400 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 3937718028

18.5 x 23.5 cm English text

Interior shots from numerous new restaurants in the UK, Europe and US.


Price:  £17.95

The MIT Press 2003

300 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0262700956

18.5 x 23.5 cm English text. Hardcover

INDEX Architecture documents the extensive cross-fertilization of ideas that can occur between architectural practice and education. Through work developed by students and faculty at Columbia University's School of Architecture, it offers not only an archive of avant-garde work but a record of architectural discourse at a time when the design studio has been radically altered by digital technology.

Writings, interviews, and images are organized according to an alphabetical "index" of key terms. Cross-referencing allows for a rich reading of concepts currently discussed in the field. The contributing critics and theorists include Stan Allen, Karen Bausman, Lise Anne Couture, Kathryn Dean, Evan Douglis, Kenneth Frampton, Leslie Gill, Thomas Hanrahan, Laurie Hawkinson, Steven Holl, Jeffrey Kipnis, Sulan Kolatan, Greg Lynn, William MacDonald, Reinhold Martin, Mary Mcleod, Victoria Meyers, Hani Rashid, Jesse Reiser, Bernard Tschumi, Nanako Umemoto, and Mark Wigley.


Price:  £19.95

Phaidon 2003

272 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 0714842893

20. 5 x 27 cm English text. Hardcover

In the center of Copenhagen, on the sixth floor of the Royal Hotel, a single room preserves in microcosm the definitive masterwork of Danish architect Arne Jacobsen. Room 606 is the last surviving interior of the SAS House – an unparalleled example of modern architecture and design. Best known beyond his Scan-dinavian homeland as a furniture designer, Jacobsen (1902–1971) was one of the outstanding architects of the twentieth century. Throughout his career, he created complete settings for daily life, dissolving the boundaries between architecture, interior, and indust-rial design. The SAS House represented the pinnacle of these efforts and, by the completion of the project in 1960, Jacobsen had designed every detail, including new furniture such as the now famous Egg and Swan chairs, fabrics, fixtures, and even the silverware.

This book presents a unique insight into Jacobsen’s work, using the time capsule Room 606 as a lens through which to examine his entire career. The chapters are organized thematically and each consists of three sections that together look at Room 606 as a microcosm of the SAS House, reconstruct the original building, and trace the connections between Jacobsen’s masterpiece and his other works, from buildings to household objects.


Price:  £39.95

Taschen 2005

354 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 3822840912

18 x 22.5 cm English/French/German text. Hardcover

The best of contemporary architectural design (TASCHEN's 25th anniversary special edition) The creme de la creme of the most influential architects and architectural firms - the definitive reference guide to contemporary architectural design. Here you'll find famillar names, such as O. Gehry, Meier, Ando, Foster, and Starck, as well as a host of brilliant future stars. Highlights include Jakob & MacFarlane's morphological George Restaurant at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Diller & Scofidio's "Blur Building" proposal for the International Expo 2001 in Switzerland, and Herzog & De Meuron's remarkable Tate Modern. Arranged alphabetically by architect or firm, with biographical and contact information for designers and an extensive selection of photographs and illustrations, this volume presents the highlights of Architecture Now! Vol 1.


Price:  £6.99

Prestel 2005

144 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 3791332805

23.5 x 27 cm English text. Flexicover

This exploration of built and yet-to-be-realized aquatic habitats shows how water has ecome architecture's next frontier. Whether they're floating on top, hovering over, or submerged beneath the water, each of the more than fifty structures examined here demonstrates an innovative use of water resources. Colorfully illustrated with photographs, drawings, and plans, this global and historic sampling includes Shanghai's Bionic Tower, complete with its own lake; Biorock, an artificial reef in the Indian Ocean; an undersea hotel where scuba divers can spend a comfortable night; and Sweden's Ice Hotel, where translucent frozen walls reveal the beauty of the Northern Lights. Each of these projects demonstrates man's ability to live in the water without interfering with nature's rhythms. Together they offer reassuring proof that today's architects are finding workable and appealing solutions to the problems of shrinking resources and growing populations.

Each of these projects demonstrates man's ability to live in the water without interfering with nature's rhythms. Together they offer reassuring proof that today's architects are finding workable and appealing solutions to the problems of shrinking resources and growing populations.


Price:  £25.00

Reaktion 2005

224 pages B&W reproductions. ISBN 1861892438

14 x 21.5 cm English text. Softcover

Industrialized building is nothing new: building components have been mass-produced in factories for at least 200 years. Machine-made bricks, ceramic tiles, sawn timbers, sash windows; all were familiar industrial products in nineteenth-century Europe and America. Sometimes complete buildings - barracks, warehouses, field hospitals, even churches - were made in kit form and shipped all over the world. Twentieth century examples include the 'prefab', the heavyweight precast concrete mass housing of the 1960s and containerized hostels for off-shore oil workers. These were not designed by architects, and in this book, Colin Davies shows how the relationship between architecture and industrialized building, which usually occupy different cultural territories, has now become an urgent issue for architects. While architects have continued to cultivate the historical, theoretical and artistic zones in their territory, they have neglected the field of practical construction and left it up to others to innovate. Industrialized building has continued to develop behind the backs of architects, who now feel increasingly marginalized. Davies traces the origins of the branded building phenomenon, citing examples from the Portakabin, the Dymaxion bathroom and even ikea's 'Bo Klok', a take-away flat-pack house for the individual buyer and small developer. After outlining the methods and motives of prefabricated buildings and assessing their architectural implications, the author also analyzes what is happening now in factories and on building sites over the world. He looks at the revival of interest in 'volumetric' modular buildings for housing, restaurants and petrol stations. A McDonalds drive-through restaurant, for example, takes just eight days to assemble on site. Finally he shows how prefabricated building manufacturers are unconcerned with the close relationship between the appearance and the method of construction that is so important to architects. Davies concludes that the involvement of architects in the new indstrialized building has a potential to produce an exciting new architecture that is humane, liberating and environmentally friendly.


Price:  £18.95

The Monacelli Press 2003

400 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 1580931057

20 x 22.5 cm English text. Softcover

The exhibition 'Light Construction,' held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1995, maintains a lasting influence on contemporary architecture. Architects represented in the show, such as Steven Holl and Toyo Ito, continue to win prestigious commissions. Others, such as Herzog and de Meuron and Frank Gehry, have risen to celebrity status with the completion of competition-winning designs for the Tate Museum, Bankside, in London and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. These works share a taste for glass, perforated metal, and other transparent materials. In bringing together the work of these diverse architects, 'Light Construction' raised crucial questions about the role of materials, the nature of architectural effects, and the legacy of modernism.

The second volume of the Source Books in Architecture series, The Light Construction Reader is an ambitious collection of 38 essays that explores the themes and issues surrounding this important exhibition. Included here are essays by exhibition curator Terence Riley as well as noted architects and critics such as Peter Eisenman, Anthony Vidler, Greg Lynn, and Robin Evans. The complete transcripts of the Light Construction Symposium, held at Columbia University in conjunction with the exhibition, are also included. Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky’s widely influential essay 'Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal' is presented here for the first time together with its lesser-known sequel of 1971. Also represented are Italo Calvino, Jacques Derrida, Jean Starobinski, and many others.


Price:  £27.50