Blurred Transparencies in Contemporary Glass Architecture brings to light complex readings of transparent glass through close observations of six pivotal works of architecture. Written from the perspectives of a practitioner, the six essays challenge assumptions about fragility and visual transparency of glass. A material imbued with idealism and utopic vision, glass has captured architects’ imagination, and glass’s fragility and difficulties in thermal control continue to present technical challenges. In recent decades, architecture has witnessed an emergence of technological advancements in chemical coating, structural engineering, and fabrication methods that resulted in new kinds of glass transparencies. Buildings examined in the book include a sanatorium with expansive windows delivering light and air to recovering tuberculosis patients, a pavilion with a crystal clear glass plenum circulating air for heating and cooling, a glass monument symbolizing the screen of personal devices that shortened the distance between machines and humans, and a glass building symbolizing the social and material intertwining in the glass ceiling metaphor. Connecting material glass to broader cultural and social contexts, Blurred Transparencies in Contemporary Glass Architecture enlightens students and practitioners of architecture as well as the general public with interest in design. The author demonstrates how glass is rarely crystal clear but is blurred both materially and metaphysically, revealing complex readings of ideas for which glass continues to stand.

In The Pandemic Effect, 90 leading architects, designers, materials scientists, and health officials reflect on the influence of COVID-19 on buildings and cities—and propose solutions to safeguard the built environment from future pandemics, viruses, and contagious diseases on every scale, from surfaces to society. Safety and sustainability in buildings and cities have taken on new meaning during the COVID -19 pandemic. Buildings became magnifiers of contagion instead of shelters for protection. In this essential resource for both practitioners and students of architecture, interior design, and urban design, 90 of the world's leading experts investigate a variety of approaches to future-proof architecture and buildings against widespread disease. These inoculation strategies are organized into five chapters: "Histories" offers an overview of past pandemics and prior architectural approaches; "Inside / Outside" addresses the roles of building envelopes and mechanical systems in improving indoor environmental quality; "Interventions" consists of contemporary methods for direct prevention and control; "New Strategies" consists of various architectural analyses and proposals for design changes; and "The Public Realm" considers the urban landscape and related social questions. This broad collection of perspectives explores the transformations underway in the built environment—and offers design strategies to limit the severity of subsequent pandemics.

The experience of architectural spaces is formed by the way they are staged. The Drama of Space examines the composition and articulation of architectural spaces in terms of spatial dramaturgy, as a repertoire of means and strategies for shaping spatial experience. This fundamental approach to architectural design is presented in four parts: Archetypal principles of spatial composition are traced from the study of three assembly buildings of the early modern period in Venice. Theatre, film, music, and theory provide background knowledge on dramaturgy. Detailed analyses of 18 international case studies offer new perspectives on contemporary architecture. The book ends with a systematic presentation of the dramaturgy of space, its parameters and tools, in architectural design.

DIVLearning a new discipline is similar to learning a new language; in order to master the foundation of architecture, you must first master the basic building blocks of its language – the definitions, function, and usage. Language of Architecture provides students and professional architects with the basic elements of architectural design, divided into twenty-six easy-to-comprehend chapters. This visual reference includes an introductory, historical view of the elements, as well as an overview of how these elements can and have been used across multiple design disciplines./divDIV /divDIVWhether you’re new to the field or have been an architect for years, you’ll want to flip through the pages of this book throughout your career and use it as the go-to reference for inspiration, ideas, and reminders of how a strong knowledge of the basics allows for meaningful, memorable, and beautiful fashions that extend beyond trends./divDIV /divDIVThis comprehensive learning tool is the one book you’ll want as a staple in your library./divDIV /div

Featuring 165 expertly reproduced visionary architectural drawings from The Museum of Modern Art's Howard Gilman Archive, this collection brings together a selection of idealized, fantastic and utopian architectural drawings.

Where is the space for dreaming in the twenty-first century? Lofty thoughts, like dreams, are born and live overhead, just as they have been represented in Renaissance paintings and modern cartoons. Ceilings are often repositories of stories, events and otherwise invisible oneiric narratives. Yet environments that inspire innovative thinking are dwindling as our world confronts enormous challenges, and almost all of our thinking, debating and decision-making takes place under endless ceiling grids. Quantitative research establishes that spaces with taller ceilings elicit broader, more creative thoughts. Today, ceilings are usually squat conduits of technology: they have become the blind spot of modern architecture. The twenty essays in this book look across cultures, places and ceilings over time to discover their potential to uplift the human spirit. Not just one building element among many, the ceiling is a key to unlock the architectural imagination. Ceilings and Dreams aims to correct this blind spot and encourages architects and designers, researchers and students, to look up through writings organized into three expansive categories: reveries, suspensions and inversions. The contributors contemplate the architecture of levity and the potential of the ceiling, once again, as a place for dreaming.

"This book looks at twenty-six houses by an international roster of contemporary architects"--P. [4] of cover.

Twenty-one essays examining the relationship of surrealist thought to architectural theory and practice.

This volume charts the development of the designs of Hiroshi Hara as well as the innovative uses of emerging building technologies. The text also illuminates the question of how to maintain a successful architecture practice.