"Plans are usually only good for one thing - laughing at in hindsight. So, armed with rudimentary Spanish, dangerous levels of curiosity and a record of poor judgement, I set off to tackle whatever South America could throw at me." On his nineteenth birthday, Peter Allison flipped a coin. One side would take him to Africa and the other to South America. He recounted his time spent as a safari guide in Africa to much acclaim in Don't Run, Whatever You do and Don't Look Behind You. Sixteen years later he makes his way to Chile, ready to seek out the continent's best, weirdest and wildest adventures - and to chase the elusive jaguar. From learning to walk a puma (or rather be bitten and dragged along by it) in Bolivia, to finding love in Patagonia and hunting naked with the remote Huaorani people in Ecuador, How to Walk a Puma is Peter's fascinating and often hilarious account of misadventures in South America. Ever the gifted storyteller and cultural observer, Allison makes many observations about life in humid climes, the nature of nomadism, and exactly what it is like to be nearly blasted off a mountain by the famous Patagonia wind. His self-deprecating humour is as delightful as his crazy stunts, and his love for animals - even when they bite - is infectious.

The second volume in Thames & Hudson's monographic series on global architect Sir David Adjaye, winner of the 2021 RIBA royal gold medal. Following on from Adjaye - Works: Houses, Pavilions, Installations, Buildings, 1995-2007, published by Thames & Hudson in 2020, this book covers the impressive portfolio of work created by the architect between 2007 and 2015. During the years covered in this book, Adjaye became interested in developing an architecture that was more expansive, taking him outside Europe to work on major projects such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo. Designing buildings around the globe, including two projects connected with the post-Katrina reconstruction programme in New Orleans, Adjaye carefully tailored his approach to each place, sensitive to the important role architecture plays in affirming a sense of community and identity.

In Peter's own words: These are the stories of a not particularly brave safari guide . . . As a child I knew that I was afraid of heights, and while uncomfortable admitting any phobia, was glad to have only one. Then I met my first crocodile. Now I know that there are at least two things in the world that unhinge my knees with fear, sour my breath, and overwhelm me with an urge to squeeze my eyes shut and wake up somewhere else. In this companion to Don't Run, Whatever You Do, Peter Allison encounters ravenous lions, stampeding elephants and lovesick rhinos. He recounts his hairy, and often hilarious, adventures in a private section of South Africa's famous Kruger National Park and in Botswana's Okavango Delta, where desert animals from the Kalahari make their homes next to aquatic creatures like hippos, and where the unusual becomes commonplace. It is written with a wonderful, gentle humour evocative of Gerald Durrell. One can almost feel the heat from the campfire flames as the stories are told.

On his nineteenth birthday, Peter Allison flipped a coin. One side would take him to Africa and the other to South America, the two places he wanted to explore before he died. He recounted his time spent as a safari guide in Africa to much acclaim in "Whatever You Do, Don't Run" and "Don't Look Behind You." Sixteen years later, he makes his way to Santiago, Chile, ready to seek out the continent's best, weirdest, and wildest adventures, and to chase the elusive jaguar. In just the first six months, Allison is bitten by a puma (several times), knocked on his head by a bad empanada, and surrounded by piranhas while rafting down a Bolivian river--all because of his unusual fear of refrigerators and of staying in any one place for too long. Ever the gifted storyteller and cultural observer, Allison makes many observations about life in humid climes, the nature of nomadism, and exactly what it is like to be nearly blasted off a mountain by the famous Patagonia wind. Allison's self-deprecating humor is as delightful as his crazy stunts, and his love for animals--even when they bite--is infectious.

A hilarious, highly original collection of essays based on the Botswana truism: "only food runs!" With a new introduction and new material from the authorIn the tradition of Bill Bryson, a new writer brings us the lively adventures and biting wit of an African safari guide. Peter Allison gives us the guide's-eye view of living in the bush, confronting the world's fiercest terrain of wild animals and, most challenging of all, managing herds of gaping tourists. Passionate for the animals of the Kalahari, Allison works as a top safari guide in the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta. As he serves the whims of his wealthy clients, he often has to stop the impulse to run as far away from them as he can, as these tourists are sometimes more dangerous than a pride of lions. No one could make up these outrageous-but-true tales: the young woman who rejected the recommended safari-friendly khaki to wear a more "fashionable" hot pink ensemble; the lost tourist who happened to be drunk, half-naked, and a member of the British royal family; establishing a real friendship with the continent's most vicious animal; the Japanese tourist who requested a repeat performance of Allison's being charged by a lion so he could videotape it; and spending a crazy night in the wild after blowing a tire on a tour bus, revealing that Allison has as much good-natured scorn for himself. The author's humor is exceeded only by his love and respect for the animals, and his goal is to limit any negative exposure to humans by planning trips that are minimally invasive—unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way!New story: People often ask safari guides about the experience that frightened them the most. In this story Peter Allison tells of the time he became aware of unseen danger, and knew that somewhere within meters of him was a hunting lioness. Peter Allison is originally from Sydney, Australia. His safaris have been featured in National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveler, and on television programs such as Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures. He travels frequently to speaking appearances, and splits most of his time between Botswana, Sydney, and San Francisco.

The Okavango Delta, Botswana: a lush wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert. Aged 19, Peter Allison thought he would visit for a short holiday before going home to get a 'proper job'. But Peter fell in love with southern Africa and its wildlife and before long had risen to become a top safari guide. In Don't Run, Whatever You Do, you'll hear outrageous-but-true tales from the most exciting safaris. You'll find out when an elephant is really going to charge, what different monkey calls mean and what do in a face off with lions. Sometimes the tourists are even wilder than the animals, from the half-naked missing member of the British royal family to the Japanese amateur photographer who ignores all the rules to get the perfect shot. Don't Run, Whatever You Do is a glimpse of what the life of an expert safari guide is really like.

I personally have always been quite comfortable either halfway up or halfway down a steep, snowy mountainside. Ascents and Descents is the autobiography of Peter Allison: civil engineer, rock climber, ski-mountaineer and mountain guide. Starting out on the crags of north-east England as a young boy, Peter soon became immersed in the emerging climbing scene of the 1950s, when harnesses were a thing of the future, and hemp ropes and plimsolls were the staple climbing gear. He soon began to explore ice climbing and mixed climbing, progressing to crags in the Lake District and then the Alps, and claiming several first British ascents. Over the course of an impressive sixty-five-year climbing career, he climbed hard lines on the high mountains, including the North Face of the Eiger and the Hoernli Ridge on the Matterhorn. Having initially juggled climbing with a thriving and extremely busy quarrying business, Peter decided it was time to dedicate more time to his love of the hills, and qualified as a mountain guide, subsequently specialising in routes on the Chamonix Aiguilles, the Aiguille du Chardonnet and the Aiguille d'Argentiere. He built an excellent reputation, balancing fun and risk with safety and prudence, and always putting his clients first. Ascents and Descents tells of the highs and lows of climbing, from standing on a summit in perfect conditions to the frustration of years of rehabilitation from a broken pelvis. Peter Allison recounts his colourful story with honesty, humour and frank detail, leaving you in no doubt about his true passion for the mountains.

For many young architects, houses or domestic buildings are among the first projects they design. For David Adjaye, such early commissions were connected to a rising generation of creatives, with whom he shared a range of sensibilities. His artistry, clever use of space and inexpensive, unexpected materials resulted in many innovative and widely published houses, mainly built in London. After twenty years of practice and a raft of high-profile projects around the world - not least the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, which opened in the autumn of 2016 - houses represent a smaller portion of Adjaye's work, but are more potent as a result. Selecting projects that are challenging for their sites, complexity or architectural possibility, Adjaye has both expanded and sharpened his domestic design, taking it in new directions. This monograph presents in vivid detail the nine finest and most recent examples, from Ghana to Brooklyn, from desolate farmlands to urban jungles. The results, presented through lucid texts alongside detailed and photographically rich visual documentation, testify to the importance of Adjaye's growing inventiveness and provide powerful new design ideas for residential architecture.

The African continent contains some of the world's most vibrant culture and creativity, and yet its buildings - vernacular, colonial or contemporary - have rarely engaged the interest of Western architects. David Adjaye, the first black architect to establish a truly global reputation in his field, has found endless sources of inspiration for his designs in the rich - and chequered - heritage of Africa's teeming metropolises. His life dream was to return to the continent as an architect to document Africa's built environment. Over a long decade, he tirelessly documented these dynamic, colourful cities, photographing thousands of buildings, sites and places, and letting each building speak for itself in telling contrast to a design world obsessed with photorealistic slickness. The result was a stunning seven-volume work that has become an essential resource for all those interested in the burgeoning continent. This compact edition will make the fruits of this once-in-a-generation record available to a much wider audience. The result is one of the most original, ambitious and important architectural publications of our time, now available to everyone wishing to gain an understanding of a unique architectural heritage overlooked for too long.

David Adjaye, the son of a Tanzanian diplomat, spent his childhood moving between international cities before settling in London, where he was educated. Fresh out of the Royal Academy of Art, his early commissions reflected an influential generation of artists at the turn of the millennium with whom he shared a range of sensibilities. His artistic sensitivity, deft use of space and inexpensive, unexpected materials resulted in a number of iconic projects. With the hindsight of almost twenty years of practice and a raft of high-profile projects around the world - perhaps best symbolized by his National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. - the significance of Adjaye's earlier projects is clear. Never shying away from a challenge, Adjaye used his first projects as testbeds for what would become his unique, acclaimed and highly sought after brand of 'critical regionalism'. This monograph presents the first projects of Adjaye's corpus, many little documented. From London's West End to Brooklyn, clever urban interventions and pavilions to private houses for artists and public buildings for the many. These early projects, brought together and presented with new analyses and recently uncovered archival material, testify to the originality of an architect at the height of his talents who is changing the face of our built world.

At just over forty, David Adjaye is one of the world's most exciting and accomplished architects, and has built many highly acclaimed houses and public buildings in the UK and USA. Over a ten-year period, the Tanzanian born, London-based architect has visited 53 major African cities and photographed thousands of buildings, sites and places that few of us will ever be able to visit. This 7-volume slipcased edition documents Adjaye's tribute to African metropolitan architecture. The individual volumes present cities according to the terrain in which they are situated - the Maghreb, Desert, The Sahel, Savannah and Grassland, Mountain and Highveld, and Forest. Each city is shown in a concise urban history, fact file, maps and satellite imagery, along with Adjaye's personal travel notes and dozens of photographs of the city's civic, commercial and residential architecture. All six `terrain' volumes feature an introductory essay by Adjaye, and a separate volume is dedicated to essays by leading academics and commentators on Africa.

Incredible true tales from a world-renowned safari guide and celebrated author Romantic notions aside, being a safari guide isn't always particularly enjoyable or glamorous. Quite often it is beset with challenges, like having to spend a night in a thorn tree with marauding hyenas below. But safari guide Peter Allison lives for such moments. Here, the author of the widely praised Whatever You Do, Don't Run details his time spent in safari camps not only in Botswana but also in South Africa, Mozambique, and Namibia-places he loves, despite how much it feels like they might just be trying to kill him. In Don't Look Behind You, Allison recounts adventures few would live to tell. Like the time he and a group of bored guides launched a makeshift raft into a foaming, flooded river teeming with hippos and crocodiles. Or the afternoon he heard monkeys telling him that a leopard was walking around the camp, and then realized the leopard was in his tent, with him in it. In addition to relating his encounters with animals, Allison shares the stories of those tourists who have long been pushing him toward early retirement. Normally respectful of all his fellow creatures no matter how many feet they have, Allison fantasizes about leaving one in particular behind on the Skeleton Coast, a place that receives less than half an inch of rain a year, and is patrolled by lions and hyenas. Join Peter Allison for another riveting, rollicking, behind-the-scenes dose of everyone's dream experience-going on safari-and come through amazed but, thankfully, without a scratch.

David Adjaye is one of Britain’s leading contemporary architects. Known for his domestic projects, Making Public Buildings focuses for the first time on Adjaye’s engagement with civic space and the built environment.