Soft Architecture

The Secret Of The Shadow

Light and Shadow in Architecture

Published by Wasmuth.
Edited by Ingeborg Flagge, Peter Cachola Schmal, Hélène Binet, Ulrike Brandi, Raoul Bunschoten and Christoph Geissmar-Brandi. Essays by Tadao Ando, Sverre Fehn, Gerhard Wolf and Annina Goetz.

Light and shadow belong together. Yet the increasing number of artificial light sources on earth are resulting in continuously decreasing zones of shadow and darkness. In architecture, the growing use of glass and other translucent layers questions the very significance of shadows. Do they protect against or cause a loss of brightness? Do we even need shadows today at all? The Secret of the Shadow explores these "holes in the light" through perceptual psychology, historical accounts of their use in architectural teaching, and an overview of their role in classical modern architecture. Additionally, 50 "shadow seekers" from around the world, including Pritzker Prize-winning architects Tadao Ando and Sverre Fehn, contributed a work of their own that reveals the importance of shadows in contemporary architectural concepts.

PUBLISHER
Wasmuth

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover 8.5 x 11 in. / 160 pgs / 90 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/2/2002
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2002

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783803006226 FLAT40
List Price: $45.00 CDN $55.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Light Construction

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Edited by Terence Riley.

Transparency and luminescence have reemerged in the vocabulary of architecture, and light and “lightness” have become key concepts for a significant number of contemporary architects, as well as artists who create installations. Recent work by these designers recalls the use of transparent materials in early modern structures, but they have introduced new ideas and technical solutions. In doing so, they have redefined the relationship between the observer and the structure by interposing elements that both veil and illuminate. In this architecture of lightness, buildings become intangible, structures shed their weight and facades become unstable, dissolving into an often luminous evanescence.

The 33 projects illustrated in this book exemplify this emerging sensibility, which is examined in a penetrating essay by Terence Riley, chief curator of the department of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art, that places the new work in a broad historic and cultural perspective. More than 30 architects are represented in this international selection, and it includes a broad range of building types, scales and technologies, from the small Leisure Studio created by a group of young Finnish architects to Renzo Piano's enormous Kansai International Airport in Japan. Also shown are the Goetz Collection in Munich by Herzog & de Meuron, the Fondation Cartier in Paris by Jean Nouvel, the ITM Building in Matsuyama, Japan, by Toyo Ito, and a set design by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Each project includes a description by Terence Riley or Anne Dixon.

PUBLISHER
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.5 x 9.5 in. / 164 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/2/2004
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2003

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780870701290 TRADE
List Price: $24.95 CDN $33.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Petra Blaisse: Inside Outside Reveiling

Published by NAi Publishers.
Text by Cecil Balmond, Gaston Bekkers, Sylvia Lavin, Hélène Lemoîne, Tim Ronalds, Renz van Luxemburg, Kayoko Ota. Contributions by Chris Dercon, Petra Blaisse.

This first extensive survey of the work of Petra Blaisse, the internationally known Dutch garden and interior designer, comes at the right time. Blaisse, who has been collaborating with Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture and other major architectural concerns for many years, just finished her largest and best-known project in the U.S., the much-lauded Seattle Public Library's gardens and interior. A "library" of local plant life surrounds the building, and a tiled carpet designed after a garden leads patrons in. Blaisse is passionate about uniting interior and exterior space. She sees them as continuous, and says of her unusual synergy of design roles, that "They are totally different professions, yet they are completely connected: open the window and the garden comes in, the curtain comes out." Her work, situated in the margin between design and architecture, indicates new directions and possibilities for each field. A conversation between Blaisse and curator Kayoko Ota runs throughout Inside Outside, while the balance of the book documents 20 projects ranging from contained interior interventions to larger landscape designs, each described in photography, sketches and drawings.

PUBLISHER
NAi Publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 7.5 x 11.25 in. / 320 pgs / 250 color reproductions.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/1/2007
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2007 p. 43   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789056624538 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CDN $65.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Memory and Transformation

International Triennial Apeldoorn: 100 Days of Culture, Gardens and Landscape

Published by nai010 publishers.
Edited by Bert van Meggelen, Olof Koekebakker.

In the summer of 2008, Apeldoorn, the Netherlands' garden city, hosts the inaugural International Garden and Landscape Architecture Triennial--which takes on key issues at the heart of landscape and garden architecture and aims to define and refine the relationship between nature, culture and landscape. Contemporary landscape architecture is called on to create and implement pleasing and ecologically sustainable solutions in situations where different--and often competing--functions exist on the same tract of land. There are a great many people--local residents, ecological and cultural heritage conservationists and academics--for whom these questions are of great concern. Even for the average urban dweller or suburban homeowner, public and private gardens provide society, respite, leisure and an increasingly rare connection with the land. Not just a catalogue overview of the triennial's program, this thoughtful volume includes essays by leading scholars as well as interviews with policy makers and designers.

PUBLISHER
nai010 publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9.5 x 11.5 in. / 176 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 9/1/2008
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2008 p. 111   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789056620158 FLAT40
List Price: $55.00 CDN $72.50

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, 2nd Revised Edition

A Project by Fritz Haeg

Published by Metropolis Books.
Preface by Fritz Haeg. Text by Will Allen, Diana Balmori, Rosalind Creasy, Fritz Haeg, Michael Pollan, Eric W. Sanderson, Lesley Stern, et al.

Since the first edition of Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn was published in 2008, interest in edible gardening has exploded across the United States and abroad. Even First Lady Michelle Obama is doing it! This greatly expanded second edition of the book documents the eight Edible Estates regional prototype gardens that author Fritz Haeg has planted in California, Kansas, Texas, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and England, and includes personal accounts from the homeowner-gardeners about the pleasures and challenges of publicly growing food where they live. Ten “Reports from Coast to Coast” tell the stories of others who have planted their own edible front yards in towns and cities across the country. In addition to essays by renowned landscape architect and scholar Diana Balmori, edible-landscaping pioneer Rosalind Creasy, bestselling author and sustainable-food advocate Michael Pollan and artist and writer Lesley Stern, this edition features updated text by Haeg (including his observations on the Obama White House vegetable garden); a contribution from Mannahatta author Eric W. Sanderson; and Growing Power founder, MacArthur Fellow and urban farmer Will Allen's never-before-published Declaration of the Good Food Revolution. This is not a comprehensive how-to book, nor a showcase of impossibly perfect gardens. The stories presented here are intended to reveal something about how we are living today and to inspire readers to plant their own versions of an Edible Estate. If we see that our neighbor's typical grassy lawn instead can be a beautiful food garden, perhaps we will begin to look at the city around us with new eyes. Our private land can be a public model for the world in which we would like to live.

PUBLISHER
Metropolis Books

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.5 x 8.5 in. / 176 pgs / 86 color / 85 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2010
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 170   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781935202127 TRADE
List Price: $24.95 CDN $27.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

The Pavilion

Pleasure & Polemics in Architecture

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Edited by Peter Cachola Schmal, Ben van Berkel. Text by Barry Bergdoll, Johan Bettum, Kerstin Bußmann.

The Pavilion examines both the history and the contemporary state of pavilion architecture, something of a niche genre in the field, but with a long history of masterpieces. It consists of two parts: first, the examination of a group of twentieth-century pavilions, and second, a collection of essays that survey historical and more recent examples. This outstanding analysis was produced by students of architecture at Frankfurt's Städelschule. In the theoretical section, well-known authors discuss the materials used in pavilions, starting with influences from the Orient, India and Asia, and moving on to significant twentieth-century pavilions and recent temporary buildings that seem to occupy a space between art and architecture. In addition, the book documents the research and development of a summer pavilion for the garden at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt produced by the offices of Barkow Leibinger and Werner Sobek.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 192 pgs / 137 color / 80 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 1/31/2010
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 108   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775724944 TRADE
List Price: $40.00 CDN $50.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

On the Water: Palisade Bay

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
By Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt, Adam Yarinsky.

On the Water: Palisade Bay is the collaborative initiative of a group of engineers, architects, landscape architects, planners and students to imagine a "soft infrastructure" for the New York/New Jersey Upper Bay by developing interconnected infrastructures and landscapes which rethink the thresholds of water, land andcity. The proposal is sited on the water, along the coastal edge and within the local communities. It presents a new coastal planning strategy which not only mitigates potential damage from storms but also provides new ground forrecreation, ecologies, agriculture and urban development.With climate change and sea level rise acting as catalysts for this work, a quantitative analysis of dynamic systems serves as the foundation for this new soft infrastructure whichboth enriches the ecology of the urban estuary and creates a vibrant culture on the water. Research from this project is the inspiration for the exhibition Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront, opening at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in March 2010.

PUBLISHER
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8.75 x 8.75 in. / 320 pgs / 434 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2010
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 170   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780870707858 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CDN $60.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Vito Acconci: Building An Island

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Edited by Robert Punkenhofer. Essays by Oliver Elser and Robert Punkenhofer. Interview by Heike Faller.

It seems as if a UFO has landed in the middle of Graz: an organic form, evoking a half shell or a snail's shell, is floating on the Mur river as an artificial island, connected by piers to both river banks. The steel construction was designed by the architect-artist Vito Acconci, based on a concept by Robert Punkenhofer, a native of Graz, and realized within the scope of "Graz 2003: Cultural Capital of Europe." Acconci Island, consisting of various interlocking surfaces with flowing transitions, houses an amphitheatre, a cafª, and a playground. Large parts of its outer stainless-steel skin reflect the city; acrylic fiber, glass, steel grids, and peepholes provide a view onto the water and the banks, while the transparent materials make the building look weightless. The result is a breathtaking, technically sophisticated avant-garde piece of architecture that refuses categorization. This publication documents the different stages of design, and places sketches and computer simulations next to remarkable photographs of models as well as shots of the finished island. An interview with Vito Acconci and a presentation of the diverse work of the Acconci Studio round off the book.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8.5 x 11 in. / 120 pgs / 40 color / 54 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/2/2004
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2004

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775713573 TRADE
List Price: $24.95 CDN $27.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available