Monday, November 11, 2013

Interior Design Handbook of Professional Practice


Interior Design Handbook of Professional Practice
Cindy Coleman

Let today's most admired design professionals share with you their priceless insights, step-by-step guidelines, and real-life examples drawn from their own highly successful practices. Interior Design Handbook of Professional Practice packs fresh new ways of thinking and profitable ways of working -- quality information you expect when experts join forces! Comprehensive, hands-on details show you how to problem-solve the design needs of clients¿streamline every stage of your practice, from finding and winning clients to project build-out and master the most efficient negotiation, bidding, contract, and documentation techniques. Achieve professional excellence and profitability with this authoritative resource as you learn how to act on the implications of the profound changes occurring in the design industry today with tips from designers who are at the top of their game.


Interior Color by Design - A Design Tool for Architects, Interior Designers, and Homeowners


Interior Color by Design - 
A Design Tool for Architects, Interior Designers, and Homeowners
Jonathan Poore

Effective color selection can be a powerful element in any design. "Interior Color By Design" takes the mystery out of the color application process by: Providing over 250 color samples to experiment with different combinations Featuring over 100 full-color images that illustrate key concepts like adjacent colors and overall design Exploring the interactive effects of color combinations on interior design and archticture


Towards a New Architecture - Le Corbusier


Towards a New Architecture - Le Corbusier

This pioneering proclamation by the great architect expounds Le Corbusier's technical and aesthetic theories, views on industry, economics, the relation of form to function, "mass-production spirit," and much more. Profusely illustrated with over 200 line drawings and photographs of Le Corbusier's buildings and other important structures.

The Discipline of Architecture


The Discipline of Architecture
by Andrzej Piotrowski

Architecture

A polemical look at how architectural knowledge is produced, disseminated, and received.

In the vast literature on architectural theory and practice, the ways in which architectural knowledge is actually taught, debated, and understood are too often ignored. The essays collected in this groundbreaking volume address the current state of architecture as an academic and professional discipline. The issues considered range from the form and content of architectural education to the architect's social and environmental obligations and the emergence of a new generation of architects. Often critical of the current paradigm, these essays offer a provocative challenge to accepted assumptions about the production, dissemination, and reception of architectural knowledge.


Private Dwelling : Contemplating the use of housing


Private Dwelling : Contemplating the use of housing
Peter King

Housing is something that is deeply personal to us. It offers us privacy and security and allows us to be intimate with those we are close to. This book considers the nature of privacy but also how we choose to share our dwelling. The book discusses the manner in which we talk about our housing, how it manifests and assuages our anxieties and desires and how it helps us come to terms with loss.

Private Dwelling offers a deeply original take on housing. The book proceeds through a series of speculations, using philosophical analysis and critique, personal anecdote, film criticism, social and cultural theory and policy analysis to unpick the subjective nature of housing as a personal place where we can be sure of ourselves.


Philosophy of Symbiosis - Kisho Kurokawa


Philosophy of Symbiosis - Kisho Kurokawa

Symbiosis, as defined by Kisho Kurokawa, one of Japan's leading architects, is a new way of interpreting today's culture. A philosophy which takes its name from ecological and biological concepts, it puts forward ideals developed from traditional Japanese philosophy and culture, while continually acknowledging the presence of the multivalent, contemporary world. It is a philosophy of "both-and" rather than "either-or", a practice of mix-and-match rather than creation from scratch, an ethic of inclusion rather than exclusion. As such, it is thought to be one of the most essential statements of post-modern culture to date. Kurokawa feels that we will recognize each other's differing personalities while competing and will co-operate while we oppose and criticize each other.


Penser I'architecture


Penser  I'architecture 
Peter  Zumthor 

French

Si l on attend de l architecture qu elle soit en relation sensuelle avec la vie, il faut que la réflexion aille bien au-delà de la forme et de la construction. Cet ouvrage, dont la première édition est épuisée depuis des années, a été enrichi de trois nouveaux essais: "La beauté a-t-elle une forme ?", "La magie du réel" et "La lumière dans le paysage". Dans ses textes, Peter Zumthor dévoile les ressorts de cette architecture qui s adresse, sur des modes très diversifiés, aux sentiments et à la raison, et qui a une présence et une aura indiscutables. La typographie, oeuvre de Hannele Grönlund, est nouvelle ainsi que les photographies en couleur de la maisonatelier de Peter Zumthor à Haldenstein réalisées spécialement pour cet ouvrage par Laura Padgett.


Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture


Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture
Lance LaVine

Architecture

An exploration of technology's role in architecture and, in turn, humanity's understanding of nature.

In Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture, Lance LaVine shows that in architecture, as practiced and taught today, the technological aspect of the profession-how weight is distributed, how heat flow is regulated, and how light is permitted to enter-has been ceded to engineers and other technical specialists. And in doing so, he argues, architects have lost sight of one of architecture's most important purposes, that of providing a literal and figurative window onto the world.

As a technology of habitation, architecture should provide people with both a practical and a metaphorical understanding of their relationship with nature. For LaVine, this knowledge emanates from a sensual understanding of the natural world as a "felt force." At its most basic level, architecture demands an understanding of and response to the natural forces of gravity, climate, and sunlight. At the center of Mechanics and Meaning in Architecture are case studies of four very different houses: a Finnish log farmhouse from the nineteenth century; Charles Moore's house in Arinda, California; Tadao Anmdo's Wall house in Japan; and Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye near Paris. Through his imaginative readings of structures, LaVine highlights how the architects involved have used the oldest and most fundamental architectural technologies-walls, floors, ceilings, columns, beams, and windows-in ways that offer creative responses to the natural world and humanity's place in it.

Clearly, architects are comfortable with the practical and aesthetic components of their profession. With this book, Lance LaVine encourages them also to understand what makes their use of technology unique and essential, and to reclaim the natural world for meaningful interpretation in their design of buildings. Lance LaVine is professor of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Minnesota.


The Language of Space


The Language of Space
Bryan Lawson 

This unique guide provides a systematic overview of the idea of architectural space. 

Bryan Lawson provides an ideal introduction to the topic, breaking down the complex and abstract terms used by many design theoreticians when writing about architectural space. Instead, our everyday knowledge is reintroduced to the language of design. Design values of 'space' are challenged and informed to stimulate a new theoretical and practical approach to design.

This book views architectural and urban spaces as psychological, social and partly cultural phenomena. They accommodate, separate, structure, facilitate, heighten and even celebrate human spatial behaviour.


Saturday, November 9, 2013

Identity by Design


Identity by Design
Georgia Butina Watson and Ian Bentley

In a world of increasing globalisation, where one high street becomes interchangeable with the next, Identity by Design addresses the idea of place-making and the concept of identity, looking at how these things can be considered as an integral part of the design process.

Structured around a series of case studies including Prague, Mexico, Malaysia and Boston, the authors discuss an array of design approaches to explain and define the complex interrelated concepts. The concluding sections of the book suggest ideas for practical application in future design processes. 

With full colour images throughout, this book takes the discussion of place-identity to the next level, and will be valuable reading for all architects, urban designers, planners and landscape architects.


Disclosing Horizons - Architecture, Perspective and Redemptive Space.


Disclosing Horizons - Architecture, Perspective and Redemptive Space.
Nicholas Temple

This study examines the influence of perspective on architecture, highlighting how critical historical changes in the representation and perception of space continue to inform the way architects design.

Since its earliest developments, perspective was conceived as an exemplary form of representation that served as an ideal model of how everyday existence could be measured and ultimately judged. Temple argues that underlying the symbolic and epistemological meanings of perspective there prevails a deeply embedded redemptive view of the world that is deemed perfectible.

Temple explores this idea through a genealogical investigation of the cultural and philosophical contexts of perspective throughout history, highlighting how these developments influenced architectural thought. This broad historical enquiry is accompanied by a series of case-studies of modern or contemporary buildings, each demonstrating a particular affinity with the accompanying historical model of perspective.