A former UN worker and prominent architect, Johan van Lengenhas seen firsthand the desperate need for a "greener" approach tohousing in impoverished tropical climates. This comprehensive bookclearly explains every aspect of this endeavor,including design (siting, orientation, climate consideration),materials (sisal, cactus, bamboo, earth), and implementation. Theauthor emphasizes throughout the book what is inexpensive andsustainable. Included are sections discussing urban planning,small-scale energy production, cleaning and storing drinking water,and dealing with septic waste, and all information is applied tothree distinct tropical regions: humid areas, temporate areas, anddesert climates. Hundreds of explanatory drawings by van Lengenallow even novice builders to get started.

Today it is no longer a matter of taste as to how and whichcoffee we drink, as it is even more important where we enjoy it. Amultitude of new cafés, coffee shops and coffee houses around theworld honor a centuries old tradition, setting thereby new designtrends. The task is to create communicative and inspiring locationsand spaces, which at the same time measure up to the functionaldemands. The design solutions are as varied as the concepts, thetransitions to lounge, club or restaurant are flowing. After aninformative introduction, Coffee Time presents current projectsthat show the exciting conceptual and stylistic breadth of cafédesigns today.

In this highly acclaimed reference work David Watkin tracesthe history of western architecture from the earliest times inMesopotamia and Egypt to the eclectic styles of the twenty-firstcentury. The author emphasizes the ongoing vitality of theClassical language of architecture, underlining the continuitybetween, say, the work of Ictinus in fifth-century BC Athens andthat of McKim, Mead and White in twentieth-century New York.Authoritative, comprehensive and highly illustrated, this fifthedition has been expanded to bring the story of westernarchitecture right up to date and includes a separate final chapteron twenty-first century developments, including computers andarchitecture, and sustainability and the environment.

This practical foundation course in architectural design offers key advice on the principles, practice and techniques of the subject. Dealing with much more than just the technical aspects of drawing, it introduces the reader to the visual language of architecture, encouraging them to think spatially and question the built environment. All architecture students, and anyone interested in the creative side of architecture, will find this book an invaluable tool and reference.

This publication presents a fresh look into the privatedwellings of the most exciting creative talents in Parisindividuals from the music, fashion, design, film and art worlds.The 27 properties photographed exclusively for the book are looselyarranged by their location across the city's grooviest, on-the-edgearrondissements from the elevated bohemianism of the Left Bank tothe trendy Marais and the edgier Belleville and 13th and reflectthe cosmopolitan melting pot that influences Paris' design trends.Aimed at an urban audience who dream of revamping their city crashpads, or who want to inject glamour into their personal spaces,"New Paris Style" is packed with creative and inspiring ideas, forwherever you live.

In the era of e-books and online shops, when the classic book trade has come under increasing pressure, the success of a bookshop is by no means a foregone conclusion. Booksellers confront these new challenges with very different economic strategies and conceptual measures. Spatial concepts, furnishings and design are indispensable ingredients of a successful sales strategy for newer as well as more tradition-steeped bookstores. People like to linger and buy where they feel comfortable. This volume is dedicated to the most beautiful bookstores in the world. The old and the new, classical and innovative, giant stores and paradises in miniature for bibliophiles: What they all have in common is that they create a desire for books and prove that the bookshop as institution will always fulfil a need and without a doubt enjoys a future.

Naked Architecture Valerio Paolo Mosco An account of one of the most interesting phenomena of contemporary architecture: the return to the structure and methods with which contemporary constructions are realized. Over the last ten years architecture would seem to have rediscovered engineering. Now that the Postmodern period, in which the structure of buildings was camouflaged by coverings of every kind, has passed, architecture today seems to have undressed, almost as though wishing to show how it is made (and to render this spectacular). On the other hand, the rediscovery in recent years of plastic form has brought about a closer relationship between architects and engineers. In the wake of the phenomenon that is the work of Santiago Calatrava, figures of engineer-architects have emerged such as Cecil Balmond, Sasaki and Guy Nordenson, who have been able to give a strongly "engineering-oriented" guise to ever more complex building sites. To this we must add the rise of new issues, such as that of envi