A quirky trend of building designs inspired by bizarre animals has emerged in the last few years. Why and how has this happened? Is it because of new technical possibilities in materials and structural engineering? Or is the answer to be found in new social preoccupations in science? After a brief look at the historical precedents, the book focuses on contemporary examples from around the world and shows the various ways in which the organic/animal forms inform the architectural ones. Featured architects include Frank Gehry, Michael Sorkin, and Greg Lynn.

Imagine a structure that looks like a huge elephant where you walk up a spiral staircase hidden in a leg, into interior rooms, past sun-filled windows where you can view the sunset on the expansive horizon. What about a big pink pig that once served as a hamburger stand? How about visiting a hotel that is designed like a crocodile or a museum that resembles a turtle? These oddities of architecture are classified as zoomorphic architecture. Zoomorphic architects study the shapes of animals or

This sourcebook of animal, bird and fish motifs features 4000 authentic copyright-free designs taken from a wide range of historical and world sources, such as prehistoric cave painting, ceramics from the ancient world, medieval illuminated books, Renaissance paintings and turn-of-the-century textiles. Author Graham McCallum is an artist, designer and craftsperson, whose lifetime in design has enabled him to create a unique reference source of zoomorphic motifs. These high-quality, black-and-white images can be traced, photocopied and enlarged for design work in any creative field. Organized around specific types of animal and historical and cultural periods for ease of use, this book is brimming with ideas. A detailed index and contents list help you to find just what you want. There is also an introductory design class to help you get the most out of the book. Whether you are a glass painter, woodworker, ceramicist, embroiderer, graphic designer or artist, this book is sure to contain something to inspire you.

This collection explores the ancient fountains of Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul, reviving the senses of past water cultures.

This timely book reflects an awakening of interest in religious faiths and the emergence of a 'global exchange of architecture and culture. While Spain's Rafael Moneo has recently completed a cathedral in Los Angeles, Britain's Thomas Heatherwick is designing a Buddhist temple in Japan, John Pawson is working on a Cistercian monastery in the Czech Republic and Richard Meier has completed his Jubilee Church in Rome. It seems, as one Wallpaper registered] pundit commented, 'religion is getting a redesign' and the architect's faith is as unimportant as his or her nationality. I Looking at ways in which contemporary architects are approaching religious or meditative space, this book focuses on churches, chapels, temples, synagogues and mosques that have been built in the last few years and that represent a late-twentieth/ early-twenty-first century aesthetic.

Although the disciplines of architecture and structural engineering have both experienced their own historical development, their interaction has resulted in many fascinating and delightful structures. To take this interaction to a higher level, there is a need to stimulate the inventive and creative design of architectural structures and to persua

Exercises and Solutions in Statistical Theory helps students and scientists obtain an in-depth understanding of statistical theory by working on and reviewing solutions to interesting and challenging exercises of practical importance. Unlike similar books, this text incorporates many exercises that apply to real-world settings and provides much more thorough solutions. The exercises and selected detailed solutions cover from basic probability theory through to the theory of statistical inference. Many of the exercises deal with important, real-life scenarios in areas such as medicine, epidemiology, actuarial science, social science, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, environmental health, and sports. Several exercises illustrate the utility of study design strategies, sampling from finite populations, maximum likelihood, asymptotic theory, latent class analysis, conditional inference, regression analysis, generalized linear models, Bayesian analysis, and other statistical topics. The book also contains references to published books and articles that offer more information about the statistical concepts. Designed as a supplement for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, this text is a valuable source of classroom examples, homework problems, and examination questions. It is also useful for scientists interested in enhancing or refreshing their theoretical statistical skills. The book improves readers’ comprehension of the principles of statistical theory and helps them see how the principles can be used in practice. By mastering the theoretical statistical strategies necessary to solve the exercises, readers will be prepared to successfully study even higher-level statistical theory.

Since precious few architectural drawings and no theoretical treatises on architecture remain from the premodern Islamic world, the Timurid pattern scroll in the collection of the Topkapi Palace Museum Library is an exceedingly rich and valuable source of information. In the course of her in-depth analysis of this scroll dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, Gülru Necipoğlu throws new light on the conceptualization, recording, and transmission of architectural design in the Islamic world between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. Her text has particularly far-reaching implications for recent discussions on vision, subjectivity, and the semiotics of abstract representation. She also compares the Islamic understanding of geometry with that found in medieval Western art, making this book particularly valuable for all historians and critics of architecture. The scroll, with its 114 individual geometric patterns for wall surfaces and vaulting, is reproduced entirely in color in this elegant, large-format volume. An extensive catalogue includes illustrations showing the underlying geometries (in the form of incised “dead” drawings) from which the individual patterns are generated. An essay by Mohammad al-Asad discusses the geometry of the muqarnas and demonstrates by means of CAD drawings how one of the scroll’s patterns could be used co design a three-dimensional vault.

The book presents an outline of current activities in the field of biomimetics and integrates a variety of applications comprising biophysics, surface sciences, architecture and medicine. Biomimetics as innovation method is characterised by interdisciplinary information transfer from the life sciences to technical application fields aiming at increased performance, functionality and energy efficiency. The contributions of the book relate to the research areas: - Materials and structures in nanotechnology and biomaterials - Biomimetic approaches to develop new forms, construction principles and design methods in architecture - Information and dynamics in automation, neuroinformatics and biomechanics Readers will be informed about the latest research approaches and results in biomimetics with examples ranging from bionic nano-membranes to function-targeted design of tribological surfaces and the translation of natural auditory coding strategies.