, studying their shapes, colors, textures, and patterns. You'll be sure to find the perfect patio to suit your home's architecture and your family's lifestyle.

Elizabeth of Bohemia, known to some as the Winter Queen and to others as the Queen of Hearts, was one of those rare figures whose personality still fascinates us across the centuries. The daughter of James I, she combined charm and humour with courage in the face of adversity and a steely determination to regain her patrimony after she and her husband were driven from the throne of Bohemia. Among the many men who championed Elizabeth's sorrowful fortunes, Lord Craven was the most faithful. Brave, wealthy and supremely generous, this latter-day knight errant threw everything he could into his efforts to recapture the Palatinate for his heroine, risking his life and spending enormous sums in financing a military campaign. After all schemes had come to naught he came to live at Elizabeth's threadbare court in the Hague, supporting her financially and befriending her talented but unruly family. His estates, confiscated by the Commonwealth, were returned at the Restoration, and he busied himself in planning fine houses for Elizabeth's use on her return to England in 1661.Sadly she died the same year but Ashdown House in Berkshire still remains as a poignant memorial to Craven's single-minded devotion.

Nothing matches the serenity and beauty of waterfront living. This book offers an insider's tour of more than sixty waterfront homes. You'll hear from twenty notable architects and designers from around the country as they describe their homes, inside and out. Featured are multimillion dollar castles, rustic cottages, cliffhangers, and all those homes in between, showcased here in 400 magnificent color photographs. The oldest home is from the early 1700s; the newest is not yet completed. Their sites are as varied as their designs. This enchanting resource showcases waterfront living and many of the decorating styles that enhance the experience. This book is a must-have for anyone who dreams of living in one of these magnificent waterfront settings. May you find the inspiration to live your dream.

In the architecture of Richard Neutra (1892-1970), inside and outside find their perfect modernist harmony. As the Californian sun glints off sleek building surfaces, vast glass panel walls allow panoramic views over mountains, gardens, palm trees, and pools. Neutra moved to the United States from his native Vienna in 1923 and settled in Los Angeles. He displayed his affinity with architectural settings early on with the Lovell House, set on a landscaped hill with views of the Pacific Ocean and Santa Monica Mountains. Later projects such as the Kaufmann House and Nesbitt House would continue this blend of art, landscape, and living comfort, with Neutra's clients often receiving detailed questionnaires to define their precise needs. This richly illustrated architect introduction presents the defining projects of Neutra's career. As crisp structures nestle amid natural wonders, we celebrate a particularly holistic brand of modernism which incorporated the ragged lines and changing colors of nature as much as the pared down geometries of the International Style. 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 Architecture series features: an introduction to the life and work of the architect the major works in chronological order information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)

Some of the world's greatest architects, including Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, have used their talents to create groundbreaking innovations in American residential architecture over the past 120 years. Though wide-ranging in style, these houses share a remarkable sensitivity to site and context; appreciation of local materials; experimentation with form, materials, and technology; and understanding of clients' needs. Spanning the length and breadth of the United States, The Iconic American House features fifty of the most important, timeless, and recognizable houses designed since 1900. With pithy text and fresh, vibrant illustrations, this book presents a lavish array of architectural masterpieces designed by architects such as Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, Peter Eisenman and Thomas Gluck. Specially commissioned and stunning photographs, floor plans, drawings and architect biographies ensure that it is perfect for students, professionals, design aficionados and anyone who dreams of building a house of their own.

'The book should serve as a useful primer for housing development in the era after the eagerly awaited urban white paper.' Building

'A very good resume for students.' Architectural Review

A monograph of duotone photographs, taken in the Palm House at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin, beautifully illustrate this building as it was prior to its restoration. The photographs capture the cluttered green jungle, worn by time and held high in affection by the enchanted visitors who stepped inside its lofty paradise. By bringing the reader around the house as it was, drawing the eye to detail upwards, along its unique metal walkway and into the smaller treasure, the orchid house; to look at the intricate glass panels, metal structure, the wooden frames with their own unique patina of the passage of time, The Palm House tells its story visually. Meanwhile, in an accompanying text, Brendan Sayers relates how a visitor felt on entering and exploring this exotic world, the history and the origin of the planting, the unique pot and tub culture, and the importance of the collection.

-- Key West -- an architectural treasure trove of houses built in the 19th century
-- Eyebrow houses, shotgun houses, Conch Victorians
-- Color photographs throughout
-- Many of Key West's houses were built by ship's carpenters with no plans other than memories of seaport homes from their past
-- Widow's walks borrowed from New England, overhanging eaves (eyebrows) from the West Indies
-- Builders added details from architectural fads of the time -- from Greek Revival columns to Creole trellises
-- Many charming anecdotes about old Key West gleaned from interviews with descendants of the families who built houses there
-- For anyone who loves to look at charming old houses and imagine their histories

"It makes me feel guilty that anybody should have such a good time doing what they are supposed to do." - Charles Eames on architecture. "A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines." - Frank Lloyd Wright on architecture. Architectural travel is on the rise. With this book you not only have a reference book of 150 of the world's most iconic private homes, but also a bucket list to plan your next country or city trip. These homes are unique, either because of the aesthetics of the interiors, the construction, or the sophisticated design. This is the ultimate architecture travel wish list. For each house, the authors provide a lively description of the building and its owners, in addition to the specifics of architect, date, and location. 150 Houses You Need to Visit Before You Die is the ultimate 'architecture bucket list' and the sequel to the successful 150 Bars You Need to Visit before You Die, 150 Restaurants You Need to Visit Before You Die and 150 Hotels You Need to Visit before You Die. Features houses in: Belgium, France, Spain, the US, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Morocco, Portugal, Venezuela, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Scotland, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Solvenia, Hawaii, Australia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Japan, Israel, Canada, Serbia, Poland, Norway, and England, by architects such as Moshe Safdie, Kisho Kurokawa, Harry Seidler, Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott, Alvar Aalto, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Carlo Mollino, Carlo Scarpa, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, Max Bill, Mario Botta, Gio Ponti, Adolf Loos, Eero Saarinen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O'Keeffe, Richard Neutra, Antoni Gaudi, and Victor Horta.

This book, which fills a gap on the materiality of lived relations, examines households within the context of their immediate physical surroundings of home and shows how human interactions are reflected in built forms. Houses are dynamic participants in family life in many ways. They often pre-date the origins and outlast the life spans of their inhabitants, but they can exert a powerful influence on the organization of behaviors and the values of family members, as well as on the forms and flows of family life across the generations. Constituting wealth, investment, security and inheritance, they are an objective in and of themselves in many domestic strategies.
Drawing on developments within anthropology, archaeology, architecture and social history, the authors demonstrate, through detailed case studies, how household or family relations can usefully be mined to re-situate social theory in both space and time. Space, boundaries, family cycles, historic changes, migration patterns, ethnicity, memory and gender are all interrogated for the light they shed on how people interact with the physical world around them and what this means culturally and symbolically. Europe is an especially rich focus for this kind of analysis because it is distinguished by its long, well-documented history and a recent period of intense change.

Transportable Environments explores aspects of the historical and theoretical basis for portable architecture and provides an insight into the wide range of functions that it is used for today, the varied forms that it takes and the concerns and ideas for its future development. Written by a team of international commentators, this volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of this specialist area and will be of interest to a wide range of professionals across the construction and design industries.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203023854

Part of the prestigious academic book series Documenting the Image, this is a fascinating survey illustrated by extremely rare photographs of the burned architectural and landscape complex known as the Rape of the Summer Palace.
In 1860, Western armies brought ruin to the treasured seat of the Qing emperors near Beijing. One hundred and fifty images have been collected to date as a support for an extensive study of the building of the palaces and their subsequent destruction.
This book is a rigourous analysis of the work and experiences of the European photographers, both amateur and professional, working in Beijing during this period, and, as such, becomes an account of the development of photography itself. Offering a fascinating glimpse into 19th-Century China, the book gives an historical overview of the political situation.

Whether in town or country, James Gorst's buildings are defined by a combination of modern thinking and an ingrained respect for craftsmanship and bespoke detailing, with equal weight given to architectural form and engaging, vibrant interiors, full of texture and life. This is the first monograph on his work. In many respects, the timeless character of Gorst's work is rooted in the architect's own journey. Starting out as a neo-classicist, Gorst ultimately became frustrated by the restrictions and historicism of the classical approach and reinvented himself as a dedicated modernist, yet continued to place particular emphasis on a love of proportion, scale, symmetry and detailing. Ranging from rural projects which reflect the vernacular traditions of the surrounding countryside, including large contemporary country houses like RIBA award-winning Ironstone House, to others which creatively reinvent and add to period properties, along with new and innovative urban homes, all are defined by a particular ambition to be innovative, fresh and one of a kind. Each of Gorst's houses represents a particular journey, informed by the client and their needs, the context of the site and a response to landscape and setting, which is often reflected in his choice of natural textures and materials.

Boughton House in Northamptonshire is a house of contrasts. Its magnificent, and at the same time, formal exterior in the French style gives little hint of the rambling Tudor manor house embedded within. Involvement with the law and politics at the highest level generated the wealth of its founders and builders, but enlightened artistic patronage and a strong aesthetic sense have been characteristic of many generations of the Dukes of Montagu and of Buccleuch since the 17th century. This book looks at the house and its furnishings.

Can an architect pass through walls? Can the city permeate a house? In The Dissolution of Buildings, architect Angelo Bucci presents projects in his native Sao Paulo and abroad. Advocating an architecture that is "the opposite of global action," his work responds to the topography of the city and to its urban environment. In a lecture delivered at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Bucci discusses work designed with his firm SPBR, projects that span from the scale of the house to the city. His built work is here accompanied by an excerpt from his doctoral dissertation, which explores how the devices available to architecture-and the sectional manipulation of groundplanes in particular-can mitigate some of the inequities and exclusions built in to the fabric of the contemporary city. An essay by Kenneth Frampton frames these projects within the rich lineage of Brazilian house design and members of the Paulista school such as Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Joao Batista Vilanova Artigas.

Did homes in ancient Greece have kitchens and bathrooms? If so, why have archaeologists had such troubles finding their remains? What did the concepts of "home "and "house" mean to the ancient Greeks? This book offers an illuminating reappraisal of domestic space in classical Greece. Beginning with the premise that we must cease to view the classical Greek house through the lens of contemporary Western notions, Janett Morgan provides a fresh evaluation of what home meant to different communities in the ancient Greek world. By employing textual analysis alongside archaeological scholarship, "The Classical Greek House" seeks to explain some of the contradictions that previous approaches have left unresolved. Of value to students and academics alike, Morgan's work offers an exciting new perspective on relations between men and women, public and private, and between home and city in the ancient world.

This book examines the social role of castles in late-medieval and early modern Ireland. It uses a multidisciplinary methodology to uncover the lived experience of this historic culture, demonstrating the interconnectedness of society, economics and the environment. Of particular interest is the revelation of how concerned pre-modern people were with participation in the economy and the exploitation of the natural environment for economic gain. Material culture can shed light on how individuals shaped spaces around themselves, and tower houses, thanks to their pervasiveness in medieval and modern landscapes, represent a unique resource. Castles are the definitive building of the European Middle Ages, meaning that this book will be of great interest to scholars of both history and archaeology. -- .

Ever since Henry David Thoreau's described his two years, two months, and two days of cabin existence at Walden Pond, Massachusetts in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (1854), the idea of a refuge dwelling has seduced the modern psyche. In the past decade, as our material existence and environmental footprint has grown exponentially, architects around the globe have become particularly interested in the possibilities of the minimal, low-impact, and isolated abode.This new TASCHEN title, combining insightful text, rich photography and bright, contemporary illustrations by Marie-Laure Cruschi, explores how this particular architectural type presents special opportunities for creative thinking. In eschewing excess, the cabin limits actual spatial intrusion to the bare essentials of living requirements, while in responding to its typically rustic setting, it foregrounds eco-friendly solutions. As such, the cabin comes to showcase some of the most inventive and forward-looking practice of contemporary architecture, with Renzo Piano, Terunobu Fujimori, Tom Kundig and many fresh young professionals all embracing such distilled sanctuary spaces.The cabins selected for this publication emphasize the variety of the genre, both in terms of usage and geography. From an artist studio on the Suffolk coast in England to eco-home huts in the Western Ghats region of India, this survey is as exciting in its international reach as it is in its array of briefs, clients, and situations. Constant throughout, however, is architectural innovation, and an inspiring sense of contemplation and coexistence as people return to nature and to a less destructive model of being in the world.

How has housing changed in Sub-Saharan Africa since the first Europeans set foot on the continent? Why don't Africans live in their traditional homes any longer? This historical evolution from "hut to house," from traditional abode to Western-style house, considers the consequences of slavery, colonialism, and other social influences, with a focus on the Central African country of Cameroon, known as "Africa in Miniature" because of its geographical and cultural representation of the continent at large. Descriptions of architectural styles, layouts, materials, and construction techniques are woven into a discussion of the larger historical and cultural context, examining how lifestyle changes and architectural trends influence one another. Readers will come away with a rich understanding of the challenges and opportunities for a new generation of African architects to integrate the lessons of the past and create a future most responsive to the needs of the region.

The Case Study House program (1945-66) was an exceptional, innovative event in the history of American architecture and remains to this day unique. The program, which concentrated on the Los Angeles area and oversaw the design of 36 prototype homes, sought to make available plans for modern residences that could be easily and cheaply constructed during the postwar building boom. The program's chief motivating force was Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza, a champion of modernism who had all the right connections to attract some of architecture's greatest talents, such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen. Highly experimental, the program generated houses that were designed to redefine the modern home, and thus had a pronounced influence on architecture-American and international-both during the program's existence and even to this day. TASCHEN brings you a monumental retrospective of the entire program with comprehensive documentation, brilliant photographs from the period and, for the houses still in existence, contemporary photos, as well as extensive floor plans and sketches.

Following her success with Lost Charleston, local author and city tour guide Leigh Jones Handal brings a fresh approach to one of the key titles in Pavilion Books’ trademark series. Charleston, South Carolina is one of the most popular East Coast tourist destinations. The flashpoint of the Civil War, what remains of Fort Sumter in Charleston is still a much-visited attraction, and despite bombardment by the Federal Navy, earthquakes and many hurricanes, the South Carolina city has retained its 19th-century charm.  City guide Leigh Jones Handal tells the story of the Charleston she loves through archive photos matched with their modern viewpoint, including the Jenkins Orphanage whose band were the likely originators of the Charleston dance. There are vintage photos of the great plantation houses, plus the grand buildings on Meeting Street, and the soaring spires of Charleston’s many churches.  Downtown many of the classic mansions, such as the Miles Brewton House, have been retained, along with the Market Hall and the Customs House, and though the trolleys no longer run along Broad Street, it is still recognizable from a century before.  Leigh Jones Handal has uncovered a treasury of vintages images which have been matched with modern photos to show new aspects of this enduringly fascinating city.

Is it possible for a group of the world's most respected environmental scientists to truly practice what they preach? Can their expertise in climate change help them in transforming an old house and its nine acres into their new office building and campus - a building that is as energy efficient as possible, uses local materials, and generates all of the energy it consumes? In this candid, charming, and informative book, the director of the renowned Woods Hole Research Center tells a story that will interest anyone who has ever thought about doing a 'green' rehab, has tried to build green, or just wonders what's actually possible. The Woods Hole Research Center is an international leader in identifying the causes and consequences of environmental change. When the WHRC needed a new administration building, its scientists and staff decided that the building should utilize 'state-of-the-shelf' green building techniques and materials. However, the new office had to conform with the laws and building codes of the time, and with materials that were then available - no matter how frustrating these requirements were to the resident scientists and contractors. The author, George M. Woodwell, founder of the WHRC, was intimately involved in the design and construction of the Gilman Ordway Campus, which was completed in 2003 in collaboration with McDonough + Partners. He details the challenges they faced, some of which are familiar to everyone who tries to 'build green': the vagaries of building codes, the whims of inspectors, the obstreperousness of subcontractors, the search for appropriate materials, and the surprises involved in turning an old house into a modern office building. Woodwell puts the building in a larger context, not only within the work of the Center and the tradition of Woods Hole, but in the global need to minimize our carbon emissions and overall environmental impact. Building a world that works requires rethinking how we design, reuse, and live in the built environment while preserving the functional integrity of the landscape.