Considering the immense diversity of sub-Saharan Africa's archi tecture and built realities, does it make sense to speak of an African architecture? How does this differ from archi tecture in Africa? What does the term architecture actually mean in the African context? And how could these questions be conceptualised while leaving behind pre-existing theoretical moulds and biases? Searching for new ways to theorise sub-Saharan African architecture, this collection of 49 essays broadens and develops the discourse around the architecture of a very rapidly changing continent. Its authors - practising architects and renowned scholars - put forward an array of heterogeneous perspectives, question old tropes and emerg ing narratives, and challenge popular concepts whilst pro pos ing new ones. All with the aim of critically examining and advancing theoretical reflection on African archi tec tures, both on the continent and globally.

Amid the endless plains of Kazakhstan, an extraordinary architectural experiment has arisen: Astana. Formerly an outpost of the Tsarist Empire in the barren steppe, the location had developed into a typical Soviet provincial town. However, both internationally renowned and local architects are now designing spectacular and unique buildings in this dynamic city. Furthermore, Astana will host the Expo 2017 which will take place only twenty years after the city was built in the steppe alongside the old centre. The Astana Architectural Guide documents eighty diverse buildings and projects in the Kazakh metropolis, which was masterplanned by Kisho Kurokawa, and examines the contradictory nature at play within oriental traditions, western models and Soviet influences. Therefore, this publication represents a critical analysis of architecture and capital city planning in the centre of Eurasia.

Prefabricated housing, often associated with blighted urban land scapes and monotonous grey boxes, has evolved into an approach to housing with a wealth of aesthetic and structural possibilities. Modern methods of constructing and assembling prefabricated buildings - methods that can be traced back to the 19th century - are going through a renaissance. This is true across the world, from Vancouver and New York to London and Berlin through to Astana and Singapore. Moreover, prefabrication now serves a wider range of purposes than ever before. In Moscow, Europe's largest metropolitan area, it is primarily used as a means to provide affordable homes. But in some countries, prefabrication is surprisingly also used to build exclusive, upmarket properties. This construction and design manual presents a range of different production and assembly methods currently used in the field of prefabricated housing. It particularly focuses on efficiency, sustainability, and market relevance, and presents strategies for organising processes along with best-practice examples that reflect the latest trends. The manual also ex plores the historical development of prefabricated housing in order to discover its full architectural potential. Finally, it outlines ten design parameters for prefabricated housing and presents 15 noteworthy examples, making a fresh contribution to the debate on affordable housing today.

This monograph on the work of the Russian architect Galina Balashova presents a unique collection of designs for Soviet cosmonautics. These include plans and engineering drawings for Soyuz capsules and the space stations Salyut and Mir. Balashova acted as a consultant to the Buran programme, the Soviet counterpart to the American Space Shuttle.

Prefabricated housing has long since ceased to mean the disfigurement of the urban landscape with monotonous grey boxes. Particularly in Central Europe and Russia, modern assembly methods and 100 years of experience in planning prefabricated buildings and constructing with large panels are experiencing a renaissance. Whereas predominantly in Moscow - the largest European metropolis with seventeen million - prefabricated housing is an essential instrument for the provision of residential assistance, prefabrication methods in Germany and Switzerland, for example, are used to build exclusive properties. This construction manual examines the potential of prefabricated housing on structural, historical and architectural grounds. In addition to an insight into the methods of production and assembly, roughly twenty selected examples are presented in large-format photographs, plans rich in detail and meaningful diagrams, providing a contribution to the discussion on affordable housing.

Accessible architecture is about much more than wide doorways and low-placed light switches. Accessibility means independent and self-reliant living and mobility for people of all ages and in any situation in life. Enabling this requires a clear awareness of the related concepts and principles that need to be adopted into the planning at an early stage. This manual presents both public buildings and orientation systems in the fields of culture, transport, and education, as well as examples from the worlds of work and health. Informative essays provide an insight into the theory of signage, while selected projects are described from the perspective of Design for All. Large-scale images and drawings illustrate ten design parameters Best-of collection of the practical handbooks on accessible architecture and wayfinding Incorporate two areas of design to ease our daily life

For generations, the trilogy of the Kremlin, Red Square, and the GUM department store marked the undis­­puted centre of Moscow. The last decades brought sweeping changes to the Russian ­capital. Today the biggest city in Europe and undoubtfully the heart of Eurasia has many centres. Its new squares and parks have set unprecedented stan­dards in urban design. And the city continues to grow – not least due to the construction of gigantic housing complexes and multifunctional projects. This book guides you through Moscow's history, from the fifteenth century to the present day, taking you to well-known landmarks, industrial areas and residential districts. It includes more than 550 buildings, structures, parks and squares. Well-researched descriptions provide in-depth information on the built environment, while detailed maps and QR codes make it easy to find all the ­featured projects.

Housing is the most omnipresent urban typology. Housing is also the essential architecture of the human condition. Perhaps more than any other architectural species, housing determines the ways urbanites construct their lives and build their shared futures. The all-out war in Ukraine, started by the Russian Federation in 2022 has disproportionally affected housing and residential infrastructure. The destruction is so targeted, and the damage so significant that it has disfigured entire neighbourhoods and erased entire cities. With the scale of damage and loss in mind, and the future wide-ranging reconstruction that will inevitably take place after the war, this study examines the history and typologies of mass housing in Ukraine. It does so in order to evaluate what is lost, explain the diversity of modes of urban living that exist in Ukrainian cities, and finally, reconsider the narrative of how Ukrainian housing came about. The study covers the period of the last 100 years: the time of the most dramatic expansion and change in character of Ukrainian cities. It begins with the experimental buildings constructed in the Soviet Central and Eastern Ukraine and Polish Western Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s, continues by looking at type projects from the Stalin era, as well as the serial apartment blocks built during the reigns of Khrushchev and Brezhnev and in the late USSR. Finally, it showcases individually designed, yet also typical residential buildings from the turbo-capitalist period of the 1990s and 2000s. With the help of archival materials--texts, blueprints, and photographs--as well as contemporary documentation, the authors analyse 30 examples of Ukrainian-designed or modified housing types. Through uncovering the Ukrainian context, as well as the work of Ukrainian architects, design institutions, contractors, and developers, the history of Ukrainian housing is emancipated from the Russian narrative of the Soviet past. By doing so, we aim to write the history of a specifically Ukrainian building tradition and contribute to embedding it in the context of all-European architectural history. This title is part of the "Histories of Ukrainian Architecture" programme initiated by DOM publishers in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine's sovereignty on 24 February 2022.

PYONGYANG ARCHITECTURAL AND CULTURAL GUIDE
two volumes in slipcase, edited by Philipp Meuser. DOM Publishers, Berlin, Germany; dom-publishers.com . 2012. Volume 1, 127 pages; Volume 2, 237 pages. $49.95 softcover, 2 volumes in slipcase, 5-1/4" x 0-1/2," ISBN 978-3-86922-187-8 color photographs, maps, bibliography, index.

The first volume is a photographic gallery of Pyongyang buildings divided into major architectural categories--urban planning, residential buildings, cultural venues, education and sport, hotels/department stores, transport infrastructure, and monuments. Buildings' exteriors are shown, with occasional photos of parts of interiors. Overall, the treatment is the gross architectural forms and styles--as limited as these are as constrained by the North Korean Communist ideology--not details of interior design, materials, individual artists, or features notable for artistic or other reasons. What is notable overall despite the broad-ranging perspective with the large number of buildings shown is the repetitiveness of architectural concept. Though categorized into major categories in terms of the buildings' kind or function, the North Korean architecture is basically either functional (e. g., apartment buildings, government buildings) or monumental (e. g., statues, commemorative or symbolic structures).

The concept "juche" discussed briefly in the second volume accounts for the architecture. The term meaning simply "self-reliant" has broader, significant historical and political connotations. In a 1991 work on architecture parts of which are excerpted, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (d. 2011) wrote, "Juche architecture regards the masses' aspirations and demands as the sole criterion for the evaluation of beauty." Although this is standard Communist ideology, for North Korean leaders since the end of World War II, "juche" was a principle intended to develop a distinctive national identity apart from Soviet Russia which had been Korea's ally in the War against Japan occupying the Korean peninsula.

The photographs of the many buildings in Volume I have brief captions or annotations containing facts about construction or features (e. g., capacity) or historical notes. Volume 2 contains illustrated essays on varied facets of the Pyongyang architecture. In this volume, one finds photographs of buildings under construction, photos of North Koreans in other social settings, pictures of leaders and government officials, and posters on the sides of urban buildings or monuments meant to work in conjunction with them in representing the strength of social unity, the relationship between leaders and the population, and other principles of the nation's ideology. One of the chapters of the second volume is "Learning from Pyongyang - On the Legibility of Spatial Production." The topics of urban architecture and Communist ideology are implicit or explicit in most of this volume essays.

Use of the two-volume set as a travel guide is noted by the editor. He also notes that all visitors to North Korea are monitored continually by the authorities, not that this interferes with viewing the architecture. But even if one does not plan travel to North Korea, the set works as a unique informative illustrated study of the architecture of this infamous, closed society. On this subject, it is encyclopedic.

This Construction and Design Manual showcases all aspects of planning hospitals, medical practices, and pharmacies. Around 50 projects are presented in their entirety, accompanied by large photographs, true to scale floor plans, and coloured diagrams. The volume also features scientific contributions concerning methods of planning and questions of design. Additional essays on architectural history and typological classifications make this book, spanning over 400 pages, an indispensable reference work for everyone with an interest in hospital architecture and healthcare design. Construction data, planning parameters, and regulations for hospitals and medical facilities True to scale floor plans for different building types and scientific comments Essential for healthcare design, architecture, and medical administration

Anyone concerned with the history, tradition, and culture of our built environment will sooner or later come across the term ‘Public Humanities’. At the interface between an academic discipline and the media-oriented culture industry, Public Humanities is established as a field of inquiry in the US and is increasingly becoming so in Europe too. Whether this field of research remains a product of Western culture will only become apparent in the coming years. However, linking architectural debate with the humanities is an important concern of the papers collected here. These essays on architectural theory provide academic food for thought while encouraging reflection on the discipline of architecture and stimulating urban design in the twenty-first century. The lectures collected here are from a class on Public Humanities at Brown University.

Originally part of a set, now sold separately, Volume 3 of Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide is dedicated to Western Africa, along the Atlantic Ocean Coast and includes Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. Africa is considered the continent of the future. Nowhere else is urbanisation taking place more quickly and the population growing more rapidly. But are enough of us familiar with the architectural aspects of this change? The seven volumes of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa present the first comprehensive overview that shows the region's architecture in all its vast diversity. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, detailed texts and illuminating photos document the wealth of architecture south of the Sahara. Featuring 850 selected buildings and over 200 articles, the extensive publication not only showcases but also contextualises the continent's building culture. This set of books paints a multifaceted picture of sub-Saharan Africa's architecture across time, revealing how contemporary architecture has been shaped by its traditional and colonial roots as well as globalisation and urbanisation. The diverse contributions by almost 350 African and international authors come together to produce a superlative work giving the region the attention it so rightfully deserves.

Originally part of a set, now sold separately, Volume 5 of Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide is dedicated to Eastern Africa, from the Great Lakes to the Indian Ocean and includes Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Comoros, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar. Africa is considered the continent of the future. Nowhere else is urbanisation taking place more quickly and the population growing more rapidly. But are enough of us familiar with the architectural aspects of this change? The seven volumes of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa present the first comprehensive overview that shows the region's architecture in all its vast diversity. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, detailed texts and illuminating photos document the wealth of architecture south of the Sahara. Featuring 850 selected buildings and over 200 articles, the extensive publication not only showcases but also contextualises the continent's building culture. This set of books paints a multifaceted picture of sub-Saharan Africa's architecture across time, revealing how contemporary architecture has been shaped by its traditional and colonial roots as well as globalisation and urbanisation. The diverse contributions by almost 350 African and international authors come together to produce a superlative work giving the region the attention it so rightfully deserves.

This new addition to the hugely successful Construction and Design Manual series looks at building typologies in the field of public health. It is an essential work of reference and covers the entire spectrum of interior architecture in consultancies, pharmacies and other medical facilities. Photographs, scale plans and sketches illustrate 50 projects, which are described and analysed in detail. Background essays shed light on such topics as interior design strategies, medical history and building costs. Sample floor plans and planning aids for architects working in the medical field round off this beautifully designed book.

Originally part of a set, now sold separately, Volume 7 of Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide is dedicated to Southern Africa, between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and includes Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, and South Africa. Africa is considered the continent of the future. Nowhere else is urbanisation taking place more quickly and the population growing more rapidly. But are enough of us familiar with the architectural aspects of this change? The seven volumes of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa present the first comprehensive overview that shows the region's architecture in all its vast diversity. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, detailed texts and illuminating photos document the wealth of architecture south of the Sahara. Featuring 850 selected buildings and over 200 articles, the extensive publication not only showcases but also contextualises the continent's building culture. This set of books paints a multifaceted picture of sub-Saharan Africa's architecture across time, revealing how contemporary architecture has been shaped by its traditional and colonial roots as well as globalisation and urbanisation. The diverse contributions by almost 350 African and international authors come together to produce a superlative work giving the region the attention it so rightfully deserves.

Originally part of a set, now sold separately, Volume 6 of Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide is dedicated to Central Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes and includes Central African Republic, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa), and Angola. Africa is considered the continent of the future. Nowhere else is urbanisation taking place more quickly and the population growing more rapidly. But are enough of us familiar with the architectural aspects of this change? The seven volumes of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa present the first comprehensive overview that shows the region's architecture in all its vast diversity. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, detailed texts and illuminating photos document the wealth of architecture south of the Sahara. Featuring 850 selected buildings and over 200 articles, the extensive publication not only showcases but also contextualises the continent's building culture. This set of books paints a multifaceted picture of sub-Saharan Africa's architecture across time, revealing how contemporary architecture has been shaped by its traditional and colonial roots as well as globalisation and urbanisation. The diverse contributions by almost 350 African and international authors come together to produce a superlative work giving the region the attention it so rightfully deserves.

Originally part of a set, now sold separately, Volume 2 of Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide is dedicated to Western Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Sahel and includes Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Africa is considered the continent of the future. Nowhere else is urbanisation taking place more quickly and the population growing more rapidly. But are enough of us familiar with the architectural aspects of this change? The seven volumes of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa present the first comprehensive overview that shows the region's architecture in all its vast diversity. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, detailed texts and illuminating photos document the wealth of architecture south of the Sahara. Featuring 850 selected buildings and over 200 articles, the extensive publication not only showcases but also contextualises the continent's building culture. This set of books paints a multifaceted picture of sub-Saharan Africa's architecture across time, revealing how contemporary architecture has been shaped by its traditional and colonial roots as well as globalisation and urbanisation. The diverse contributions by almost 350 African and international authors come together to produce a superlative work giving the region the attention it so rightfully deserves.

Originally part of a set, now sold separately, Volume 4 of Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide is dedicated to Eastern Africa, from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa and includes Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Africa is considered the continent of the future. Nowhere else is urbanisation taking place more quickly and the population growing more rapidly. But are enough of us familiar with the architectural aspects of this change? The seven volumes of Architectural Guide Sub-Saharan Africa present the first comprehensive overview that shows the region's architecture in all its vast diversity. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, detailed texts and illuminating photos document the wealth of architecture south of the Sahara. Featuring 850 selected buildings and over 200 articles, the extensive publication not only showcases but also contextualises the continent's building culture. This set of books paints a multifaceted picture of sub-Saharan Africa's architecture across time, revealing how contemporary architecture has been shaped by its traditional and colonial roots as well as globalisation and urbanisation. The diverse contributions by almost 350 African and international authors come together to produce a superlative work giving the region the attention it so rightfully deserves.