Architecture

Root Shock examines 3 different U.S. cities to unmask the crippling results of decades-old disinvestment in communities of color and the urban renewal practices that ultimately destroyed these neighborhoods for the advantage of developers and the elite.

Like a sequel to the prescient warnings of urbanist Jane Jacobs, Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove reveals the disturbing effects of decades of insensitive urban renewal projects on communities of color. For those whose homes and neighborhoods were bulldozed, the urban modernization projects that swept America starting in 1949 were nothing short of an assault. Vibrant city blocks - places rich in culture - were torn apart by freeways and other invasive development, devastating the lives of poor residents. Fullilove passionately describes the profound traumatic stress- the "root shock"that results when a neighborhood is demolished. She estimates that federal and state urban renewal programs, spearheaded by business and real estate interests, destroyed 1,600 African American districts in cities across the United States. But urban renewal didn't just disrupt black communities: it ruined their economic health and social cohesion, stripping displaced residents of their sense of place as well. It also left big gashes in the centers of cities that are only now slowly being repaired. Focusing on the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the Central Ward in Newark, and the small Virginia city of Roanoke, Dr. Fullilove argues powerfully against policies of displacement. Understanding the damage caused by root shock is crucial to coping with its human toll and helping cities become whole. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, is a research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute and professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University. She is the author of five books, including Urban Alchemy.

A Framework for Geodesign: Changing Geography by Design presents the key concepts, history, and methodology of geodesign. As an idea, geodesign has the potential to enable more effective and symbiotic collaboration among the several design professions, geographically-oriented sciences, information technologists, and people impacted by change (“the people of the place”) when all of these groups aim to influence major environmental and social change for the better. According to author Carl Steinitz, this collaboration is essential.

Steinitz’s framework, described here in detail, can contribute to that goal. It is clear that for serious societal and environmental issues, designing for change cannot be a solitary activity. It inevitably is a team endeavor with many participants from the design professions and geographic sciences, linked by technology from several locations for rapid communication and feedback, and reliant on transparent communication with the people affected by change. These demands create opportunities for geodesign and the need for organizing that collaboration.

Part I of the book is about the necessary but sometimes difficult collaboration between designers and scientists, and also focuses on key aspects of study areas, scale, and size which influence how geodesign is organized and carried out. Part II presents Steinitz’s framework and addresses six key questions, and their related types of models, which must be integrated in geodesign. Part III features nine case studies that illustrate different ways of designing for change, while Part IV explores the future of geodesign in research, education, and practice.

A Framework for Geodesign ooks mostly to the future, with a primary intention of helping the collaborating participants to achieve, in the words of the author, “practical benefits from geodesign.”

50 years Learning from Las Vegas

From the bustle of Johannesburg to the neon of Las Vegas, Denise Scott Brown’s advocacy for "messy vitality" has transformed the way we look at the urban landscape. Unconventional, eloquent, and with a profound sociopolitical message, Scott Brown is one of our era’s most influential thinkers on architecture and urbanism.

The anthology Denise Scott Brown. In Other Eyes – marking the 50th anniversary of the seminal treatise Learning from Las Vegas – paints a portrait of Scott Brown as seen through the eyes of leading architectural historians and practitioners. It features new scholarship on　her education on three continents, her multidisciplinary teaching, and her use of urban patterns and forces as tools for architectural design – a practice documented in a new comment by Scott Brown, noting that sometimes "1+1>2."

• With contributions by Mary McLeod, Joan Ockman, Sylvia Lavin, Stanislaus von Moos, Jacques Herzog, Robin Middleton, and Denise Scott Brown, among others
• A comprehensive portrait of one of contemporary architecture’s most significant personalities

Reconnecting Cities, People, and Nature is a call to action for urban designers to deeply engage with the living fabric of the city. By working together with humans, non-humans, and allied disciplines, designers can spark a transformation that reshapes cities into thriving, sustainable social and natural ecosystems. Twenty thought-provoking design exercises explore what the city as a complex biotope could be like, inspiring action and creating change.

• Foreword by Rahul Mehrotra
• Twenty exercises based on practice and teaching
• Hand-drawn illustrations

Mindy Thompson Fullilove presents ways to strengthen neighborhood connectivity and empower marginalized communities through investigation of urban segregation from a social heath perspective. "Fullilove passionately demonstrates how, through an urbanity of inclusion, we can heal our fractured cities to make them whole again.

What if divided neighborhoods were causing public health problems? What if a new approach to planning and design could tackle both the built environment and collective well-being at the same time? What if cities could help each other?
Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, the acclaimed author of Root Shock, uses her unique perspective as a public health psychiatrist to explore and identify ways of healing social and spatial fractures simultaneously. Using the work of French urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart and the American urban design firm Rothschild Doyno Collaborative as guides as well as urban restoration projects from France and the US as exemplary cases, Fullilove identifies nine tools that can mend our broken cities and reconnect our communities to make them whole.

Frank Furness (1839-1912) has remained a curiosity to architectural historians and critics, somewhere between an icon and an enigma, whose importance and impact have yet to be properly evaluated or appreciated. To some, his work pushed pattern and proportion to extremes, undermining or forcing together the historic styles he referenced in such eclectic buildings as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania Library. To others, he was merely a regional mannerist creating an eccentric personal style that had little resonance and modest influence on the future of architecture. By placing Furness in the industrial culture that supported his work, George Thomas finds a cutting-edge revolutionary who launched the beginnings of modern design, played a key part in its evolution, and whose strategies continue to affect the built world.

In his sweeping reassessment of Furness as an architect of the machine age, Thomas grounds him in Philadelphia, a city led by engineers, industrialists, and businessmen who commissioned the buildings that extended modern design to Chicago, Glasgow, and Berlin. Thomas examines the multiple facets of Victorian Philadelphia's modernity, looking to its eager embrace of innovations in engineering, transportation, technology, and building, and argues that Furness, working for a particular cohort of clients, played a central role in shaping this context. His analyses of the innovative planning, formal, and structural qualities of Furness's major buildings identifies their designs as initiators of a narrative that leads to such more obviously modern figures as Louis Sullivan, William Price, Frank Lloyd Wright and eventually, the architects of the Bauhaus.

Misunderstood and reviled in the traditional architectural centers of New York and Boston, Furness's projects, commissioned by the progressive industrialists of the new machine age, intentionally broke with the historical styles of the past to work in a modern way—from utilizing principles based on logistical planning to incorporating the new materials of the industrial age. Lavishly illustrated, the book includes more than eighty black-and-white and thirty color photographs that highlight the richness of his work and the originality of his design spanning more than forty years.

How can we map the urbanization of the planet in an era of climate breakdown? The Urban Theory Lab’s Data-Spheres of Planetary Urbanization confronts this question by assembling a series of experimental visualizations of the worldwide urban fabric. This book reverses the mainstream, city-centric perspective on urbanization, showing, instead, that the world of contemporary urbanization encompasses much of the planet, including apparently remote areas, wildlands, and oceans. Cities are not only producers of value, but entropic black holes that consume surpluses produced elsewhere and project waste back into the planetary biosphere. Non-city spaces are, correspondingly, the metabolic bases of planetary urbanization.

With a foreword by Jason W. Moore, an afterword by Alexander Arroyo, and contributions by Martín Arboleda, Danika Cooper, Kian Goh, Julie Michelle Klinger, Roi Salgueiro Barrio, and Hashim Sarkis

• Shows the impact of planetary urbanization in 500 beautiful and revealing spatial data visualizations
• Highlights the importance of operational landscapes beyond the city
• Assembles theoretical and methodological texts by the Urban Theory Lab as well as critical commentaries

Western admirers have long seen the Islamic garden as an earthly reflection of the paradise said to await the faithful. However, such simplification, Ruggles contends, denies the sophistication and diversity of the art form. Islamic Gardens and Landscapes immerses the reader in the world of the architects of the great gardens of the Islamic world, from medieval Morocco to contemporary India.

Just as Islamic culture is historically dense, sophisticated, and complex, so too is the history of its built landscapes. Islamic gardens began from the practical need to organize the surrounding space of human civilization, tame nature, enhance the earth's yield, and create a legible map on which to distribute natural resources. Ruggles follows the evolution of these early farming efforts to their aristocratic apex in famous formal gardens of the Alhambra in Spain and the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Whether in a humble city home or a royal courtyard, the garden has several defining characteristics, which Ruggles discusses. Most notable is an enclosed space divided into four equal parts surrounding a central design element. The traditional Islamic garden is inwardly focused, usually surrounded by buildings or in the form of a courtyard. Water provides a counterpoint to the portioned green sections.

Ranging across poetry, court documents, agronomy manuals, and early garden representations, and richly illustrated with pictures and site plans, Islamic Gardens and Landscapes is a book of impressive scope sure to interest scholars and enthusiasts alike.

To conserve our natural assets—our green infrastructure—we need to map them, and plan for their protection.

Every day, decisions about land development are made—often without consideration to the natural features and functions already there. The placement of housing on rich soil, paving over aquifer recharge zones, or disconnecting wildlife corridors are mistakes easily avoided if we start to consider our natural elements as part of our infrastructure. 

Green Infrastructure: Map and Plan the Natural World with GIS describes the why and how of green infrastructure (GI) mapping and implementation through text, maps, and online illustrations. It explains how to utilize the national model that Esri has built using Green Infrastructure Center's methodology. This six-step process provides a framework for thinking strategically about GI planning and details how to set goals to inform GI maps in order to meet real needs on the ground. Using actual data to create two case studies, this book shows how the Esri model and data from the Esri Living Atlas can be adapted using local data to create a custom GI plan. 

With a green infrastructure strategy, communities can work to preserve and connect open spaces, watersheds, wildlife habitats, parks, and other critical landscapes. Green Infrastructure: Map and Plan the Natural World with GIS explains how to protect and foster a connected, resilient, and biologically diverse landscape for sustainable growth. 

Some of the largest architecture firms have effectively become war corporations. At the same time as designing Olympic parks and world-famous buildings, they have constructed military bases, maintained weaponry, and trained personnel for wars in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. In some conflicts, the same firms have been contracted from invasion to reconstruction, including facilitating military attacks, rebuilding war-damaged infrastructure, and establishing new governments. Architecture for Warfare tells the story of a form of multidisciplinary corporation that employs architects skilled in designing structures alongside former military personnel with experience handling live-fire weapons. It highlights the tensions and contradictions within these architecture-led firms that claim to make the world a better place. The book combines personal narrative with detailed research to reveal unsettling relations between design, planning, and armed conflict.

• Describes the emergence of architectural "war corporations"
• Combines firsthand accounts with research supported by the Graham Foundation
• Reveals ethical conflicts in architectural design

A detailed study of early historical preservation efforts between the 1780s and the 1850s

In Historic Real Estate, Whitney Martinko shows how Americans in the fledgling United States pointed to evidence of the past in the world around them and debated whether, and how, to preserve historic structures as permanent features of the new nation's landscape. From Indigenous mounds in the Ohio Valley to Independence Hall in Philadelphia; from Benjamin Franklin's childhood home in Boston to St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina; from Dutch colonial manors of the Hudson Valley to Henry Clay's Kentucky estate, early advocates of preservation strove not only to place boundaries on competitive real estate markets but also to determine what should not be for sale, how consumers should behave, and how certain types of labor should be valued.

Before historic preservation existed as we know it today, many Americans articulated eclectic and sometimes contradictory definitions of architectural preservation to work out practical strategies for defining the relationship between public good and private profit. In arguing for the preservation of houses of worship and Indigenous earthworks, for example, some invoked the "public interest" of their stewards to strengthen corporate control of these collective spaces. Meanwhile, businessmen and political partisans adopted preservation of commercial sites to create opportunities for, and limits on, individual profit in a growing marketplace of goods. And owners of old houses and ancestral estates developed methods of preservation to reconcile competing demands for the seclusion of, and access to, American homes to shape the ways that capitalism affected family economies. In these ways, individuals harnessed preservation to garner political, economic, and social profit from the performance of public service.

Ultimately, Martinko argues, by portraying the problems of the real estate market as social rather than economic, advocates of preservation affirmed a capitalist system of land development by promising to make it moral.

Why does live performance continue to engage us? In a world saturated with recorded entertainment, we seek out the intimacy and immediacy of live music and theater. What is the relationship between design and the experiences, perceptions, and memories it engenders? At its best, architecture, a collection of elements - some apparent, some hidden - shapes and intensifies the process and experience of performance. Set Pieces pairs the words of leading artists and critics with details showcasing the design and inner workings from projects by Diamond Schmitt Architects for some of the world’s most remarkable performing-arts buildings. The book provides an immersive study of sixteen design elements that enhance and transform the perception of performance - and evoke experiences that surpass visual understanding.

Modern land administration applies geospatial thinking to better understand and plan the proper use, conservation, and equitable use of land and property.

Location intelligence is changing the way land administration works to protect and maintain appropriate land use and achieve better economic, environmental, and social benefits. The real-life stories in Valuing Place and Purpose: GIS for Land Administration show how communities, government agencies, nonprofits, and other organizations implement geographic information systems (GIS) in four key areas:

     · Visualizing parcels and property

     · Managing land use

     · Strengthening climate and conservation efforts

     · Addressing land rights, equity, and social justice

The book also includes a special section to help readers get started using web apps, online maps, dashboards, and other GIS solutions to represent and understand the value of land and property and efficiently manage, edit, and share land parcel data more accurately.

A pioneer of architectural history

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000) entered the modernist canon with her “Frankfurt Kitchen.” She is also considered a pioneer of social architecture, a women’s rights activist, and, last but not least, a heroine of the resistance to the Nazi dictatorship.

In this book, available in English for the first time, recent research in the fields of art history, contemporary history, pedagogy, and gender studies provides a nuanced picture of Schütte-Lihotzky, whose estate is archived at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The volume explores her rich architectural oeuvre, her transnational experiences and professional networks, her political development as a Communist, and her current reception. It breaks through the mythology to present a rounded picture of Schütte-Lihotzky, an icon of architectural history.

Building with trees has a tradition that stretches from the living bridges of India to dancing lime trees. Following on from this, the new discipline of Baubotanik is dedicated to designing with trees. Built projects and visionary concepts point the way to a new green architecture. This introduction explains the basics of constructing with trees and goes into the botanical growth laws that guide the design.

Die Europäische Union (EU) stellt ein einzigartiges Experiment gemeinsamen Handelns dar. Diese Publikation befasst sich mit diesem Prozess aus dem Blickwinkel der Architektur, einer Disziplin, die im Laufe der Geschichte stets enge Verbindungen zur Macht hatte. Durch die Untersuchung einiger bedeutender, seit den 1950er-Jahren durch die EU entwickelter Architekturprojekte, geht das Buch einer bislang unerforschten Frage nach: Weshalb fällt es der EU so schwer, sich mit Architektur auseinanderzusetzen? In dieser Publikation wird eine Theorie zu einer Form von Zurückhaltung gegenüber Architektur in der EU aufgestellt und die dafür maßgeblichen Gründe identifiziert, wobei die Spannungen zwischen national und supranational, die historische Verbindung zwischen Architektur und Staat, der Mangel an akzeptablen Vorstellungen von Europa, die funktionalistische Kultur der europäischen Institutionen aber auch die rechtlichen Beschränkungen, die ihr Handeln in der bebauten Umwelt einschränken, thematisiert werden.

• Erste Publikation zur Architektur der EU-Institutionen.
• Interdisziplinäre Publikation

What are Marxist architectural history and criticism? What methods do they employ, and what are their objects of critical analysis? These questions have been asked before, but now more than ever, they require reassessment in light of the continuous expansion and revision of Marxism in response to new global crises.　Struggles in the Concrete: Architecture and the Marxist Tradition embarks on this endeavour. The eleven chapters not only reconsider classical Marxist categories and historical conjunctures, but also devise new critical frameworks for analysing architecture and capitalism today. The book reconsiders neglected figures like Marta Lonzi, Sérgio Ferro, and Anthony D. King, as well as re-engaging with major figures like Siegfried Kracauer, Manfredo Tafuri, and Stuart Hall.

• Tool for critical thinking in the current architectural discourse on global crises
• Contributions by renowned architectural historians and theorists: Claire Zimmerman, Katie Lloyd Thomas, Silke Kapp, Nicholas Thoburn, Onyeka Igwe

What does it mean for architecture to be a truly collaborative venture where plants and other species also exercise their agency? This would mean to make architecture receptive—physically, premised on creating spaces for accommodating multispecies; and intellectually, premised on becoming aware of the needs of more-than-humans. Design-based approaches whether technocratic or demonstrating a theoretical standpoint are fragmented today and demand a holistic approach.

Living Together positions itself in that fragmentation. The book is an inquiry into an architecture which allows multispecies alliances to take place. It brings materialist and ecological inquiries to architectural design, practice, and thinking; acknowledging a necessity to go beyond established architectural ideals of progress, monumentality, longevity, and permanence.

• A guide to ecological planning in architecture
• Cohabitation: architecture must take into account the non-human living space
• Inspiring illustrations

Jane Jacobs is universally recognized as one of the key figures in American urbanism. The author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she uncovered the complex and intertwined physical and social fabric of the city and excoriated the urban renewal policies of the 1950s. As the legend goes, Jacobs, a housewife, single-handedly stood up to Robert Moses, New York City's powerful master builder, and other city planners who sought first to level her Greenwich Village neighborhood and then to drive a highway through it. Jacobs's most effective weapons in these David-versus-Goliath battles, and in writing her book, were her powers of observation and common sense.

What is missing from such discussions and other myths about Jacobs, according to Peter L. Laurence, is a critical examination of how she arrived at her ideas about city life. Laurence shows that although Jacobs had only a high school diploma, she was nevertheless immersed in an elite intellectual community of architects and urbanists. Becoming Jane Jacobs is an intellectual biography that chronicles Jacobs's development, influences, and writing career, and provides a new foundation for understanding Death and Life and her subsequent books. Laurence explains how Jacobs's ideas developed over many decades and how she was influenced by members of the traditions she was critiquing, including Architectural Forum editor Douglas Haskell, shopping mall designer Victor Gruen, housing advocate Catherine Bauer, architect Louis Kahn, Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon, urban historian Lewis Mumford, and the British writers at The Architectural Review. Rather than discount the power of Jacobs's critique or contributions, Laurence asserts that Death and Life was not the spontaneous epiphany of an amateur activist but the product of a professional writer and experienced architectural critic with deep knowledge about the renewal and dynamics of American cities.

The remaining corner of an old farm, unclaimed by developers. The brook squeezed between housing plans. Abandoned railroad lines. The stand of woods along an expanded highway. These are the outposts of what was once a larger pattern of forests and farms, the "last landscape." According to William H. Whyte, the place to work out the problems of our metropolitan areas is within those areas, not outside them. The age of unchecked expansion without consequence is over, but where there is waste and neglect there is opportunity. Our cities and suburbs are not jammed; they just look that way. There are in fact plenty of ways to use this existing space to the benefit of the community, and The Last Landscape provides a practical and timeless framework for making informed decisions about its use.

Called "the best study available on the problems of open space" by the New York Times when it first appeared in 1968, The Last Landscape introduced many cornerstone ideas for land conservation, urging all of us to make better use of the land that has survived amid suburban sprawl. Whyte's pioneering work on easements led to the passage of major open space statutes in many states, and his argument for using and linking green spaces, however small the areas may be, is a recommendation that has more currency today than ever before.

Paula Deitz has delighted readers for more than thirty years with her vivid descriptions of both famous and hidden landscapes. Her writings allow readers to share in the experience of her extensive travels, from the waterways of Britain's Castle Howard to the Japanese gardens of Kyoto, and home again to New York City's Central Park. Collected for the first time, the essays in Of Gardens record her great adventure of continual discovery, not only of the artful beauty of individual gardens but also of the intellectual and historical threads that weave them into patterns of civilization, from the modest garden for family subsistence to major urban developments. Deitz's essays describe how people, over many centuries and in many lands, have expressed their originality by devoting themselves to cultivation and conservation.

During a visit to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, Deitz first came to appreciate the notion that landscape architecture can be as intricately conceived as any major structure and is, indeed, the means by which we redeem the natural environment through design. Years later, as she wandered through the gardens of Versailles, she realized that because gardens give structure without confinement, they encourage a liberation of movement and thought. In Of Gardens, we follow Deitz down paths of revelation, viewing "A Bouquet of British Parks: Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London"; the parks and promenades of Jerusalem; the Moonlight Garden of the Taj Mahal; a Tuscan-style villa in southern California; and the rooftop garden at Tokyo's Mori Center, among many other sites.

Deitz covers individual landscape architects and designers, including André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, Russell Page, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. She then features an array of parks, public places, and gardens before turning her attention to the burgeoning business of flower shows. The volume concludes with a memorable poetic epilogue entitled "A Winter Garden of Yellow."

The gardens of Versailles—along with the name of their chief creator, André Le Nôtre (1613-1700)—have become synonymous with the French style of "formal" garden. This style in its turn would succumb to another "national" mode, the English school of naturalistic and picturesque landscapes. But as Thierry Mariage makes clear, the garden style that Le Nôtre brought to perfection need not be seen in opposition to the later "English" one. Rather, he claims, they represent two points along a continuum that exists between the natural and cultural worlds.

Published originally in Belgium as L'univers de Le Nostre, Mariage's examination of Le Nôtre moves beyond traditional art historical documentation and appreciation into a realm of interpretation. He situates Le Nôtre's garden art in a complex social and cultural world, where the practices of land management, surveying techniques and hydrology, military practice, and both scientific and literary perspectives on land use and experience brought into being a unique form of landscape architecture. His analysis opens up the fashion in which design techniques and garden philosophy are shaped by material culture.

In the wake of the Occupy Wall Street movement, leading planers and social scientists examine public space today and freedom of assembly.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has challenged the physical manifestation of the First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly. Where and how can people congregate today? Forty social scientists, planners, architects, and civil liberties experts explore the definition, use, role, and importance of public space for the exercise of our democratic rights to free expression. The book also discusses whose voice is heard and what factors limit the participation of minorities in Occupy activities. This foundational work puts issues of democracy and civic engagement back into the center of dialogue about the built environment.

Beyond Zuccotti Park is a collaborative effort of Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, City College of New York School of Architecture, New Village Press and its parent organization, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. The book is part of an open civic inquiry on the part of these organizations. The project was seeded by a series of free public forums, Freedom of Assembly: Public Space Today, held at the Center for Architecture in response to the forced clearance of Occupy activities from Zuccotti Park and public plazas throughout the country. The first two recorded programs took place on December 17, 2011 and February 4, 2012.

Liliane Wong's latest volume on adaptive reuse in architecture presents 50 spectacular conversion and reuse projects worldwide, including buildings such as the TWA Hotel at NewYork's John F. Kennedy Airport, the CaixaForum in Madrid, and the New Museum in Berlin. The projects are presented using a new classification system that addresses practitioners as well as academics. The author's introductory essay provides a comprehensive overview and historical context for the enormous evolution and expansion of adaptive reuse over the past 50 years.

• Presentation of 50 seminal and spectacular adaptive reuse projects in architecture
• New classification of a wide variety of remodeling and conversion projects
• Written by a leading expert in the field

With an introductory essay by Joseph Heathcott

As ports expand to meet global demands for sustainability and energy transition, European states are reshaping their maritime landscapes through port clusters—new organizational structures that transform both administration and governance. This book critically examines how port clusterization is redefining the relationship between cities and their ports, challenging conventional urban and architectural research on port-city conditions. It explores the spatial impacts of this transformation into landscapes of the cluster and introduces design tools to help port city institutions navigate pressing challenges. From coastal land consumption to sustainable infrastructures and the shifting perception of ports within cities, Landscapes of the Cluster provides fresh insights into the future of port-city dynamics.

• Examines the emerging phenomenon of port clusterization from a spatial perspective
• In-depth research on Italian port clusters, complemented by international guest essays
• Establishes a cooperative dialogue between academia and port institutions

Bilingual edition (English/German) / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (deutsch/englisch)

No one can really know what will prove sustainable in thirty years—and that is precisely why we need a plurality of building practices and ongoing conversations about them. The large-scale exhibition WEtransFORM in Bonn provides plenty of inspiration for both. As part of its thematic year on ecological transformation, the Bundeskunsthalle is showcasing outstanding projects in sustainable architecture and urban development from across Europe. This companion book to the exhibition conveys key insights, tells personal stories, and encourages readers to get involved in building a more sustainable world. Our shared goal: to reduce resource consumption.

• A richly illustrated companion to the exhibition WEtransFORM in the Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, June 6, 2025–January 25, 2026
• Featuring works by Anna Heringer, Céline Baumann, Daisy Ginsberg, ecoLogicStudio, Florian Nagler, heri & salli, ITKE, Julia Lohmann, Marjan van Aubel, Martin Rauch, Mischer’Traxler, MVRDV, Office for Political Innovation, OMC°C, Powerhouse, raumlaborberlin, Superflux, 51n4E, and more

Zweisprachige Ausgabe (deutsch/englisch) / Bilingual edition (English/German)

Niemand kann mit Gewissheit sagen, was sich in dreißig Jahren tatsächlich als nachhaltig erwiesen haben wird. Gerade deshalb braucht es eine Pluralität von baulichen Praktiken und die fortwährende Diskussion darüber. Für beides bietet die große Ausstellung WEtransFORM in Bonn reichlich Inspiration. Im Rahmen ihres Themenjahrs zur ökologischen Transformation versammelt die Bundeskunsthalle vorbildliche Projekte nachhaltiger Architektur und Stadtentwicklung in Europa. Das Begleitbuch vermittelt die Kernbotschaften der Ausstellung, erzählt individuelle Geschichten und ermutigt zu eigenem Engagement. Das gemeinsame Ziel: den Ressourcenverbrauch reduzieren.

• Reich bebilderter Begleitband zur Ausstellung WEtransFORM, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, 6. Juni 2025 bis 25. Januar 2026
• Mit Arbeiten von Anna Heringer, Céline Baumann, Daisy Ginsberg, ecoLogicStudio, Florian Nagler, heri & salli, ITKE, Julia Lohmann, Marjan van Aubel, Martin Rauch, Mischer’Traxler, MVRDV, Office for Political Innovation, OMC°C, Powerhouse, raumlaborberlin, Superflux, 51n4E und anderen

Colors lend rooms a distinctive atmosphere, and a successful color concept makes all the difference. Finding individually pleasing as well as functional color combinations for a wide range of interior and exterior tasks is often a challenge. This library of color combinations is a decision-making aid for interior design work, but also for other design tasks calling for coherent color concepts. It offers designers numerous balanced color combinations covering a wide range of contrast values. A clean white is always the first color. Matching light grays to anthracite, wood and concrete colors represent the second color in each concept. Building on these, designers will find warm and cool, light and shady, barely colorful to more colorful combinations that match every modern style of design.

• 400 color combinations compiled by color expert Katrin Trautwein.
• An essential tool in a handy format for architects, students of architecture and design, and interior designers.
• Move beyond familiar patterns to uncover fresh color combinations.

Disappearing Cities is a collection of over fifty short stories of invented cities, set in the not too distant future, destroyed by varied climate change impacts and linked natural disasters. The stories bring into question the relation between the natural and unnatural forces of change and expose responses to, and lessons learnt, from different disaster crises situations. Stories also focus on how means to adapt are sought. The projected fictions are created from projected current climate facts; trends; and the author’s experience of population displacement, relocation and design-based climate change responsive action. Central to the book is the recognition that to be able to respond and adapt to the scale of coming changes in the climate requires going beyond existing practical action and embracing a new way of imagining futures. Disappearing Cities aims to stimulate ways of meeting this need.
The book opens with a Prologue that establishes the contextual frame of empirical foundation out of which the fictions are created. It recognises that we all live in a world in which the conditions that will result in huge numbers of cities disappearing are underway. From the human perspective, the process appears to be very slow, whereas in historico-geological time, it is happening exceptionally quickly. The number of the loss of cities is going to be huge, yet the recognition that this will occur is not arriving, In part, this is because of a lack of knowledge, but equally, it reflects a lack of imagination. Transposing what is known about climate change by a significant percentage of the societies of many nations to actual environments in which they live is just not arriving. What appears so solid and established fails to be seen and imagined as a risk and vulnerable. From establishing this opening perspective, the first part of the book presents stories of cities already disappearing as a result of the forces of nature changed by anthropogenically created global warming. Part two discusses the impacts of natural disasters being made unnaturally. For example, by the way industrial societies are damaging and changing natural systems, including the climatic. The final part goes to cities destroyed by completely un-natural means, including war.
Disappearing Cities aims to contribute to meeting the need for a better understanding of, and ability to imagine, the risks to which vast numbers of cities are, and will be, exposed to forces of disappearance. To do this, the narratives are a hybrid of fact and fiction. The work was inspired by Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities and is intended to be a salient contemporary companion to this text. It mirrors its form but differs in style and content. Invisible Cities attained diverse readership, Disappearing Cities aspires to do likewise.

What role do spaces beyond the city play in urbanization? How have such spaces been transformed during the geohistory of capitalism? This volume brings together texts collaboratively produced by three researchers in the Urban Theory Lab to address these questions. Planetary urbanization is understood here not only with reference to the global expansion and proliferation of cities, but as an evolving web of metabolic relations between cities and the diverse operational landscapes that support them across the earth. Through studies of operational landscapes in various regions of the world and critical analyses of inherited approaches to urban theory, the authors portray capitalist urbanization as a metabolic monstrosity that degrades the biospheric foundations of both human and nonhuman life.

• Conceptualizes planetary urbanization as a thickening web of relations between cities and operational landscapes
• Critically evaluates and updates urban theory in relation to contemporary planetary environmental transformations and crises
• Analyzes the essential role of mining, agriculture, and logistics in the dynamics of capitalist urbanization

(English, German)

Compelled by the global environmental crisis, the building industry is moving toward a paradigm shift that significantly impacts the way we build, design, and interact with the natural environments around us. The built spaces of the future need to disrupt the conventional design practices that have "elevated" the building sector to the largest contributor of manmade CO₂ emissions globally. Achieving net-zero embodied and operational emissions in future construction will require the active participation of design, construction, and building professionals, as well as the prompt implementation of decarbonization solutions. These solutions, which restructure the way humans interact with their ecosystems, entail a reevaluation and reinterpretation of architecture and its role as a transformative agent. GAM 21 collects perspectives and proposals on how to make a radical shift towards environmental transformation successful.

With contributions by Greg Foliente, Guillaume Habert, Monica Lavagna, Alice Moncaster, Chrisna du Plessis, Philippe Rahm, and others

• Explores contemporary approaches to decarbonizing the construction industry, one of the world’s largest emitters of CO₂
• Includes contributions from international authors and experts

Die globale Umweltkrise zwingt die Baubranche zu einem Paradigmenwechsel, der die Art und Weise, wie wir in Zukunft bauen, gestalten und mit unseren natürlichen Umgebungen interagieren wollen, stark beeinflusst. Gebaute Räume der Zukunft müssen konventionelle Planungspraktiken überwinden, die den Bausektor zum größten Verursacher von CO₂-Emissionen weltweit gemacht haben. Das Erreichen von Netto-Null-Emissionen beim Bau und Betrieb künftiger Gebäude erfordert eine aktive Beteiligung von Entwurfs-, Konstruktions-, und Baufachleuten und die rasche Umsetzung der Dekarbonisierung. Diese Ansätze, die die Interaktion zwischen Menschen und ihren Ökosystemen neu strukturieren, haben auch eine Neubewertung und Neuinterpretation der Architektur und ihrer Rolle als Triebkraft der Transformation zur Folge. GAM 21 sammelt Perspektiven und Vorschläge, wie ein radikaler Wandel hin zu einer ökologischen Transformation gelingen kann.

Mit Beiträgen von Greg Foliente, Guillaume Habert, Monica Lavagna, Alice Moncaster, Chrisna du Plessis, Philippe Rahm und anderen

• Aktuelle Ansätze zur Dekarbonisierung der Baubranche als einer der größten Verursacherinnen von CO₂-Emissionen
• Beiträge internationaler Autor*innen und Expert*innen

Die Kritik der gegenwärtigen Abrisspraxis wird angesichts der Klima-, Biodiversitäts- und Energiekrisen lauter. In Deutschland werden wohl über 50.000 Gebäude pro Jahr abgerissen, die Bau- und Abbruchabfälle verursachen gut 55 Prozent des gesamten Abfallaufkommens. Die Abrissfrage macht das Phänomen Abriss im Gebäudesektor aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven greifbar. Mit Ansätzen aus Architekturgeschichte und -theorie, Denkmalpflege, Feminismus, Aktivismus und Kunst werden die ökologischen, politischen, sozioökonomischen sowie kulturellen Folgen der auf den fossilen Logiken der Moderne beruhenden Praxis von Abriss und Neubau analysiert. Die Beiträge thematisieren die historische Entwicklung, gegenwärtige Akteursnetzwerke, Gentrifizierung und ideologische Einflussnahmen von Abriss, aber auch die sich seit den 1960er Jahren formierenden Anti-Abriss-Bewegungen.

Die Publikation bildet den Auftakt einer neuen Schriftenreihe, die aktuelle Fragestellungen des umwelt- und sozialgerechten Bauens thematisiert. Zudem werden wichtige Pionier*innen des ökologischen Bauens im 20. Jahrhunderts in den Blick genommen. Herausgeber der Reihe sind Philipp Oswalt und Alexander Stumm.

Mit Beiträgen von ANA, Elisabeth Broermann, Laura Calbet, Dina Dorothea Falbe, Maximilian Hartinger, Maria Hudl, Katrine Majlund Jensen, Adrian Nägel, Yulia Ostheimer, Luise Rellensmann, Tim Rieniets, Charlotte Schaeben, Martha Seeger, Lukas Strasser und Alexander Stumm sowie den Architekturkollektiven AbbrechenAbbrechen (München), Abrisskollektiv (Hannover), Europaviertel retten (Freiburg) und ufoufo (Berlin)

• Aktueller Stand, Argumente und Zahlen zur Abrissdebatte
• Umfangreiche Recherche und Dokumentation zu vom Abriss bedrohten oder jüngst abgerissenen Gebäuden
• Geschichte und Netzwerke der deutschen Anti-Abriss-Bewegung seit den 1960er Jahren

A profound social change can be observed in the areas of mobility, work and trade, as well as in the practice of faith, especially in cities. As a result, certain building typologies such as petrol stations, offices, shopping centers, cinemas and churches are being used less, thus becoming increasingly obsolete and contributing to the obsolescence of the city.

Three strategies must be considered for the efficient transformation of these structures: the conversion of existing architecture and the preservation of the gray energy they embody; the maximization of land use; and the strengthening of ecological functions to improve the urban microclimate and the quality of living space.

The authors analyze potential solutions, present conversion scenarios, and illustrate these in schematic diagrams.

• Analysis of obsolete architectural typologies in urban centers
• Realistic proposals for the recyclability of existing buildings
• Attractive graphics and presentations of potential solutions

This book considers architectural models not as stable objects but as a question: What is a model, really? And where in the design process does it assume its powers or perform its tasks? Thirty essays respond to nine pointed questions, discovering surprising affinities and interweaving observations from diverse disciplinary, geographical, and scholarly perspectives, all framed by an introductory essay and a dialog between historian Annabel Wharton and artist Thomas Demand. Are You a Model? approaches models as phenomena and architectural tools without seeking to determine conclusive answers. Compiled by a group of architectural and art historians, historians of science, software engineers, architects, and curators, it views models as an epistemologically diverse practice rather than objects sorted by periods, genres, or materials.

With contributions by Giulia Amoresano, Yana Boeva, Giulia Boller, Stefanie Brünenberg, Alberto Calderoni, Daniel Cardoso Llach, Wonseok Chae, Diana Cristobal Olave, Carlotta Darò, Cansu Degirmencioglu, Kai Drewes, Ruth Ezra, Jia Yi Gu, Erik Herrmann, Carolin Höfler, Deniz Avci Hosanli, Christian Janecke, Sebastian Loosen, John McMorrough, Christina Moushoul, Ana Carolina Pellegrini, Eliza Pertigkiozoglou, Andreas Pilot, Stéphanie Quantin-Biancalani, Salome Schepers, Ecaterina Stefanescu, Simona Valeriani, Mara Trübenbach, Annabel Wharton, Matthew Wells, Baris Wenzel, Holger Zaunstöck, Maxime Zaugg, and Tamar Zinguer.

Volume five of the Landscript series examines material culture in the context of landscape architecture theory and design, positing the constructed landscape as a site for the investigation of human-nature relations and the factors that mediate their production, from labor to physical materials.

It has been shown that spatial perception can be improved through practice. Opportunities to offer such practice are offered in this workbook, which was tested by nearly one thousand architecture students before publication, and emerged from an academic study funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, conducted jointly by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the ETH Zurich.

People involved in architecture need to be familiar with construction methods in order to be in control of their designs. New technical requirements impact on our buildings and call for up-to-date specialist knowledge, which leads to new forms of architecture.

This handbook uses clearly comprehensible 3D isometric diagrams to introduce the world of contemporary construction, from concept through to the detail; photographs are used to illustrate the content.

The three main chapters deal with the structure, the building envelope, and the fit-out, starting with a clear introduction to the construction principles of modern building methods. Using drawings of selected built examples at scales of 1:10 and 1:20, a deeper examination of details is possible.

• Compact design of construction know-how developed at ETH Zurich for the purpose of teaching
• Uses typical examples to convey the basic technical context
• Economical handbook

In the mid-twentieth century, as Americans abandoned city centers in droves to pursue picket-fenced visions of suburbia, architect and urban planner Edmund Bacon turned his sights on shaping urban America. As director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Bacon forged new approaches to neighborhood development and elevated Philadelphia's image to the level of great world cities. Urban development came with costs, however, and projects that displaced residents and replaced homes with highways did not go uncriticized, nor was every development that Bacon envisioned brought to fruition. Despite these challenges, Bacon oversaw the planning and implementation of dozens of redesigned urban spaces: the restored colonial neighborhood of Society Hill, the new office development of Penn Center, and the transit-oriented shopping center of Market East.

Ed Bacon is the first biography of this charismatic but controversial figure. Gregory L. Heller traces the trajectory of Bacon's two-decade tenure as city planning director, which coincided with a transformational period in American planning history. Edmund Bacon is remembered as a larger-than-life personality, but in Heller's detailed account, his successes owed as much to his savvy negotiation of city politics and the pragmatic particulars of his vision. In the present day, as American cities continue to struggle with shrinkage and economic restructuring, Heller's insightful biography reveals an inspiring portrait of determination and a career-long effort to transform planning ideas into reality.

The contributors of Policy, Planning, and People argue for the promotion of social equity and quality of life by designing and evaluating urban policies and plans. Edited by Naomi Carmon and Susan S. Fainstein, the volume features original essays by leading authorities in the field of urban planning and policy, mainly from the United States, but also from Canada, Hungary, Italy, and Israel. The contributors discuss goal setting and ethics in planning, illuminate paradigm shifts, make policy recommendations, and arrive at best practices for future planning.

Policy, Planning, and People includes theoretical as well as practice-based essays on a wide range of planning issues: housing and neighborhood, transportation, surveillance and safety, the network society, regional development and community development. Several essays are devoted to disadvantaged and excluded groups such as senior citizens, the poor, and migrant workers. The unifying themes of this volume are the values of equity, diversity, and democratic participation. The contributors discuss and draw conclusions related to the planning process and its outcomes. They demonstrate the need to look beyond efficiency to determine who benefits from urban policies and plans.

Contributors: Alberta Andreotti, Tridib Banerjee, Rachel G. Bratt, Naomi Carmon, Karen Chapple, Norman Fainstein, Susan Fainstein, Eran Feitelson, Amnon Frenkel, George Galster, Penny Gurstein, Deborah Howe, Norman Krumholz, Jonathan Levine, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Enzo Mingione, Kenneth Reardon, Izhak Schnell, Daniel Shefer, Michael Teitz, Iván Tosics, Lawrence Vale, Martin Wachs.

When Philadelphia's iconoclastic city planner Edmund N. Bacon looked into his crystal ball in 1959, he saw a remarkable vision: "Philadelphia as an unmatched expression of the vitality of American technology and culture." In that year Bacon penned an essay for Greater Philadelphia Magazine, originally entitled "Philadelphia in the Year 2009," in which he imagined a city remade, modernized in time to host the 1976 Philadelphia World's Fair and Bicentennial celebration, an event that would be a catalyst for a golden age of urban renewal.

What Bacon did not predict was the long, bitter period of economic decline, population dispersal, and racial confrontation that Philadelphia was about to enter. As such, his essay comes to us as a time capsule, a message from one of the city's most influential and controversial shapers that prompts discussions of what was, what might have been, and what could yet be in the city's future.

Imagining Philadelphia brings together Bacon's original essay, reprinted here for the first time in fifty years, and a set of original essays on the past, present, and future of urban planning in Philadelphia. In addition to examining Bacon and his motivations for writing the piece, the essays assess the wider context of Philadelphia's planning, architecture, and real estate communities at the time, how city officials were reacting to economic decline, what national precedents shaped Bacon's faith in grand forms of urban renewal, and whether or not it is desirable or even possible to adopt similarly ambitious visions for contemporary urban planning and economic development. The volume closes with a vision of what Philadelphia might look like fifty years from now.

In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future.
The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies.
Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

Learn how architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms work to improve sustainability objectives and advance new ideas about creating more livable cities, workplaces, and campuses as they create greater operational efficiency.

Location intelligence is changing how land development and large infrastructure projects take shape. From new residential construction to planning a modern urban experience to building a high-speed rail system, a geographic approach helps pave the way to better, more sustainable designs.  

In Designing Our Future: GIS for Architecture, Engineering & Construction, see how the AEC industry is implementing geographic information systems (GIS) to improve workflows, bring context to large undertakings, and increase collaboration between governments, contractors, partners, and the public. With GIS, architects, engineers, and construction professionals are discovering new efficiencies, gaining deeper insights about complex projects, and transforming the way they plan, design, build, and operate in the built and natural environments.

In this collection of case studies and “how to” guidance, gain an overview of how GIS was used to:

• Reduce the carbon footprint and mitigate future climate-related damage from a cross-country, high-speed rail project in the US
• Document all above and below ground assets such as utility services, electric, gas, surface water and sewer drainage for a local transportation agency 
• Plan maintenance for and respond to hazards from aging structures and vulnerable hillsides using drones in Japan 

Designing Our Future: GIS for Architecture, Engineering & Construction also includes a “next steps” section that provides ideas, strategies, tools, and actions to help jump-start your own use of GIS. A collection of online resources, including additional stories, videos, new ideas and concepts, and downloadable tools and content, complements this book.

• Overview of the state of the art and its possibilities
• Models of interactivity in theory and practice

Co-Corporeality beruht auf der Hypothese, die gebaute Umwelt als biologische Einheit zu begreifen, die einen Raum der Koexistenz und Interaktion zwischen Menschen und mikrobiellem Leben eröffnet. Ausgehend von designgeleiteter Forschung wird ergründet, wie wir Umgebungen für eine Multispezies-Welt entwickeln können. Im Fokus steht die Handlungsfähigkeit menschlicher wie nicht menschlicher Akteure: Neue Sensortools ermöglichen die Beobachtung von und Interaktion zwischen diesen verschiedenen Akteuren.

Co-Corporeality verbindet Mikrobiologie, Materialwissenschaft, künstliche Intelligenz, Architektur. Im Zentrum steht die Frage, wie mikrobielle Aktivität neue protoarchitektonische Materialien schaffen kann, wie lebende Systeme in Architektur integriert werden und innerhalb verschiedener Zeitskalen kooperieren können.

• construction and design methodology in multistorey timber construction
• new system of timber and timber hybrid construction
• elements, layer structure, tectonics

(english edition)
"No Trust, No City!" was the longtime credo on their website; "Some Ideas for Better Cities" was their first joint lecture series; and Acting in Public was their first book. For over twenty years, the architecture collective raumlaborberlin has been searching for new spaces of encounter and for ways of achieving cooperative urban development. Together with experts from various disciplines, they experiment with new forms of urban practice, participation, and the joint production of space. Polylemma explores the work of the collective from diverse perspectives. Its nine members visit the sites of their work, come together with long-standing colleagues and critics, dissect the mechanisms behind their actions, and reflect on the tools and methods of their research-based practice.

Examining numerous projects, they discuss strategies for learning together, experimental building, radical recycling, and cooperative urban development. The book is a call to action: space becomes an actor that fundamentally questions design itself and the role of architects. It offers an extensive collection of photos and drawings, analyses and ideas, tutorials and building instructions, that continually test and explore the parameters for action in urban space.
Polylemma asks: How do we want to live together in the future? It is a request to think space openly; a plea for the city as a sphere of action.

Botschaftsneubauten sind prestigeträchtig und identitätsstiftend zugleich. Ihre primäre Aufgabe, einen Staat im Ausland zu vertreten und sein gesellschaftliches Selbstverständnis widerzuspiegeln, macht sie zu politischen Symbolen. In den vergangenen 150 Jahren suchte Deutschland in seinen auswärtigen Staatsbauten stets einen individuellen architektonischen Ausdruck. Insbesondere die während der vierzigjährigen deutschen Teilung von der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland errichteten Neubauten für diplomatische Vertretungen dokumentieren die enge Verknüpfung von politischen, kulturellen und personellen Entscheidungen sowie deren Rahmenbedingungen. Die Bauwerke eröffnen aus ihrer exterritorialen Position heraus einen erweiterten Blick auf die Geschichte und das Selbstverständnis. Sie prägen den auswärtigen Repräsentationsbau bis heute.

Adaptive reuse is a design practice where changes in the building structure go along with new programs and functions. Many concerns of the day that are the hallmark of current social discourse can equally be communicated through the vocabulary of design and reuse. Six common themes mirroring those of society in the new millennium are discernable in the current adaptive reuse practice: appropriation, ecology, equity, memory & redemption, identity and authenticity.

Selected articles from the IntAR Interventions and Adaptive Reuse Journal of the last ten years speak to the social issues of the recent decade. The introductory essay positions shifting norms of working from home or remote learning in the light of their revision through adaptive reuse, for example the post-pandemic repercussions on office towers and the classroom.

The Neue Nationalgalerie on the Berlin Kulturforum is an architectural icon as well as the crowning conclusion of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s life work. An outstandingly successful and sensitive refurbishment and modernization project was carried out for the building’s most significant overhaul since its opening in 1968. It complies with the requirements of a contemporary museum exhibition facility, as well as monument-preservation guidelines. David Chipperfield Architects developed the renovation concept under the motto of "As much Mies as possible."

This publication provides deep insight into the planning, execution, monument preservation, and restoration from the perspective of those involved. The exemplary handling of the historical fabric is presented in design documents and numerous large-format photographs that impressively illustrate the design stage, the construction site, and the refurbishment results.

• With articles by David Chipperfield, Bernhard Furrer, Gunny Harboe, Joachim Jäger, Dirk Lohan, Fritz Neumeyer, Alexander Schwarz, Gerrit Wegener, and some 30 project managers 
• Sir David Alan Chipperfield CH, 2023 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize

The Bauhaus Building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius in 1926, represents a "built manifesto of Bauhaus ideas" and is one of modernism’s most important buildings. Together with the associated Masters’ Houses (Meisterhäuser), the Houses with Balcony Access (Laubenganghäuser) in Dessau, and Bauhaus buildings in Weimar and Bernau, it is included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The book focuses on strategies for preserving the Bauhaus Building. It presents the building—and its eventful history—from its construction to its destruction, rebuilding, and restoration. Using texts, photographs, and numerous blueprints, the book provides a detailed exploration of specific aspects of the architecture—such as the building’s outer shell, materials, construction, color scheme, and surfaces—and the long-term preservation concept for the site. In doing so, it proposes structural measures aimed at adapting the building to today’s challenges and at conserving the building with its historic and artistic characteristics.

Archaeology of Modernism. Preservation Bauhaus Dessau is the revised and expanded edition of Archaeology of Modernism. Renovation Bauhaus Dessau, which was published by JOVIS as Volume 23 of the EDITION BAUHAUS series in 2006. This new edition is presented as Volume 58.

Models are spatial presentations of architectural concepts, miniature representations of the proposed buildings. Better than any drawing or computer simulation, they help to create a better spatial impression of the projected building, because anybody looking at a model can select the angle of view and thereby obtain a personal impression of the space. Designing and presenting a design concept with the help of a model is an important step in creating an awareness of the intended design.

Basics Model Building provides students with concise knowledge of model typologies, materials, tools, and techniques for the professional creation of working and presentation models. The new edition of this successful volume has been updated and supplemented, in particular in the field of digital model building.

In 2019 it will be the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus. Prompted by this occasion, with "project bauhaus" ARCH+ has undertaken a critical appraisal of the Bauhaus ideas: working for several years, an international group of experts from a wide range of disciplines has investigated the socio-political relevance and emancipatory potential of the Bauhaus – historically, for today, and for the future.

How can design still become effective as a political project? What are the possibilities and problems encountered by universal design in the age of globalization? Can the emancipatory potential of technology still be activated in a digitalized world?

The answers to these questions are published here for the first time for an international readership.

Fire safety is an important part of building design. It consists of measures to prevent fires from starting, to facilitate the rescue of individuals in a burning building, and to help firefighters contain a blaze.　

Both statutory provisions and building codes lay down strict fire safety regulations for commercial and residential construction. The main task for architects when it comes to fire safety is to apply the principles and methods of fire prevention at the outset of the design process.

The book explains the general concepts and fundamental issues of fire safety in building design beyond the particulars of local building regulations.

(English / Spanish / German)
Designing gardens, parks and landscapes requires a holistic approach. It also requires extensive specialist knowledge. In courses and manuals the generalist or in-depth levels are frequently under-represented, or the attempted comprehensive view becomes too complex. "Landscape for Architects" now offers a fundamental reference work which is as comprehensive as it is practical and as holistic as it is detailed.

Created in cooperation with the Architecture Department of Braunschweig Technical University, Landscape for Architects addresses the aspects of landscape architecture: "questions" are raised with abstract schematic drawings, and possible "answers" are illustrated with analytical drawings of case studies from the 20^th and 21^st centuries in order to inspire the reader’s own creativity and to support the design process.

The entire field of landscape design is dealt with in individual thematic volumes. The numbers of pages in the volumes differ, adding up to a total of more than 1,000 pages in five volumes, published with clear color marking as the "green block".

Each volume fully covers the respective subject and can be used on its own—compact and user-friendly. The illustrations are uniformly structured, with the guiding idea on the left-hand side and the associated drawing on the right-hand side. The drawings demonstrate how design concepts can be illustrated, and the three-language format provides an international vocabulary of design.

Art and Architecture united

In this low-priced special edition, the book brings together the work of the Los Angeles-based architectural practice Johnston Marklee since its foundation in 1998. The practice is known for its uniform conceptual approach to each project and is internationally recognized for its engagement with contemporary art practices while being deeply rooted in the history and practice of architecture.

The book provides an insight into Johnston Marklee’s design process and cooperation with experts from related fields. It draws its material from seven conversations and seven artists’ interpretations of Johnston Marklee’s buildings and projects. A comprehensive list of work illustrated with small photographs and diagrams concludes this monograph.

• Lower priced, new paperback edition
• Edited and designed by Reto Geiser
• Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee are Artistic Directors of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial

The Floor Plan Manual Housing has for decades been a seminal work in the field of architecture. In its 5^th, revised and expanded edition, approximately 160 international housing projects built after 1945 are documented and analyzed.

The focus is on exemplary and transferrable projects, and on innovative and trendsetting concepts. The systematic representation of all projects allows the reader to compare and evaluate various floor plans – and to be inspired by the wealth of ideas and strategies for one’s own design work.

The introductory theoretical and historical essays have been newly written or updated, and offer a structured overview of the residential housing typology and its development.

• Important contribution to the current discourse on urban theory

• Renowned author from the GSD, Harvard University

Constructing Landscape is a systematic introduction to technical and constructional open space planning, with all the relevant topics, from the most common materials and surfaces to the construction of open space elements and the use of plants. For landscape architects and architects it is an indispensable guide to correct and professional execution planning as well as to preparing solid and well-thought-out requests for proposal.

Constructing Landscape is divided into two sections, Materials and Surfaces and Building Construction and Building Elements. The first section provides an overview of the various building materials of landscape architecture and their specific characteristics. It also explains the qualities of surfaces and the different approaches to treating them. The second section begins with an introductory chapter explaining the principles of statics, the connections of load-bearing elements, and the various approaches to anchoring building compo-nents and supporting structures. The subsequent chapters use drawings and text to present the constructional principles and techniques associated with the various building elements. Each chapter concludes with a collection of sample projects, illustrated with photographs and technical drawings.

• An unrivaled handbook to all aspects of landscape architecture, from materials to construction techniques
• Guideline for professional planning and execution
• Over 1200 illustrations, plans, and detail drawings
• Contains a detailed subject index

With an increasing interest in quality of nutrition and health, urban food production has begun to occur inside the growing cities worldwide and risks to compete with other urban needs.

The book introduces typologies, tools, evaluation methods and strategies, and shows the practical applications of the methods. Multiple projects illustrate solutions that augment quality via the insertion of food production entities into the urban realm.

A new paperback edition of the first collected volume from the Cairo School of Urban Studies

Bringing together a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explores what happens when new forms of privatization meet collectivist pasts, public space is sold off to satisfy investor needs and tourist gazes, and the state plans for Egypt’s future in desert cities while stigmatizing and neglecting Cairo’s popular neighborhoods. These dynamics produce surprising contradictions and juxtapositions that are coming to define today’s Middle East.

The original publication of this volume launched the Cairo School of Urban Studies, committed to fusing political-economy and ethnographic methods and sensitive to ambivalence and contingency, to reveal the new contours and patterns of modern power emerging in the urban frame.

Contributors: Mona Abaza, Nezar AlSayyad, Paul Amar, Walter Armbrust, Vincent Battesti, Fanny Colonna, Eric Denis, Dalila ElKerdany, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Farha Ghannam, Galila El Kadi, Anouk de Koning, Petra Kuppinger, Anna Madoeuf, Catherine Miller, Nicolas Puig, Said Sadek, Omnia El Shakry, Diane Singerman, Elizabeth A. Smith, Leïla Vignal, Caroline Williams.

tbd

Some of the most stunning architectural structures in India are to be found below ground: these are its stepwells, ancient water stores. 

Stepwells are unique to India and from around the 3rd century CE were built throughout the country, particularly in the arid western regions. Excavated several stories underground in order to reach the water table, these cavernous spaces not only provided water all year long but also fulfilled other functions; they offered pilgrims and other travelers a respite from the heat, and became places in which villagers could socialize. Stepwell construction evolved so that, by the 11th century, the wells were amazingly complex feats of architecture and engineering.

The journalist Victoria Lautman first encountered stepwells three decades ago and now, a seasoned traveller to India, she has devoted several years to documenting these fascinating but largely unknown edifices before they disappear. Of the thousands of stepwells that proliferated across India, most were abandoned as a result of modernization and the depletion of water tables. Often commissioned by royal or wealthy patrons, the wells vary greatly in scale, layout, materials and shape. Those in what is now Gujarat state also served as subterranean Hindu temples that featured columned pavilions and elaborate stone carvings of deities. Islamic wells were generally less flamboyant, but incorporated arched side niches. Today, few stepwells are in use. The majority have been left to silt up, fill with rubbish and crumble into disrepair. Gradually, however, the Indian government and heritage organizations have come to recognize the need to preserve these architectural wonders. In 2014 India’s best-known stepwell, the Rani ki Vav in Patan, northern Gujarat, became a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In her introduction, Lautman discusses why and where the stepwells were built. She reflects on the reasons they became derelict and considers how the appreciation of stepwells is changing with the work of organizations and individuals who aim to protect and restore them. The main part of the book is arranged in a broadly chronological order, with up to six pages devoted to each of c. 80 stepwells, every one unique in design and engineering. The name, location (including GPS coordinates) and approximate date of each well accompany color photographs and a concise commentary by Lautman on the history and architecture of the well and her experience of visiting it. While many of the stepwells are rather decrepit, their magnificent engineering and great beauty cannot fail to impress.

Gödel’s incompleteness theorems of 1931 challenged the foundations of mathematics – yet many mathematicians still adhere to rigid, Platonic notions.

This book opens the door to a different perspective: mathematics as a creative, open system. The authors examine key revolutions of the 20th century and show that a flexible ontology reflects mathematical practice more accurately than traditional Platonism.

A compelling contribution for anyone who wants to experience mathematics not as a frozen structure, but as a living, constantly evolving process.

• Shows mathematics as a creative, open system
• Analyzes key mathematical revolutions of the 20th century in a practical way
• Provides a realistic ontology suitable for research, teaching, and study

In Mexico City finden sich zwei Prozent aller weltweit lebenden Tier- und Pflanzenarten. Und die Biodiversität von New York City hat sich seit ihrer Gründung mehr als verdoppelt. In Zeiten von Klimawandel und Artensterben stellt sich immer mehr die Frage, wie wir in der Stadt – einem der unterschätztesten Ökosysteme überhaupt – eine neue Koexistenz aushandeln und Spielregeln für panökologische Partizipationsprozesse definieren können.

Eine vielversprechende Möglichkeit bieten die Rechte der Natur, die Mensch und Umwelt auf eine Ebene stellen. In San José etwa werden Bienen aktiv in die Stadtplanung miteinbezogen, die Seine wurde kürzlich zur Ehrenbürgerin von Paris ernannt, und in der Bucht von San Francisco haben Wale und Delfine eine Art Vorfahrtsrecht. Dieses Buch ist eine Aufforderung, unsere nicht-menschlichen Nachbarn neu zu verstehen.

Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt braucht Vertrauen, Gemeinsinn und manifeste Orte. Der BOB CAMPUS in Wuppertal ist ein solcher Ort, ein soziales Gebilde und ein Lernraum, von vielen Menschen gemeinsam erschaffen und gestaltet. Dieses Buch erzählt davon – persönlich, ehrlich und inspirierend. Nach dem ersten Band der Reihe Gemeinwohl bauen, der die baulich-räumliche Transformation der ehemaligen Textilfabrik beleuchtet, geht der zweite Band auf das gesellschaftsverändernde Potenzial der partizipativen und kooperativen Prozesse in der Entstehung und Aneignung des Ortes ein. Rund 30 Personen – aus der Nachbarschaft, dem Ehrenamt, von Non-Profit- und Migrant*innenselbstorganisationen, von der Montag Stiftung Urbane Räume sowie aus der Stadtverwaltung – beschreiben ihre persönlichen Perspektiven auf das Projekt, ergänzt von fachlichen Einschätzungen aus der Stadtplanung sowie den Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaften. Die Erzählungen veranschaulichen, welche Zutaten es braucht, um die Magie des Gemeinsinns im Stadtteil zu entfachen – und stetig weiterzuentwickeln.

• Good-Practice-Beispiel für eine gemeinwohlorientierte und partizipative Transformation nach dem Initialkapital-Prinzip
• Fokus auf soziale Prozesse, Herangehensweise und Erkenntnisse
• Mit Porträtfotografien von Caroline Schreer und persönlichen Texten von rund 30 Projektbeteiligten aus Wuppertal und dem Stadtteil Oberbarmen
• Hintergründe zum BOB CAMPUS, dem mehrfach ausgezeichneten Quartiersentwicklungsprojekt (u. a. Deutscher Städtebaupreis 2025)

Based in Nancy in eastern France, studiolada is an architectural collective founded on values such as commitment to the common good, responsible use of resources, service to the public sector, collaborative dialogue, short supply chains, and circularity. These principles shape a collective practice deeply rooted in its local territory, drawing on its resources and dynamics.
Conceived and edited by architect and lecturer Mathias Rollot, Radically Local reflects on the collective’s philosophy while showcasing the wide range of work they have realized over time. It features an illustrated selection of thirty key projects, includes four exclusive interviews with studiolada members, and ten open contributions from external professionals and scholars, providing a rich diversity of perspectives on their practice and the ideas that inform it.

With contributions by Frederic Bonnet, Salima Naji, Dominique Gauzin-Müller, Tiphaine Abenia, Anne-Sophie Gouyen, Felix Torkar, Gilles Marseille, Hakima El Kaddioui, Ivan Mazel, and Julien Pierre Normand

• First comprehensive publication on the award-winning French architecture collective studiolada
• A “coffee table book” as much as a scholarly volume, with academic contributions for students and teachers
• Unprecedented presentations of projects and exclusive interviews with the architects on pressing issues such as gender and ecology

Based in Nancy in eastern France, studiolada is an architectural collective founded on values such as commitment to the common good, responsible use of resources, service to the public sector, collaborative dialogue, short supply chains, and circularity. These principles shape a collective practice deeply rooted in its local territory, drawing on its resources and dynamics.
Conceived and edited by architect and lecturer Mathias Rollot, Radically Local reflects on the collective’s philosophy while showcasing the wide range of work they have realized over time. It features an illustrated selection of thirty key projects, includes four exclusive interviews with studiolada members, and ten open contributions from external professionals and scholars, providing a rich diversity of perspectives on their practice and the ideas that inform it.

With contributions by Frederic Bonnet, Salima Naji, Dominique Gauzin-Müller, Tiphaine Abenia, Anne-Sophie Gouyen, Felix Torkar, Gilles Marseille, Hakima El Kaddioui, Ivan Mazel, and Julien Pierre Normand

• First comprehensive publication on the award-winning French architecture collective studiolada
• A “coffee table book” as much as a scholarly volume, with academic contributions for students and teachers
• Unprecedented presentations of projects and exclusive interviews with the architects on pressing issues such as gender and ecology

Eight studies by the winners of the Weinberg Fellowship in architectural history and preservation on issues in the field of architectural heritage. This book draws attention to new methods of preservation, conservation, and reconstruction in these times of danger and risk. It also offers fresh interpretations of little-known buildings and problems.

The Weinberg Fellowships are designed to support the understanding and conservation of architecture of all geographic areas and periods; in this volume, the Fellows deal with buildings not only in Italy, but also in Algeria, Croatia, Iraq, Turkey, and the U.S. Readers will also find important new assessments of environmental circumstances and constraints ranging from slums to the effects of earthquakes and the promise of national parks.

The Sidney J. Weinberg Jr. Foundation is an independent foundation in New York that supports health, science, the arts, and educational institutions. The Weinberg Fellowships and this book have been developed in conjunction with the International Observatory for Cultural Heritage at the Italian Academy, which sponsors and encourages research on monuments, artifacts, and traditions.

CONTRIBUTORS: Sahar Al-Qaisi, Koya University, Pınar Aykaç, Middle East Technical University, Ankara
Sheila Crane, University of Virginia, Gianmarco de Felice, Roma Tre University, Denise La Monica, Independent Scholar, Francesco Marcorin, Palladio Museum, Vicenza, Cristina Ruggero, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Alen Žunić, University of Zagreb

This volume spans continents and centuries, exploring diverse topics through interdisciplinary research approaches. These compelling studies of pivotal cases in architectural history illuminate the multifaceted challenges facing the field today. The essays highlight both the invaluable nature of our global architectural heritage and the urgent threats it confronts, while proposing innovative approaches to preservation, conservation, reconstruction, and use. The contributors, listed below, are recipients of the prestigious Weinberg Fellowship in Architectural History and Preservation at Columbia’s Italian Academy—a fellowship dedicated to advancing the understanding and conservation of architecture across all geographic regions and historical periods. The Weinberg Fellowships and this book have been developed in conjunction with the International Observatory for Cultural Heritage at the Italian Academy, which sponsors and encourages research on monuments, artifacts, and traditions.

Contributors: Venus Suleiman Akef, University of Technology, Iraq, Francesco Benelli, University of Bologna, Mirjam S. Brusius, German Historical Institute London, Sara Bova, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Alessandra Buccheri, Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo, Matilde Cassani, Free University of Bozen–Bolzano, Gabriele Neri, Polytechnic University of Turin, and Alice Pozzati, Polytechnic University of Turin