Both a practical guide and a great source of inspiration, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes presents the interiors, furniture, and locations you need to know about along with portraits of the people who can make it happen. The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes celebrates the durable and the meaningful through a collection of homes that tell a story. Most architecture and interior books show houses polished to perfection, manicured to the extent that it is hard to imagine anybody acually lives there: they seem to miss the point that homes are meant to be inhabited. They should be able to take the scuffs and knocks and to be part of a community, whether in a Chicago skyscraper or on Australia's sunshine coast. So where are the best places to make a home? What are the villages, coastlines, mountains, towns, and cities that would make you want to settle down? The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes answers those questions with a global photographic survey of a wide variety of homes. Whether the focus is on a remote residence in the Swedish archipelago or a lush abode in Rio de Janeiro, or on the difference between residing in Tokyo and Toronto, this book is the perfect balance between the inspirational and the practical. The book is a survey of everything you need to know to build the residence of your dreams, providing insight into the best neighborhoods, architects, and makers all over the world. From design-store owners to green-roof gardeners, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes introduces you to interesting people with ideas that are built to last. Monocle's signature illustrations punctuate the book's rich and detailed content. Through striking photography, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes also gives you a glimpse into the lives that unfold in these apartments, villas, and cottages, showing that these homes are alive and that this is precisely what makes them special. This is a book that should be referred to again and again--it is a book about the quality of life.

    In this sequel to the best-selling Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind-the-Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real, the Imagineers serve up another dose of magic with an even closer look at who they are, what they do, and how they do it, illuminating their theories and explaining the tools they use, and where and how they use them. Contained within this deluxe tome are rough drawings, conceptual models, and behind-the-scenes stories showcasing Disney's newest attractions and innovations from the inside out. There's also an exclusive peek inside the Research and Development Lab to see what new magic will soon be appearing.The Imagineers tell their own stories, as well as how they got there, what they do on a daily basis, what they show their friends in the parks, and how you can learn what it takes to become an Imagineer.Presented in a large, lavish format, this book is sure to be a must-have for every Disney collector.

    Drawing on her ten years of experience in the interior design industry, Erin combines honest design advice and gorgeous professional photographs and illustrations with personal essays about the lessons she has learned while designing her own home and her own life—the first being: none of our homes or lives is perfect. Like a funny best friend, she reveals the disasters she confronted in her own kitchen renovation, her struggles with anorexia, her epic fight with her husband over a Lucite table, and her secrets for starting a successful blog.Organized by rooms in the house, Elements of Style invites readers into Erin’s own home as well as homes she has designed for clients. Fresh, modern, and colorful, it is brimming glamour and style as well as advice on practical matters from choosing kitchen counter materials to dressing a bed with pillows, picking a sofa, and decorating a nursery without cartoon characters. You’ll also find a charming foreword by Erin’s husband, Andrew, and an extensive Resource and Shopping Guide that provides an indispensable a roadmap for anyone embarking on their first serious home decorating adventure. With Erin’s help, you can finally make your house your home.

    Creative Photography Lab for Mixed-Media Artists is a collection of fun and silly photography exercises  designed to teach you something about your camera (and yourself!). Whether you’re rockin’ a digital SLR, a point and shoot, or even a phone camera, this book will: - Provide easy exercises to help you discover your own personal style.- Tackle the technical stuff.- Explore a new way of seeing.- Turn your camera into a powerful tool of self-expression.- Help you capture amazing shots for your blog, social media, photo albums, your wall at home, or just for yourself.You don’t have to be a professional photographer or own expensive cameras and equipment to get inspiring shots. If you’ve ever taken a picture, this book is for you. Warning: once you get started, you’ll never want to stop.

    Halo: The Essential Visual Guide delves even deeper into the phenomenon that is Halo. Covering material from Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, and the latest game, Halo: ODST, the book provides amazing images and insightful information making you feel as if you yourself are part of the game! (c)2011 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

    Now, he drills down into specific challenges of making sketches on location, rain or shine, quickly or slowly, and the most suitable techniques for every situation, in The Urban Sketching Handbook series.It's easy to overlook that ample variety of characters that walk the streets everyday. From neighbors, dog walkers and shoppers to dancers and joggers, the people that move through the cities and towns are fascinating subjects to study and sketch. In The Urban Sketching Handbook: People and Motion Gabriel lays out keys to help make the experience of drawing humans and movements fun and rewarding. Using composition, depth, scale, contrast, line and creativity, sketching out citizens and the way they move has never been more inspirational and entertaining. This guide will help you to develop your own creative approach, no matter what your skill level may be today. As much as The Urban Sketching Handbook: People and Motion may inspire you to draw more individuals, it can also help to increase your appreciation of the folks around you. Drawing our postal workers, shopkeeps and neighbors, is a great way to show your appreciation and creativity.

    CREATING ART. is written for people who are living in the intersection of the Christian faith, and the creation of art. By their nature, artists look at a life of faith differently, and that unique journey warrants an exploration of what it means to be a Christ-follower and an artist. The book intentionally veers away from tips and techniques and formulas, while concentrating on the journey, the mystery, and the heart.

    This book traces that history from prehistoric times to the present, focusing particularly on culture, society, politics, and personalities. Written in an engaging style, it introduces readers to the key themes that have shaped Spain's history and culture. These include its varied landscapes and climates; the impact of waves of diverse human migrations; the importance of its location as a bridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and Europe and Africa; and religion, particularly militant Catholic Christianity and its centuries of conflict with Islam and Protestantism, as well as debates over the place of the Church in modern Spain. Illustrations, maps, and a guide to further reading, major cultural figures, and places to see, make the history of this fascinating country come alive.

    But seething below this surface is a long and shadowy history of corruption, cruelty, and the generally bizarre. For centuries it has been overrun by waves of invaders, all contributing their own questionable bits of culture, and all wantonly adding to the confusion. So, how is a poor visitor supposed to make sense of this anarchic place? Co-creator of the cult favorite Paris Out of Hand, Barbara Hodgson has neatly brushed away the chaos and assembled an eclectic treasury of forgotten and overlooked oddities: long-lost popes, bloodthirsty mercenaries, tempestuous artists, and inexplicable follies. Italy Out of Hand is not a traditional guidebook, with hotel addresses and hours of operation. Rather, it is an idiosyncratic tour of a country that is too overwhelming and extravagant for most of us to comprehend without a little guidance. Illustrated with an equally eclectic selection of photographs, portraits, and art, Italy Out of Hand is the perfect companion for those who like their truths to be stranger than fiction.

    Aalto turned to ideas based on Functionalism, subsequently moving toward more organic structures, with brick and wood replacing plaster and steel. He also designed buildings, furniture, lamps, and glass objects. Contains approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans Introductory essays explore the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects The body presents the most important works in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes, construction problems and resolutions The appendix includes a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings

    The most common type is often where a large group of like-minded punks cram into a house usually intended to accommodate two or three people, resulting in low rent and, thus, extended hours of leisure for the residents to pursue their true interests. "Punk House" features anarchist warehouses, feminist collectives, tree houses, workshops, artists studios, self-sufficient farms, hobo squats, community centers, basement bike shops, speakeasies, and all varieties of communal living spaces. In over 300 images of fifty houses in twenty-five cities in the US, photographer Abby Banks finds the already weathered face of a seventeen-year-old runaway; the soft hands of a vinyl junkie (record collector); the mohawked show-goer; the dirty dishes in the sink; silk screened posters on the wall; and many other revealing glimpses of these anarchist interiors.

    A work of creative nonfiction, the book roams through space, time and possibility, mapping cities of sound, melancholia and the afterlife, where time runs backwards or which float among the clouds. In doing so, Imaginary Cities seeks to move beyond the clichés of psychogeography and hauntology, to not simply revisit the urban past, or our relationship with it, but to invade and reinvent it. Following in the lineage of Borges, Calvino, Chris Marker and Kenneth White, the book examines the city from global macrocosm to the microcosm of its inhabitants’ perspectives. It proceeds through opium dreams, sea voyages, the hallucinations of prisoners, nocturnal decadence, impossible Soviet skyscrapers, marauding golems, subterranean civilisations, apocalyptic prophecies and the work of architectural visionaries such as Antonio Sant’Elia, Archigram and Buckminster Fuller. It rethinks the ideas of utopias and dystopias, urban exploration, alienation and resistance. It claims that the Situationists lacked ambition when they suggested, “Beneath the paving stones, the beach.” Instead, beneath the paving stones, we may just be able to discern the entire universe. Imaginary Cities demonstrates that each city dreamt up by artists, writers, architects and lunatics has a real-life equivalent and that the great Marco Polo was no liar. Imaginary Cities need not simply exist in fiction or the mind. We already inhabit them.

    Not a master mason or carpenter, Filippo Brunelleschi was a goldsmith and clock maker. Over twenty-eight years, he would dedicate himself to solving puzzles of the dome's construction. In the process, he did nothing less than reinvent the field of architecture. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone (some among the most renowned machines of the Renaissance) to carry an estimated seventy million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction. This drama was played out amid plagues, wars, political feuds, and the intellectual ferments of Renaissance Florence - events Ross King weaves into a story to great effect. An American Library Association Best Book of the Year Boston Globe: "An absorbing tale." Los Angeles Times: "Ross King has a knack for explaining complicated processes in a manner that is not only lucid but downright intriguing... Fascinating."

    Since founding his Toronto-based studio in 1985, Mau has become one of the world's most sought-after designers. He became an international figure following the publication of the groundbreaking and award-winning volume S,M,L,XL, which he designed and co-authored with Dutch architect and recent winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Rem Koolhaas.Written by Mau and conceived and designed by BMD, Life Style is a collection of playful and critical statements about the visual and cultural trends that influence today's image-driven environment. The book showcases the methodology, philosophy, world view and projects of BMD.With over 1,000 images and available in a variety of luminous satin covers, each reader can choose his/her colour to match his/her life style.

    It is with a mixture of grief and joy that Hirsch examines what he calls the minor triumphs, the major failures of his life so far, in lines that reveal a startling frankness in the man composing them, a fearlessness in confronting his own internal divisions: I lived between my heart and my head, / like a married couple who can't get along, he writes in Self-portrait. These poems constitute a profound, sometimes painful self-examination, by the end of which the poet marvels at the sense of expectancy and transformation he feels. His fifteen-year-old son walking on Broadway is a fledgling about to sail out over the treetops; he has a new love, passionately described in I Wish I Could Paint You; he is ready to live, he tells us, solitary, bittersweet, and utterly free. More personal than any of his previous collections, Special Orders is Edward Hirsch's most significant book to date. The highway signs pointed to our happiness; the greasy spoons and gleaming truck stops were the stations of our pilgrimage. Wasn't that us staggering past the riverboats, eating homemade fudge at the county fair and devouring each other's body? They come back to me now, delicious love, the times my sad heart knew a little sweetness. from The Sweetness