Christopher Alexander is a Vienna-born, British-American architect and theorist and the father of the pattern language movement, popularised in his pivotal 1968 book, A Pattern Language, with Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein, as well as the 1979 follow-up, The Timeless Way of Building. Lesser known but as essential to understanding Alexander's work is his theory of 'systems generating systems' which explains that systems as a whole are created by 'generating systems', and, if we wish to make things which function as 'wholes', we shall have to invent generating systems to create them. Taking the Eishin Campus outside Tokyo, built between 1983 and 1989, as its example, Shifting Patterns is the first book to examine Alexander's theory of 'systems generating systems' and its application to a building design. It brings together essays from an interdisciplinary, international cast of experts, including Eva Guttmann, Gabriele Kaiser, Ernst Beneder, Walter Ruprechter, Hisae Hosoi, Christian Kuhn, Ida Pristinger, and Norihito Nakatani, as well as conversations with Hajo Neis and Takaharu Tezuka to investigate the application of this theory to the school and university complex, the largest project Alexander has realised based on pattern language. Among the issues discussed are topicality, interdisciplinary and internationality, and culture transfer. The essays also look at the design-build movement as an antithesis to today's standardised and commerce-driven architectural production.

The Werkgruppe Graz played a major role in post-war Austrian architecture. All four of its members were educated at the Technical University in Graz and began their collaboration in the late 1959, with the first building completed in 1963. The group was an important precursor of what became known as the Graz School in Austrian architecture. Socially progressive, with a participatory as well as scientific approach they created projects that remain significant milestones until the present day. Werkgruppe Graz 1959-1989 is the first comprehensive documentation of the group's work; putting it in historical and international context. With comprehensive details of 30 building projects, it is a complete catalogue of their work.

Das Buch ist die Dokumentation des weit uber die Landesgrenzen hinaus bekannten Architekturpreises des Landes Steiermark, der alle zwei Jahre vergeben wird. Die handwerklich hervorragend gearbeitete Publikation besteht aus zwei gebundenen Teilen, die parallel gelesen werden koennen. Der Textteil ist eine Art Reisebericht, der die Projektbeschreibungen der zehn nominierten Projekte und die Preistrager integriert. Parallel dazu gibt es eine Kommentarebene, in die der Reisbericht eingebettet ist und die die steirische Architekturszene im Nationalen wie Internationalen sowie ubergeordnete Fragen der Architekturdiskussion behandelt. Diese Texte betreffen die "Grazer Schule", Verbindungen zwischen Graz und der Schweiz oder auch Fragestellungen des Entwurfs. So wird uber die reine Dokumentation des Architekturpreises hinausgegangen und mit dem Blick von Aussen Inhalte mit ubergeordneter Gultigkeit transportiert. Damit gibt es in mehrfacher Hinsicht Verbindungen zu "Dialogues in Time - New Graz Architecture" von Peter Blundell Jones. Der zweite Teil des Buches besteht aus einer Fotostrecke von Schwarz-Weiss-Fotografien von Hertha Hurnaus, die alle nominierten Projekte neu fotografiert und damit interpretiert hat.

This is the sixteenth time the Styrian Architecture Award is awarded. For the third time, the winner was selected by a curator, who is also responsible for the design of the corresponding publication, instead of a jury. Nathalie de Vries, of the MVRDV architecture office in The Netherlands was chosen to be the curator of this year's award. Her choice includes six projects of varying typologies and sizes. What these buildings in different regions of Styria have in common is their great awareness for the individual urban and suburban contexts as well the intensive, discursive process that characterized their planning and completion. This publication describes the projects and features commentaries by the architects, users and clients that accompany the expressive images both in context and detail.