“The well-judged employment of classical detail in a new home has an additional significance that cannot be underestimated. It is an expression of an informed personal choice and an evocation of the delight in the human senses. This is true of all the houses featured in this book.” Jeremy Musson
“The architects and craftsmen that Phillip has featured in this wonderful book all have a love for classical detail. The art is alive and well, as can be attested to in these pages.” David Easton
In The Art of Classical Details, Phillip James Dodd takes a close-up look at some of the finest examples of contemporary classical architecture. The book consists of two chapters: The Essays and The Projects. Starting with a foreword by renowned decorator David Easton, The Essays are written by some of today’s most sought after architects, scholars and craftsmen. Accompanied by sumptuous full page photographs and renderings that illustrate a use of fine materials, intricate detailing, and superb artisanship, these insightful texts are essential reading for anyone with an interest in the theory, practice and craft of classical design. The Projects presents an illustrated look at 25 of today’s finest classically-designed homes. Employing the theories prescribed in the writings of the first chapter, this portfolio of contemporary buildings exhibits the work of some of the most recognizable and celebrated architects in Great Britain and the United States. The work featured in within this book demonstrates the timeless beauty of classicism, and delights in the role that superbly crafted details play in creating art.

Contemporary pedagogy contends that children’s growth and development takes place through experiences. This book is intended to uncover the relationship between child development and early childhood space design through an exciting selection of kindergarten, childcare, and nursery designs from around the world, each of which provides authentic, stimulating, and meaningful environments full of rich and active hands-on experiences to facilitate children’s access to nature and human connection as they discover the world and assimilate everything they need to grow and thrive. Rather than merely the design of preschool buildings, the book focuses on the quality of the space. A brief editor’s note is given for each case to highlight the important elements of the design, use, and function that help children to shape their own personal curriculum.

A short interview – a dialogue with the architect – is also offered after some of the projects for readers to gain greater insight into the ideas and processes of the architects. Highly illustrated with stunning full-colour throughout, this book hopes to spark the design inspirations of kindergarten architects, interior designers, outdoor playground designers, and child educators on how to design a quality space for children.

This richly illustrated monograph delves into the innovative output of one of the world’s most prolific international design and architecture practitioners, Tokyo-based Shigeru Ban. Canvassing an enormous compilation of works, this title is a significant contribution to IMAGES’ stable of works showcasing renowned architects from around the globe. This book features an array of innovative projects, from commercial and residential innovation strategies to humanitarian works, such as emergency shelters made from paper and modular shelters for earthquake victims. Shigeru Ban’s visionary residential design philosophies encompass timber hybrid structures, including a building constructed from cardboard tubes; the tallest hybrid timber structure in the world for a residential tower in Vancouver; as well as the new home designed for the Aspen Art Museum, which features woven wooden cladding. His innovation extends to the industrial design of an architect’s scale pen used for drawing. This book also helps to relay Shigeru Ban’s contemporary discourse on architectural culture, and how it is moving in new directions. This title is a must-have for any serious aficionado of modern architecture, innovative thinking, and design.

This book, edited by the designer of Shanghai Astronomy Museum, Ennead Architects LLP, is an all-round record of the design and construction process of Shanghai Astronomy Museum, with a foreword written by Ye Shuhua—an astronomer and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a preface by Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. The main part of the book unfolds from four perspectives: site, concept, realization, and engineering and construction, which describes the process of generating the core form of the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, as well as the design ingenuity of the main functional areas inside. The book presents many beautiful images of the museum, and includes texts by the chief designer, Thomas J. Wong. The designers’ love for the universe and their great enthusiasm for the project contribute to the essence of this book.

Text in English and Chinese.

LO2 is an interior design studio founded in 2004 that covers architectural projects (private residential, corporate and hospitality), interior design and landscape architecture – the latter through Locus Landscape Architecture – both in Spain and abroad.

Luisa Olazábal and Luis Ojeda, as well as their partners, have formed a multidisciplinary team that approaches projects with a holistic approach and fits them optimally into the environment in which they are located, as can be seen in the exquisite selection published in this book.

This volume explores the interconnected social, sustainable and spatial principles that underpin the design of more environmentally conscientious buildings and places, illustrated through models, drawings and images of selected key projects by the award-nominated London-based architecture practice Mæ. Each project outlines beneficial strategies for creating more sustainable designs, achieving social equity and working within our planet’s limits to elevate the human spirit in the long-term.

This book posits strategies to design buildings and places that enrich culture and society, offering insight from researchers and practitioners, as well as richly illustrated documentation of key architectural schemes that put these principles into practice. It is a call to arms for ways to create more environmentally regenerative architecture, applying its ideas to architectural practice worldwide.

a+u’s March issue presents Irish architecture through 20 houses by six architecture firms. These houses, nestled in the landscape of Ireland, paint a portrait of the physical conditions of the island. Architects Tom de Paor and Andrew Clancy serve as guest editors and begin the feature in conversation. They describe Ireland as being gently exhausted and without past glories, but not yet melancholic. The 20 houses responding to the island are practically designed yet with sensitive qualities of “dry and wet,” “soft lighting and fleeting shadows,” and “modeling and its staining.” These houses are individual attempts by their architects to find something that was already “constructed, abandoned, found” and to discover their own architectural language in Ireland. Their images, drawings, and give form to a notably new Irish architecture.

Text in English and Japanese.

“The quality of the reprint is nearly perfect, with a good selection of papers for the three sequential parts of the book: the texts, the drawings, and the black-and-white photographs. Text and drawings are on matte heavyweight pages, while the photos are on glossy paper. The inks make everything read well; in particular, the drawing reproductions are exquisite.” — Archidose

Edwin Lutyens, one of the most famous architectural names of the 20th century, died in 1944. As a memorial, three large volumes of his drawings and photographs were commissioned from the thousands found in his office, and were published by Country Life. 

All three volumes will be republished in 2023. The first volume contains his own plans, elevations and copious details of the finest examples of his domestic buildings, on which his huge reputation principally rests. The book embodies the quintessence of the man and his work; the variety of style and design seen in the houses brings together in one volume the many strands of Lutyen’s fertile mind. Two further volumes will include his corporate and public buildings.

The genius of Lutyens is now universally recognized. In the work featured in this book, we can now see not just the professionalism of a great architect, but also the loving care with which he set down the most minute detail, with the result that this is one of the few books in existence that can be used to provide working drawings.

This catalog for an exhibition at the Fondazione Cini in Venice presents stories of places and cities to the east of Italy, and highlights the tales and experiences of Italian architects and travellers. Six internationally famous Italian architects – Renzo Piano, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, Archea Associati, Piuarch, Michele De Lucchi and Mario Cucinella – will showcase projects in Russia, China, Albania, Georgia and Vietnam, with the addition of contextual materials from the Fondazione Cini archives. The narrative of convergence and dialog between Italian culture and these places emphasizes the significance of the unique Italian relationship to these countries and their cultures through the centuries.

From its foundation in 1948, the state of Israel has felt isolated and under threat from enemies. This collective siege mentality manifests itself with over 1 million public and private shelters. The Israelis have integrated these ‘Doomsday spaces’ into their everyday life and transformed them into spaces that look like normal dance studios, bars or temples. For many people in Israel who live with a personal history of exile and persecution, these shelters are the architecture of an existential threat both real and perceived. Adam Reynolds shot the images in this book over the course of three years, from 2013 to 2015. The photographs offer a broad cultural and geographical typology of the shelter spaces by documenting them on either side of the Green Line, throughout Israel and the Occupied Territories, in an effort to offer the broadest survey possible. They straddle the distinct worlds of fine art and reportage. “Working in a country like Israel, it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate art from social reality,” says Adam Reynolds.

The Classicist is an annual journal dedicated to the classical tradition in architecture and the allied arts. Focused on New England, the Classicist No. 20 explores the region’s rich architectural history; contemporary examples of classical design through professional and student portfolios; and academic articles authored by leaders within the field. Contributors include Michael J. Lewis, Professor at Williams College and architecture critic for the Wall Street Journal; Kenneth Hafertepe, Professor at Baylor University; Aaron M. Helfand, Architect at Knight Architecture in New Haven; Sarah Allaback, author and architectural historian; Mark Alan Hewitt, architect, preservationist, and architectural historian; Keith N. Morgan, architectural historian and Professor Emeritus at Boston University; Kyle Dugdale, architect, historian, and Senior Critic at Yale University; and John Tittmann, founding partner at Albert Righter Tittman Architects, alongside submissions to the professional and academic portfolio.

This book illustrates the extensive design and construction work in Milan over the past 20 years by the notable Milanese architectural firm ARAssociati. This award-winning firm has been involved in a wide range of projects, including new construction in the residential, hospitality, office and retail sectors, as well as work on prestigious historic buildings. Projects in the historical heart of the city are counterbalanced by those in the new areas of Milan, which is undergoing a transformation to a multicentric metropolis. The result is an expertize based on a deeply rooted knowledge of the city and its history, sensitive to the context and stratification over time, allowing the firm to retrace and map out the large-scale transformations that have changed and are still changing the face of Milan.

Text in English and Italian.

a+u’s April issue, guided by guest editors Ko Nakamura, Keigo Kobayashi, and Mamiko Miyahara, investigates the interconnection of architecture and food. Food insecurity is a major challenge that cities face in the Anthropocene that architects and urbanists must rise to meet. Presenting more than 20 projects of varying scales, this issue highlights alternative strategies that architecture and urban design may adopt in the urgent effort to address this shared global burden. Five key themes – New Ways of Production, Globalism and National Strategies, In Community, Meeting the City, and Exploring Food Space – organize the projects. Real-time examples, such as Vertical Urban Farm, reveal possible directions that could be followed, while other projects interrogate existing notions, like Floating Farm Dairy, which aims to reintegrate isolated industrial harbor spaces with the rest of the city by introducing space for animal husbandry. Food is an integral part of not only basic survival but also of fostering community and the conviviality of the built realm. Thus, architecture acts as the crucible where agricultural innovation, forms, community action, and environmental sustainability meet.

Text in English and Japanese.

The Art of the Architect celebrates the role that drawing and watercolor painting play in architecture. Architectural drawing as we know it dates from the Renaissance, but with the arrival of computer design programs this ancient art—formed of pen, pencil, and brushstrokes on paper—is sometimes regarded as obsolete. The work of Michael G. Imber, whose watercolors and sketches are published for the first time in paperback, shows what a vital contribution they can still make at every stage of an architectural project. His personal example is followed by his colleagues in a visual culture that permeates his practice, Michael G. Imber Architects.

Whatever the place occupied by photographs, simulations, and visual graphics in the design process of today, hand drawing still facilitates a moment of deeper connection between an architect and his environment. Unlike a snap taken on a smart phone, a hand drawing is an active response to its subject: what is understood about a place in sensory terms cannot help but inform the finished design, creating buildings which maintain the balance between the way we live and the natural world around us.

Not only do Michael’s sketches allow him to visualize his environment more clearly, but they provide an immediate visual language with which he can communicate with his team, his craftsmen, and his clients. Pen and wash is a suggestive, selective, and emotive technique. Rich in examples of the art and philosophy that have inspired him over the years, this book is both an ode to a precious art form, and a visual delight to anyone who may turn its pages. Michael’s attention to light, color, line, shape, and space in these “working paintings” reveals a love for the medium that extends from his architectural practice into the time he spends both traveling, and at his summer home on an island in Maine. The beauty of the result will be inspiring to anyone who loves architecture and the attendant arts.

Traditional country parks, which originated in the United Kingdom, are very different to the country parks we know today. With the development of urbanization and the improvement of living standards, city dwellers were no longer satisfied with small urban green spaces, and a new style of country park was born. Conveniently located in the outer city suburbs, with tranquil, natural environments, this new type of park met society’s desire to return to nature, and theses spaces have since become hotspots for tourism and leisure. Country Parks includes detailed theory and case studies showcasing outstanding international country park design; analyzes and promotes the current status and development of the country park and its role in urban development; and provides valuable guidance for professional designers working in the field today.

Kengo Kuma is a globally acclaimed Japanese architect whose prodigious output possesses an inherent respect and value of materials and environment, often creating a harmonious balance between building and landscape. He masterfully engages both architectural experimentation and traditional Japanese design with twenty-first-century technology, resulting in highly advanced yet beautifully simple, gentle, human-scaled buildings. He’s renowned for the drive to search for new materials to replace concrete and steel, seeking a new approach for architecture in a post-industrial society, and fusing interior and exterior realms to make spaces that both create a calming and tranquil atmosphere and which “transform” topography. In the pages of this exquisitely illustrated volume, Kuma presents close to forty of his most recognized and award-winning works, including FRAC Marseille, V&A Dundee, Mont-Blanc Base Camp, and Japan National Stadium. Kuma continues to forge a new design language: in this book he offers the reader deep insight into how he has engaged with different aspects of the architectural discipline by transforming topography, construction, and representation in order to give further progress to his ideas.

In Pavilions for Giving, Dr Jin-Ho Park explores how the role of the modern architect continues to evolve and emphasizes the importance of giving back to the community. This book presents six meaningful projects that have been valuable to the community of each location and served a bigger purpose to society. The details of the creative and constructive processes highlight the hard work and coordination behind each pavilion, which are even more impressive given the positive contribution of each finished structure. The six pavilions have not only improved the everyday lives of people, including children and the older generation, but they have involved student architects who have gained valuable experience.

Tectonism is the most advanced and most sophisticated contemporary architectural style. There are, to date, only relatively a few fully satisfactory built examples, and most of them are still of a relatively modest scale. It is the thesis of this book that tectonism, as defined and illustrated here, represents the future of 21st century architecture. This thesis is optimistic with respect to the long-term rationality of the discipline of architecture, i.e. with respect to its capacity to discern and ascertain, via its internal discourse, the superiority of tectonism, and to spread its influence and impact as global best practice accordingly. This optimism also extends to the rationality of the wider society, as represented through private clients, public clients, and through end-user acceptance, to be susceptible to the guidance it will receive from its architectural expert discourse. This optimism is based on a critical analysis and appraisal of architectural history. The avant-garde intuitions of the early modernists in the 1920s, backed up by sound theoretical arguments, did win over the discipline in the 1930s and 1940s, and spread its real impact on the global built environment throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The current avant-garde intuitions within the movement of tectonism, although very different from modernism, are equally well thought through as the arguments in this book will attempt to demonstrate. — From the Introduction, by Patrik Schumacher

In his office Urbana, Bangladesh, Kashef Chowdhury designs architecture that is rooted in the history and nature of the location. Nature in this sense not only consists of vegetation, plants and forests, but also the spiritual and cultural context of a specific environment and landscape. The range of his works includes the transformation of ships, the development of housing and the construction of mosques, museums and corporate headquarters. All of his projects have the common feature that they are based on comprehensive research work, aimed at applying an awareness of a specific location and its nature to achieve a high degree of innovation and original expression. This combination of traditional building styles and contemporary architecture often has an inspirational effect.
The Consciousness Of Place is Chowdhury’s philosophical engagement with his own understanding of architecture, based on his research and lectures. It focuses on the significance of architecture, which is able to connect us to nature and liberate us from hectic urban life. Buildings and workplaces should be transformed into oases of peace and relaxation in order to benefit from nature’s regenerative and relaxing qualities.
Chowdhury stresses the need to listen to nature and appreciate its beauty. Accordingly, he prefers natural materials in his projects, while also using the interplay of light and shadow as a key element to create spaces that inspire us to pause and think.
This publication is a manifesto of a form of architecture that harmonizes with the respective location, reflecting the identity of its culture and people. Chowdhury regards his task not so much as work and more as an activity stemming from his love of an art form that serves the people – which he believes is the nature of architecture.
In recent years, Chowdhury’s constructed works have attracted international attention and have been awarded prizes such as the 2022 RIBA International Prize and the 2016 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

Catalogue of the TECHNOSCAPE exhibition, which will be held at MAXXI in Autumn 2022, focusing on the relationship between artistic and scientific disciplines, nowadays closer than ever, and the consequent contacts between technique, creativity and social awareness.

Architecture, engineering and science have overlapped on numerous occasions during the 20th century. First in the heroic phase and then in the mature phase of the reinforced concrete, then with the affirmation of hi-tech construction methods in the 1970s and 1980s and finally with the eruption of digitally controlled technologies.

TECHNOSCAPE explores this alliance, responding to MAXXI’s mission to look towards the future of our planet and the disciplines that modify its spaces.

The volume follows the dual register of the exhibition, first dealing with how technology is making architecture, urban planning and other related disciplines more aware of their technical and scientific responsibility and capable of opening up new lines of research. The focus shifts then to structural engineering, comparing current masterpieces with previous historical modernist examples.