This book provides an understanding of the very roots of what constitutes the Indian context by examining its notions of time, space and existence. the study unravels the inherent virtues of traditional Indian architecture and interprets them as universal dictums, relevant to reinstate in contemporary times.

This book examines the inherent attributes of 'spacemaking' elements like roofs, walls, doors, windows, columns, stairs and floors and analyses their implicit influences in the design of space. It traces the linguistic origin of the terms as well as the evolution of each element through history -- from primeval structures to modern architecture. The effective applications of these are illustrated through extensive drawings and sketches of detailed case studies from all over the world.

- Extensive documentation of courtyard houses, both traditional and contemporary - More than a thousand images, drawings, plans and maps - Overview according to climate, geography, philosophy and religion Indian architecture is not about an object in space; instead it integrates space within the object where the built and the unbuilt become counterpoints to vitalize each other. This engulfed void known as the courtyard lies at the genesis of urban dwellings in India. In this book the author traces the metaphysical, mythical, socio-cultural, environmental and spatial roles of the courtyard in the domestic architecture of India - from early civilization and Vedic times to Islamic and colonial influences. This book documents traditional courtyard dwelling types across India within diverse climatic, cultural as well as geographic zones such as West (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra), South (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa), East (Bihar, West Bengal), Central (Madhya Pradesh) and North (Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir). Courtyard Houses of India documents, analyzes and infers the attributes and manifestations of traditional courtyard houses and examines the diverse interpretations of those as applied in contemporary homes.

The book examines the inherent attributes of spacemaking elements like roofs, walls, doors, windows, columns, stairs and floors and analyses their implicit influences in the design of space.

This volume explores the concept of "spatial transparency"; a form of spatial continuity that articulates depth through permeable, layered, or porous three-dimensional organizations where interstitial light is present. Although transparency is a concept largely associated with the modern movement, the use of glazed components, and twentieth-century architectural discourse, spatial transparency is a form of depth awareness through intermediate domains, takes place through the interstitial fabric of a structure, and occurs when several consecutive domains are spatially and visually connected. These immersive environments invite active participation, not as one-way communication but as a series of visual and experiential exchanges, interdependencies, and relationships. Divided into four parts, the book examines spatial transparency in massive opaque constructions, light constructions, glass assemblies, and hybrid systems. It analyzes both the phenomenon of visual connectivity and continuity through intermediate spaces, and spatial transparency’s capacity for promoting and enabling graded, interflowing environmental transactions. Using historical and contemporary examples, it catalogs some of the most common and recurring configurations that manifest these characteristics. Over 20 international case studies from the Americas to Japan are presented to argue that environments exist in porous mediums and that by studying the openings, voids, light, and materials of layered and/or permeable organizations, important insights about space making can be revealed. Written for students and academics, this book explores various expressions of spatial transparency in architecture and helps connect their abstract ideas with significant built works, analytical drawings, and comparison charts.

Books orient, intrigue, provoke and direct the reader while editing, interpreting, encapsulating, constructing and revealing architectural representation. Binding Space: The Book as Spatial Practice explores the role of the book form within the realm of architectural representation. It proposes the book itself as another three-dimensional, complementary architectural representation with a generational and propositional role within the design process. Artists’ books in particular – that is, a book made as an original work of art, with an artist, designer or architect as author – have certain qualities and characteristics, quite different from the conventional presentation and documentation of architecture. Paginal sequentiality, the structure and objecthood of the book, and the act of reading create possibilities for the book as a site for architectural imagining and discourse. In this way, the form of the book affects how the architectural work is conceived, constructed and read. In five main sections, Binding Space examines the relationships between the drawing, the building and the book. It proposes thinking through the book as a form of spatial practice, one in which the book is cast as object, outcome, process and tool. Through the book, we read spatial practice anew.

Along with plan and elevation, section is one of the essential representational techniques of architectural design; among architects and educators, debates about a project's section are common and often intense. Until now, however, there has been no framework to describe or evaluate it. Manual of Section fills this void. Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis have developed seven categories of section, revealed in structures ranging from simple one-story buildings to complex structures featuring stacked forms, fantastical shapes, internal holes, inclines, sheared planes, nested forms, or combinations thereof. To illustrate these categories, the authors construct sixty-three intricately detailed cross-section perspective drawings of built projects—many of the most significant structures in international architecture from the last one hundred years—based on extensive archival research. Manual of Section also includes smart and accessible essays on the history and uses of section.

The most exciting and accomplished young architect to emerge on the international scene in many years, David Adjaye uses an artist's clarity of concept to create an engaging architecture that concentrates on materials and issues of place and identity. Born in Tanzania into a diplomatic family, Adjaye enjoyed a wide-ranging formal and cultural education, which has allowed him to respond deftly and instinctively to wildly differing projects, avoiding conventional solutions and seeking to open up new possibilities. The innovation in Adjaye's career is exemplified in his residential works, which show careful experimentation and exquisite nuances. Perhaps his best-known houses are those constructed in a range of settings for people such as artist Chris Ofili and actor Ewan McGregor. Four essential components make up this, Adjaye's first monograph: an introduction by Stuart Hall; a documentation of thirteen of Adjaye's most important projects, over half of which are published here in full for the first time, presented through descriptions, detailed plans and photographs; a series of visual essays that highlight the tactile, luminous and luxurious nature of Adjaye's work; and essays from cultural critics who have been touched by his buildings.

You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, or a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction. After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are now publishing a major statement in the form of three books which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building and planning, which will we hope replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and this book, A Pattern Language. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation of the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. At the core of the books, too, is the point that in designing their environments people always rely on certain "languages," which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a forma system which gives them coherence. This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable a person to make a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. "Patterns," the units of this language, are answers to design problems (How high should a window sill be? How many stories should a building have? How much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?). More than 250 of the patterns in this pattern language are given: each consists of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seemly likely that they will be a part of human nature, and human action, as much in five hundred years as they are today.