"Any landscape architect worth their soil should pick up The Architecture of Trees, an all-encompassing atlas of all things tree-related."—The Architect's Newspaper Gorgeous, large format volume shows each hand-drawn illustration in stunning detail. The Architecture of Trees is the result of over twenty years of dedicated study by landscape architects Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi. This new edition preserves the original magnificent illustrations and text, translated into English for the first time. Features more than 550 exquisite quill-pen drawings. Each of the 212 tree species are drawn to a scale of 1:100, with and without foliage. Complete with tables of seasonal color variation and projections of shadows cast during the hours of daylight and season by season, no other book contains such detailed and scientific drawings of trees. A legendary and unsurpassed botanical masterwork. Considered a standard in many landscape architecture firms, the drawings, essays, and detailed charts are essential for large scale landscaping projects and a helpful tool for backyard renovations. Landscape designers will think in new ways about the effect of seasons and the time of day on trees, and anyone interested in nature and trees will be captivated by the stunning illustrations. "This book could be considered the Bible for tree lovers."—Western Art & Architecture

The definitive source on trees whose characteristics make them especially useful in relation to buildings and outdoor spaces, this beautiful, jargon-free book will appeal to homeowners as well as professionals. It contains full-page photographs of major species in both summer and winter.

Our critically acclaimed bestseller Visual Complexity was the first in-depth examination of the burgeoning field of information visualization. Particularly noteworthy are the numerous historical examples of past efforts to make sense of complex systems of information. In this new companion volume, The Book of Trees, data viz expert Manuel Lima examines the more than eight hundred year history of the tree diagram, from its roots in the illuminated manuscripts of medieval monasteries to its current resurgence as an elegant means of visualization. Lima presents two hundred intricately detailed tree diagram illustrations on a remarkable variety of subjects—from some of the earliest known examples from ancient Mesopotamia to the manuscripts of medieval monasteries to contributions by leading contemporary designers. A timeline of capsule biographies on key figures in the development of the tree diagram rounds out this one-of-a-kind visual compendium.

The Study of Plants in a Whole New Light “Matt Candeias succeeds in evoking the wonder of plants with wit and wisdom.” ―James T. Costa, PhD, executive director, Highlands Biological Station and author of Darwin's Backyard #1 New Release in Nature & Ecology, Plants, Botany, Horticulture, Trees, Biological Sciences, and Nature Writing & Essays In his debut book, internationally-recognized blogger and podcaster Matt Candeias celebrates the nature of plants and the extraordinary world of plant organisms. A botanist’s defense. Since his early days of plant restoration, this amateur plant scientist has been enchanted with flora and the greater environmental ecology of the planet. Now, he looks at the study of plants through the lens of his ever-growing houseplant collection. Using gardening, houseplants, and examples of plants around you, In Defense of Plants changes your relationship with the world from the comfort of your windowsill. The ruthless, horny, and wonderful nature of plants. Understand how plants evolve and live on Earth with a never-before-seen look into their daily drama. Inside, Candeias explores the incredible ways plants live, fight, have sex, and conquer new territory. Whether a blossoming botanist or a professional plant scientist, In Defense of Plants is for anyone who sees plants as more than just static backdrops to more charismatic life forms. In this easily accessible introduction to the incredible world of plants, you’ll find: • Fantastic botanical histories and plant symbolism • Passionate stories of flora diversity and scientific names of plant organisms • Personal tales of plantsman discovery through the study of plants If you enjoyed books like The Botany of Desire, What a Plant Knows, or The Soul of an Octopus, then you’ll love In Defense of Plants.

Beautifully illustrated and designed, this gorgeous reference book explores the world of trees from every perspective--from the world's great forests to the lifespan of a single leaf. Arresting color photographs of a wide variety of trees and close-ups of many of their remarkable features provide an enormous amount of information in a highly accessible format. The volume illustrates how trees grow and function, looks at their astounding diversity and adaptations, documents the key role they play in ecosystems, and explores the multitude of uses to which we put trees--from timber and pharmaceuticals to shade and shelter. A highly absorbing read cover to cover or dipped into at random, Trees: A Visual Guide delves into many specific topics: the details of flowers, bark, and roots; profiles of favorite trees; how animals and insects interact with trees; trees in urban landscapes; the role trees play in our changing climate; deforestation and reforestation; and much more. With clear diagrams, illustrations, and intriguing sidebars on many featured topics, this unique volume is a complete visual guide to the magnificence of the arboreal world.

Over the last few decades, a rich and increasingly diverse practice has emerged in the art world that invites the public to touch, enter, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on city streets, or in the landscape. Like architecture, many of these temporary artworks aspire to alter viewers' experience of the environment. An installation is usually the end product for an artist, but for architects it can also be a preliminary step in an ongoing design process. Like paper projects designed in the absence of "real" architecture, installations offer architects another way to engage in issues critical to their practice. Direct experimentation with architecture's material and social dimensions engages the public around issues in the built environment that concern them and expands the ways that architecture can participate in and impact people's everyday lives. The first survey of its kind, Installations by Architects features fifty of the most significant projects from the last twenty-five years by today's most exciting architects, including Anderson Anderson, Philip Beesley, Diller + Scofidio, John Hejduk, Dan Hoffman, and Kuth/Ranieri Architects. Projects are grouped in critical areas of discussion under the themes of tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Each project is supplemented by interviews with the project architects and the discussions of critics and theorists situated within a larger intellectual context. There is no doubt that installations will continue to play a critical role in the practice of architecture. Installations by Architects aims to contribute to the role of installations in sharpening our understanding of the built environment.

This hands-on guidebook provides practical, applied information on design considerations, site planning and understand-ing, plant selection, installation, and maintenance of trees in challenging urban environments.

For over thirty years, besides making music, David Byrne has focused his unique genius upon forms as diverse as the archaeology of music as we know it, architectural photography and the uses of PowerPoint. Now he presents his most personal work to date, a collection of drawings exploring the form of the tree diagram. Arboretum is an eclectic blend of science, automatic writing, self-analysis and satire. A journey through irrational logic - the application of scientific rigour and form to irrational premises, proceeding from careful nonsense to unexpected sense. The tree diagram is a form that might reveal more about yourself than you dreamed possible.

Documenting the artist’s extraordinary accomplishments as a draftsman, this publication originates from the 2015 solo presentation at David Zwirner, New York, entitled Energy & Abstraction, organized in close collaboration with Jane Crawford and Jessamyn Fiore from the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark. Well known for his radical “anarchitectural” interventions throughout the 1970s, Gordon Matta-Clark was always deeply, though less publicly, committed to drawing. His works on paper—which span three-dimensional reliefs, calligraphy, and notebook entries—capture the interdisciplinary spirit that defined the art world in the 1970s. Intricate and concise, they testify to his interest in the crossovers between visual and performance arts, as well as the broader integration within his oeuvre of the natural and built environment. This catalogue presents in vibrant detail selections from Matta-Clark’s Cut Drawings, Energy Rooms, Energy Trees, and his own “calligraphy,” many of which have never been published. Perhaps the best known of the group, the Cut Drawings explore parallel, smaller-format versions of his physical interventions in architecture; slicing meticulously through several layers of paper, gesso, or cardboard, Matta-Clark created sculptural flat works that emphasized the voids created by the extraction of matter. Drawings with his own “calligraphy” emphasize the medium of drawing as an independent form. Abstract letters make up a code that remains indecipherable, but points toward a visionary longing to invent new languages and structures of experience. Some of the most elaborate and colorful compositions include trees, several of which refer explicitly to Matta-Clark’s Tree Dance performance at Vassar College in upstate New York in 1971. In full-color plates, the reader can see the physical structure of his trees “dissolving” into kinetic energy and, in some drawings, becoming reduced to a multitude of arrows. Near-abstract tree shapes also incorporate his calligraphic marks, with branches constructed from imaginary letters, again emphasizing the importance of language to a new visual experience. Matta-Clark’s notebooks, which he often insisted on completing in a single sitting, are presented in elegantly curated groups. Combining elements of Surrealist automatic drawing with an interest in choreography, these works appealed to performance artists at the time—including Laurie Anderson and Trisha Brown. This unparalleled presentation of Matta-Clark’s drawings is accompanied by new and exciting scholarship by Briony Fer, as well as a conversation between Jessamyn Fiore and contemporary artist Sarah Sze; it marks a major contribution to the literature on this highly influential artist.