A lot of people sleep on mattresses that are of poor quality. A good night’s rest and a correct sleeping posture can however prevent the onset of a number of common back problems. Roughly 8 out of 10 people suffer from severe back pain at some point during their lives. Of those, almost 10% go on to develop chronic back problems. Sleep Without Back Pain helps you to minimize the risk of developing back pain. What should you look for when buying a mattress? Should you be thinking in terms of sleeping on an orthopedic or memory foam mattress? And which is the best position for sleeping? After reading this book you will be as informed as your physiotherapist or general practitioner (or even more so) about the benefits of a healthy spine.
“I can never say I was born to dance,” she says with a subtle hint of pride. Yet for this very reason, Kumudini Lakhia went on to become one of the great modern innovators of North Indian classical dance. Such paradoxes compose the fabric of Kumudini’s life and personality-an upbringing in the waning days of the Raj characterized by a love for Indian art as well as British sensibilities, a temperament both warm and austere, and an ambitious energy as overwhelming as it is focused. Like her life, her art itself came to embody an element of paradox-contemporary choreography within one of the most ancient dance forms in the world. Her work, criticized thirty years ago as sacrilege, is now considered classic, and continues to inspire novel approaches to the dance form. Unlike many Kathak exponents in the 1940s and 50s, Kumudini did not inherit the narrowly focused life of a traditional dancer. Instead, she was exposed to the modern world-attending an elite boarding school, developing curiosities ranging from agriculture to architecture, and touring Europe by the age of 18. Though she studied Kathak throughout her life, her path to professional dance was shaped more by circumstance than tradition. Told through the refracted lens of writer and dance student, Movement in Stills offers a unique blend of biography and personal impression to depict the life and dance of one of India’s great performing artists.
Peggy Liechti, Andreas Graf and Lukas Zumsteg have been working in Brugg since 1992, developing an architectural oeuvre with individual buildings that have been conceived with great care and precision. They are all atmospheric buildings that have a great coherence with their surroundings, despite their highly contrasting building programmes.
Text in English and German.
To feature house designs through the decades, The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 includes 75 houses by over 50 architects. The projects are divided into 13 themes such as Earthy Concrete, Play, and Unmarketable and presented using models, drawings, and photographs. The Japanese have experienced drastic social and environmental changes related to the WW II recovery period leading to rapid economic growth, pollution, the bubble economy and collapse, and natural disasters. Commissioned by individual homeowners, Japanese architects have responded to these changes by developing ideas for new ways of living, expressed through the architecture of the house. A distinguishing feature of Japan is the large proportion of young people owning land and engaging architects. These clients have generally studied residential designs closely before approaching the architect, therefore the resulting new homes tend to be on the experimental side. Text in English and Japanese.
The baking industry has seen a developing momentum in recent years. The competition is stiff; it’s not just the quality of the food that attracts customers, so it’s often necessary to ensure the design of the bakery itself is both creative and eye catching, while still being functional. A well-designed store can not only increase sales, but also help develop a brand identity. This book includes fifty bakery designs from all over the world, including Spain, Greece, Canada, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Israel, the USA, Germany, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, China, Japan, Brazil, Romania, Thailand, Austria, Lebanon, and France. The designers responsible exhaustively examine their projects in order to illustrate the design process.
This highly anticipated monograph focuses on the architectural output of Enrique Browne, a talented and prolific Chilean architect and co-founder of Browne & Swett Arquitectos, based in Santiago. Over the last 40 years, this South American architect has been trying to reconcile natural and artificial worlds through architecture. They are one indissoluble unity. This book showcases in rich photographic detail how his innovative projects incorporate multiple environmental aspects that result in a complex, layered response to the challenges of place, form and identity in Chile.
Browne’s practice has developed architectural designs in a diverse range of scales, with emphasis on sustainability and energy efficiency. This volume delves into Browne’s processes, such as developing variations of the “grapevinestructure typology” to create a “double green skin” as a green wall (or roof), to protect dwellings from the region’s strong westerly sun; or combining vegetation and its oxygenation benefits with building to counter pollution; or using both artificial and natural light as a material for illuminating spaces or volume. This book also includes commentary on the new zeitgeist surrounding modernity and the impacts of the digital and globalized world on architecture today. Highly regarded, and a prolific writer and designer, Enrique Browne has a unique way of looking at the world. Showcasing the wide range of his design, this title is sure to impress.
Documentary photographer William E. Crawford spent three decades documenting Vietnam, and in particular Hanoi, its people and the surrounding countryside. As one of the very first Western photographers to work in post-war North Vietnam, Crawford was drawn back to the country numerous times at regular intervals between 1985 and 2015 to record this fascinating country’s culture, people, and society with beautiful, compelling and intimate photographs, concentrating on colonial and indigenous architecture, urban details, portraits, and landscapes. In 1986, the Vietnam’s Communist leadership began to shift from a Soviet-style central planning model toward free-market economic reforms. As a result, Hanoi has been transformed over the last three decades, becoming an example of how traditional Asian and developing cities have often been torn down or allowed to crumble – only to re-emerge in a ‘modernized’ form. Unlike photo-journalism, which is interested in the theatre of the moment, Crawford’s evocative and powerful photography chronicles life throughout Hanoi and its surroundings over the course of the last three decades. Filled with full-color photographs and informative essays on his experiences and the people he encountered, Crawford’s work – showcased in this beautifully presented volume – provides a unique visual catalogue of the evolution of a city and its inhabitants, and particularly the complex historical area known as The 36 Streets.
To understand the development of private gardens, one must accept that there is no classroom that can explain how approaching such a project is accomplished. It is a long journey that is ignited in those who begin to pursue a passion for garden design. Beginning with, first, the study of plants and the wonder of all their characteristics, this knowledge then needs to be combined with a solid understanding of the mathematics of geometry and the use of scale and the relationship of proportions. Landscape designers must progress on to developing a style that fits a designer’s personality while, at the same time, expanding the vision for each landscape. Garden design seems simple, but actually it is very complicated work.
This book covers nearly 40 beautiful private gardens from all over the world, including traditional European gardens, American gardens, Japanese gardens and a number of gardens from Southeast Asia, with a wealth of high-res photos, floor plans, sketches and plant details to show the beautiful view of gardens. This will undoubtedly provide design tips for designers who want to stand out in the field of private garden design.
In 2009, the College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University was established. The transition from a former Art and Design Department – steeped in the Bauhaus tradition – to an independent school named ‘Design and Innovation’ attests to the university’s vision to move design education and research beyond an artefact-centred crafts tradition and toward a design discipline that drives innovation at the intersection of business, technology, and the humanities.
Every autumn since 2012, the Tongji Unversity College of Design and Innovation has organized a small design research and education conference titled ‘Emerging Practices’. The Emerging Practices Conference (EPC) witnesses the developing trajectory of design as a discipline in a Chinese design school that is grounded in thinking and practice addressing local issues and is in the meanwhile actively connected globally.
A small group of design scholars and educators, who gathered at the EPC in 2014, announced their intention to explore how design can address the complex issues the world faces today. They called their agenda ‘DesignX’ using ‘X’ to refer to the turbulent, unknown future of design. The initial DesignX Manifesto has triggered a deeper interest in asking how designers could play a role in designing for complex sociotechnical systems. This anthology selected viewpoint essays and cases, presented at the EPC 2016, as a preliminary endeavour to understand the challenges and opportunities of designing in such complex systems as healthcare, education, public sector innovation, food and culture, and so on.
It is inspiring to see that our drive to reform design education and research – and situate design within a shifting social, economic, and technological context – has attracted the attention and participation of a wider community. Our common challenges arise out of a need to reform design education, bridge design research and practice, design for social well-being, and target sustainability on a planet with limited resources.
Contents: Introduction; Viewpoints; Globalization, and the Effective Supply of Design Education; Design and the Economy of Choice; The Expanding Scope and Paradigm Shift of Design; Making Things Happen; The Ethics of Ignoring Rashomon; Chicken Run; Information Visualization; Design, Work, and Intelligence Cases; Embedding Designers in Government Innovation Teams; Policy Design to Improve the Delivery of Old Age Security in Canada for Vulnerable Seniors; Design Research and Practice for the Public Good; Movable Feasts; Design for Human-Robot Acceptability; DREAM Complexity.
Bio-inspired design is both simple and complex.
Simple because it provides an easy reference to discuss ideas through a means we all can relate to and become inspired by – the natural world. The topic engages a spectrum of professionals, from environmental enthusiasts to design professionals and scientists.
The complexity arises when we need to understand beyond what we see and understand how nature works. At many levels, we are still exploring how systems are inter-related and to decipher these relationships we have to look beyond the idealized inspiration.
Throughout the world, research and development that focuses on bio-inspiration has been steadily increasing and is expected to continue to do so for the next two decades. Currently, China is one of the leaders in scholarly articles focusing on bio-inspiration.
Although this topic is developing at an impressive rate, much of the public awareness of bio-inspiration and similar areas of research such as biomimetics and biomimicry is relatively unknown. Therefore, to provide insight into this process, this collection of work shines light on the methods currently being explored in China’s top institutions.
Melle Smets and Joost van Onna took only twelve weeks to assemble Turtle 1, a car built entirely from recycled parts. Made in Africa, Turtle 1 is entirely suited to the local context, sufficiently sturdy to resist the climate and the road conditions, and easy to operate.This book is part of an extensive documentation of the project; this documentation spans several years and has used exhibitions, films and apps to tell the story of this great idea. The automobile industry is monopolised by multinational companies who care only for profit, and constantly seek to outbid each other by developing ever more sophisticated technology. The majority of people outside of the Western world have little access to this market. However, Turtle 1: Building a Car in Africa proves how people’s ingenuity can tackle any challenge. Dutch artist Melle Smets and sociologist Joost van Onna went to Suame Magazine in Ghana, one of the largest industrial areas in sub-Saharan Africa where some 200,000 people dismantle and repair cars and sell used spare parts. Their aim was not only to develop a totally new type of car but, more importantly, to boost autonomy and self-reliance in an attempt to be free from global economic interests. Within two years, the vehicle attracted much attention from the public and the media both in Africa and the Netherlands, prompting Smets and van Onna to create the conditions for producing the car on a small, local scale. The production, however, never took off as their Ghanaian partners had other intentions in spite of all success. While Smets and van Onna promoted their recycling model, the Africans had tragically begun to work on a luxury version of the car. A homage to a project that was never fully realised, this book is a succinct demonstration of humanity’s ability to overcome odds. Exhibition runs until 28 August 2016, Project Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Documents on Contemporary Crafts
is a book series published by Norwegian Crafts in collaboration with Arnoldsche Art Publishers. The series provides a critical reflection of contemporary crafts in a wider context and in doing so asks questions about the ties between contemporary craft, fine art and design, thus helping to redefine the concept of crafts as such. The five volumes discuss such topics as skills, materiality, curating, collecting, perception and New Materialism. The more than thirty contributors range from leading craft theorists, such as Jorunn Veiteberg, Glenn Adamson and Liesbeth den Besten, via academics outside the craft tradition, such as Roger L. Kneebone, professor of surgical education, Trevor Marchand, professor of social anthropology, and Margaret Wasz, consultant psychological therapist, to emerging voices like Sarah R. Gilbert, Marianne Zamecznik and Stephen Knott.
No. 1: Museum for Skills. Skills are essential to the crafts discourse. Yet in an art world that for the last 50 years has become increasingly focused on conceptual strategies, we have seen the tendencies of deskilling and outsourcing. In Museum for Skills, the contributors analyze the current situation for skills by drawing on experience from the fields of brain research, surgery and anthropology.
No. 2: Materiality Matters. If materiality is a quality-related concept in both contemporary crafts and contemporary art, are we talking about the same notion? Or is there a fundamental difference between, on one hand, a maker’s confidence in his or her materials, and on the other, a contemporary artist’s use and adaption of a given material?
No. 3: Crafting Exhibitions. Curatorial discourse has been an increasingly important aspect of contemporary art. The curator took on a new role as the ‘author’ of the exhibition. Crafting Exhibitions introduces some of the processes that go into making an exhibition, from developing concepts to the physical realization. The contributors offer different approaches to exhibitions.
No. 4: On Collecting. Collections make up an important part of the contemporary arts and crafts infrastructure. Collectors and museums help improve the financial situation of artists. Additionally, to be included in the ‘right’ collection or museum can give an artist a high level of recognition and preserves the art works for the future. On Collecting offers insights into collecting from different perspectives and sheds light on some of the structures that determine the ‘collectability’ of works of art.
No. 5: Material Perceptions. Contemporary craft objects can be perceived for instance, as works of art in ceramics, glass, textile, metal and wood, or as functional, handmade and everyday objects. Material Perceptions investigates contemporary crafts as representations of reality that do not rely on the concept of autonomy, unravelling the dualism between aesthetic objects and everyday things.
Norwegian Crafts is a non-profit organisation founded by the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts in 2012. Norwegian Crafts initiates and produces exhibitions in collaboration with Norwegian and international institutions, curators and artists. The aim is to strengthen the position of contemporary craft from Norway internationally, contribute to the development of the artists’ careers and stimulate further exchange across national borders in the field of crafts.
Jewellery in Context
is the doctoral dissertation, edited by Theo Smeets in its first English translation, by the Dutch art historian and design critic Marjan Unger (1946-2018). In this work she initially endeavours to formulate a general definition of jewelery. Yet above all she also analyzes to what extent jewelery is associated, across the globe, with different, sometimes contrary issues: all human fears, but also desires, have, in a sense, materialized as objects of adornment, she postulates. This comprehensive approach aimed not least at developing a solid theoretical framework to aid the study of jewelery. Thus the text can already be seen as an outright standard reference work, indispensable for all students of jewelery. However, experts, too, will discover new perspectives on the phenomenon of jewelery.
Contents:
Foreword – Theorems; 1. Introduction; 2. Definitions and classifications; 3. Art history as foundation for the study of jewellery; 4. Man as measure; 5. Angles from other disciplines; 6. Symbolism in jewellery; 7. Evaluation; 8. Conclusion.
Following the most important themes that regularly occur in the artist’s work, Elements explains the developing process and the track leading from inspiration towards the final realisation of a project. Essence contains breath-taking pictures of Wolterinck’s most recent projects around the world. Both books combined illustrate Wolterinck’s timeless yet innovating view on lifestyle and design. “Wolterinck is the amalgam of old and new, hard and soft, light and dark, round and edgy. He’s also a man of keep it simple , symmetry and clarity. Wolterinck is a child of modern times, but one that never disregards or denies the original. Work and mankind are a two-unity and can never been seen separately. This publication shows us Wolterinck as a man and as a designer, and draws the attention to his inspiration, motives and applications.” Alexander Haje
Home Doctor, as the name suggests, is your very own health-care book – an indispensable companion you can turn to at all times. The culmination of an allopath doctor’s long-term involvement with alternative and complementary therapies, it contains over 200 simple and time-tested remedies for every conceivable ailment under the sun: from the nuisance value and discomfort of a common cold, cough and fever, to the severely debilitating effect of diarrhoea or heatstroke. Systematically formatted, the text moves from the causes and symptoms of health problems to directions on how to prepare remedies at home. These remedies, which are non-invasive and totally harmless, can help stem a problem in its nascent form, and often prevent it from developing into a full blown disease. Utilize your kitchen or garden to heal yourself with this lucidly written ready-reckoner interspersed with vibrant illustrations.
“A true collector’s item…” — Tim Chan, Rolling Stone
“Filled to the brim with everything from Harry’s colour palettes to his inspiration, this pick combines high-fashion with all the quirkiness we love about HS and it’s just perfect.” — Glamour UK
“Have the best-dressed coffee table by adorning it with this book filled with photos of THE best-dressed man.” — Seventeen Magazine
“It’s a wonderful book… if you’re a Harry Styles fan or not…just have a look at how he wears clothes, look at his influences, and if you are a Harry Styles fan, it’s a double whammy.” — BBC’s Jo Good Show
“This deep dive into some of his most iconic fits is a dream gift for the person who basically spent 2021-2023 living, breathing, and eating Love On Tour.” — Buzzfeed
“I’m incredibly lucky to have an environment where I feel comfortable being myself” – Harry Styles.
Stepping bravely into the cyclone of 21st-century fashions, Harry Styles is more than weathering the storm. Whether he’s breaking the internet with his $7.99 frog-eyed yellow bucket hat or a pair of black fishnets, or fronting cult magazine The Beauty Papers, as he did in March 2021, Hazza’s sparkle knows no boundaries.
Gucci met Styles in 2014, and there was instant chemistry. According to designer Alessandro Michele, Harry is ‘a young Greek God with the attitude of James Dean and a little bit of Mick Jagger’ – and that effortless superstardom certainly radiates from the photos in this collection, which document the heart of Harry’s wardrobe, both on-stage and off.
Part fashion history lesson, pulling references from the rock and roll greats of the past, and part innovation, Harry’s style pays homage to Kurt Cobain and Marc Bolan, Prince and Little Richard, while developing into something authentic and entirely his own. This chic book fizzles with facts about Harry’s styling choices, presenting the star’s most revered looks alongside pictures that trace the roots of each design. With quotes from key designers, this is the perfect gift for any fan.
Crafting a Future is a heartfelt celebration of artisans and their vocational skills. Each region in India has its own distinctive raw materials, craft techniques, textiles, motifs and color palettes, and through her well-researched narrative enriched with numerous stories, Archana Shah demonstrates the diversity and true value of handcrafted textile processes. She believes that handspun, handwoven fabrics made using indigenous fibers and natural materials for dyeing will help create a unique identity for handcrafted textiles, and suggests ways to repurpose the abundant artisanal talent available across the country to rejuvenate this sector. These tenets are woven throughout the book, which is broadly divided into three sections based on natural fibres: cotton from plants, silk from insects and wool from animals. This resonates with Gandhiji’s concept of developing khadi and village industries to rejuvenate the rural economy, and stimulate development through a bottom-up approach.
Beyond its beauty and heritage value, artisanal production is eco-friendly, has a negligible carbon footprint and fulfils most of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has the potential for creating dignified employment opportunities for millions of people in their own regional location, so that they are not compelled by economic constraints to abandon their ancestral professions and migrate to urban slums to earn a meagre livelihood as unskilled laborers. In essence, the book focuses on artisans, their aspirations and fulfilment in their work. It also draws upon their traditional wisdom to address two of the most serious challenges that we face today: growing unemployment and climate change.
Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.
This issue discusses the topic of globalization and locality through four essays and eleven projects. The essays attempt to observe the tension between the different forces of globalization, which is being widely debated as a distinguishing trend, and also highlight globalization’s impact on local architecture, as well as the various efforts being taken to ensure local identity and distinctive locality in architecture design. The projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, demonstrate the many successful attempts in developing design concepts and methods to cope with the globalization trend while maintaining locality. These essays and projects are carefully selected to represent diversity in project locations, and includes locations such as Thailand, India, Japan, and China.
Since 1987, Eileen Joy Liebman and Fernando Villavecchia Obregón have focused on developing housing and measures to existing buildings. Over the years, they have gradually developed an oeuvre with the special qualities of reserve and “silence”. Projects include the careful renovation of the Casa Coderch Milá in Cadaqués (2017) and the Casa in Sant Llorenç (2014), inherently engaging with the rural architecture.
Text in English and German.
This book sets out to define fashion spaces as an emerging area of research within architectural writing.
Social media has brought a new type of space into the world of fashion retail. When architecture and fashion meet in the creation of ephemeral spaces for the immediate presentation of new collections, for example, these temporary but real spaces are brought into the realm of the everlasting digital space as they are shared and re-shared on platforms like Instagram. Fashion spaces can best be defined, then, as co-created, ever changing and prevailing metaspaces where the dialog amongst designers, consumers and industry leaders continues well after the real space has vanished.
Can these fashion spaces have a bigger impact on consumers than real-time experience of space? How may the dialogs developing within and as result of fashion spaces influence physical retail design? Can designers use fashion spaces as sites for new cultural production? These are but some of the questions tackled by Fashion Spaces: A Theoretical View. The book is created via a practice-oriented approach to academic teaching and research, through the collaboration of academics, students and the retail industry.
Following an introductory essay by professor Vésma Kontere McQuillan and assistant professor Kjeld Hansen, which tackles the problematics of research in the field and presents a conceptual model for further research, seven case studies developed by students of the retail design program at the School of Arts, Design, and Media at Kristiania University College explore possible applications of this model.
This handbook prescribes hybridization – a fusion of gastronomy, co-working, hospitality and performative formats – as a powerful remedy against the digital disruption of the food retail industry.
Online shopping and changing consumer demands radically transform the food retail industry for the first time since the introduction of the supermarket in the 1930s. After decades of stagnation, food retail is currently one of the most creative and fastest developing typologies in spatial design.
As a result of a three-year research project with over 100 students of retail design at PBSA Peter Behrens School Of Arts, University of Applied Sciences Dusseldorf, Hybrid Food Retail offers an overview of the history, presents an encyclopedic analysis of the elements, and highlights the emerging trends in the food retail industry. As new formats are being developed, this handbook prescribes hybridization – a fusion of supermarket and gastronomy, co-working, hospitality and performative formats – as a powerful tool against digital disruption.
This book sets out to define fashion spaces as an emerging area of research within architectural writing.
Social media has brought a new type of space into the world of fashion retail. When architecture and fashion meet in the creation of ephemeral spaces for the immediate presentation of new collections, for example, these temporary but real spaces are brought into the realm of the everlasting digital space as they are shared and re-shared on platforms like Instagram. Fashion spaces can best be defined, then, as co-created, ever changing and prevailing metaspaces where the dialog amongst designers, consumers and industry leaders continues well after the real space has vanished.
Can these fashion spaces have a bigger impact on consumers than real-time experience of space? How may the dialogs developing within and as result of fashion spaces influence physical retail design? Can designers use fashion spaces as sites for new cultural production? These are but some of the questions tackled by Fashion Spaces: A Theoretical View. The book is created via a practice-oriented approach to academic teaching and research, through the collaboration of academics, students and the retail industry.
Following an introductory essay by professor Vésma Kontere McQuillan and assistant professor Kjeld Hansen, which tackles the problematics of research in the field and presents a conceptual model for further research, seven case studies developed by students of the retail design program at the School of Arts, Design, and Media at Kristiania University College explore possible applications of this model.
This handbook prescribes hybridization – a fusion of gastronomy, co-working, hospitality and performative formats – as a powerful remedy against the digital disruption of the food retail industry.
Online shopping and changing consumer demands radically transform the food retail industry for the first time since the introduction of the supermarket in the 1930s. After decades of stagnation, food retail is currently one of the most creative and fastest developing typologies in spatial design.
As a result of a three-year research project with over 100 students of retail design at PBSA Peter Behrens School Of Arts, University of Applied Sciences Dusseldorf, Hybrid Food Retail offers an overview of the history, presents an encyclopedic analysis of the elements, and highlights the emerging trends in the food retail industry. As new formats are being developed, this handbook prescribes hybridization – a fusion of supermarket and gastronomy, co-working, hospitality and performative formats – as a powerful tool against digital disruption.