Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency


Andrea Oppenheimer Dean - 2002
    Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."In a time of unexampled prosperity, when architectural attention focuses on big, glossy urban projects, the Rural Studio provides an alternative of substance. In addition to being a social welfare venture, the Rural Studio--"Taliesin South" as Mockbee calls it--is also an educational experiment and a prod to the architectural profession to act on its best instincts. In giving students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, it extends their education beyond paper architecture. And in scavenging and reusing a variety of unusual materials, it is a model of sustainable architecture. The work of Rural Studio has struck such a chord-both architecturally and socially--that it has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, and CBS News, as well as in Time and People magazines.The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject."I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble"--Samuel Mockbee

A Primer of Visual Literacy


Donis A. Dondis - 1973
    The subject is presented, not as a foreign language, but as a native one that the student knows but cannot yet read.Responding to the need she so clearly perceives, Ms. Dondis, a designer and teacher of broad experience, has provided a beginning text for art and design students and a basic text for all other students; those who do not intend to become artists or designers but who need to acquire the essential skills of understanding visual communication at a time when so much information is being studied and transmitted in non-verbal modes, especially through photography and film. Understanding through seeing only seems to be an obviously intuitive process. Actually, developing the visual sense is something like learning a language, with its own special alphabet, lexicon, and syntax. People find it necessary to be verbally literate whether they are writers: or not; they should find it equally necessary to be visually literate, artists or not. This primer is designed to teach students the interconnected arts of visual communication. The subject is presented, not as a foreign language, but as a native one that the student knows but cannot yet read. The analogy provides a useful teaching method, in part because it is not overworked or too rigorously applied. This method of learning to see and read visual data has already been proved in practice, in settings ranging from Harlem to suburbia. Appropriately, the book makes some of its most telling points through visual means. Numerous illustrated examples are employed to clarify the basic elements of design (teach an alphabet), to show how they are used in simple syntactic combinations (See Jane run.), and finally, to present the meaningful synthesis of visual information that is a finished work of art (the apprehension of poetry...).

Living with Complexity


Donald A. Norman - 2010
    In this provocative and informative book, Don Norman writes that the complexity of our technology must mirror the complexity and richness of our lives. It's not complexity that's the problem, it's bad design. Bad design complicates things unnecessarily and confuses us. Good design can tame complexity.Norman gives us a crash course in the virtues of complexity. Designers have to produce things that tame complexity. But we too have to do our part: we have to take the time to learn the structure and practice the skills. This is how we mastered reading and writing, driving a car, and playing sports, and this is how we can master our complex tools.Complexity is good. Simplicity is misleading. The good life is complex, rich, and rewarding—but only if it is understandable, sensible, and meaningful.

Thoughts on Design


Paul Rand - 1947
    Writing at the height of his career, Rand articulated in his slender volume the pioneering vision that all design should seamlessly integrate form and function. This facsimile edition preserves Rand's original 1947 essay with the adjustments he made to its text and imagery for a revised printing in 1970, and adds only an informative and inspiring new foreword by design luminary Michael Bierut. As relevant today as it was when first published, this classic treatise is an indispensable addition to the library of every designer.

Bungalow Style


Treena Crochet - 2005
    This title shows a wide variety of interior details and describes how to add or restore elements that suggest a historic flair while keeping the home comfortable and functional.

Art Nouveau


Klaus-Jürgen Sembach - 1994
    Here the reform movement of the turn of the century is not only dealt with as an artistic event, but those economic and political interests which inspired, supported, and handicapped it are also taken into account. In the chapters "Movement," "Unrest", and "Equilibrium," the historical phenomenon as a whole is characterised and is also presented with its own distinct local features. The centres of Brussels, Nancy, Barcelona, Glasgow, Helsinki and Chicago are dealt with in subchapters as are Munich, Darmstadt and Weimar. Finally, Vienna, that city in which the synthesis achieved its culmination, is described separately. The outstanding artists are examined in detail in connection with the respective cities of their greatest activity. The result is a complex picture of the symbiosis of architecture, furniture design, and craftsmanship with their corresponding approaches to artistic revitalization.

Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces


Bruce Willen - 2009
    These fundamentals of design, once the exclusive domain of professional typographers, have become an essential starting point for anyone looking for a fresh way to communicate. Practical information about creating letters and type often amounts to a series of guidelines for executing a particular process, font program, or style. But what makes lettering and type endlessly fascinating is the flexibility to interpret and sometimes even break these rules. Lettering & Type is a smart-but- not-dense guide to creating and bending letters to one's will. More than just another pretty survey, it is a powerful how-to book full of relevant theory, history, explanatory diagrams, and exercises. While other type design books get hung up on the technical and technological issues of type design and lettering, Lettering & Type features the context and creativity that shape letters and make them interesting. Authors and designers Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals examine classic design examples as well as exciting contemporary lettering of all stripes—from editorial illustrations to concert posters to radical conceptual alphabets. Lettering & Type is ideal for anyone looking to move beyond existing typography and fonts to create, explore, and use original or customized letterforms. This latest addition to our best-selling Design Briefs seriesfeatures a foreword by Ellen Lupton and hundreds of images and examples of work by historical and contemporary designers, artists, and illustrators, including Marian Bantjes, Stefan Sagmeister, Matthew Carter, Christoph Niemann, Steve Powers (ESPO), House Industries, Christian Schwartz, Margaret Kilgallen, James Victore, Abbott Miller, Sibylle Hagmann, Ed Fella, and many more. Throughout the book interviews with type designers, artists, and graphic designers provide real-world perspective from contemporary practitioners.

The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty


Soetsu Yanagi - 1972
    What is the value of things made by an anonymous craftsman working in a set tradition for a lifetime? What is the value of handwork? Why should even the roughly lacquered rice bowl of a Japanese farmer be thought beautiful? The late Soetsu Yanagi was the first to fully explore the traditional Japanese appreciation for objects born, not made.Mr. Yanagi sees folk art as a manifestation of the essential world from which art, philosophy, and religion arise and in which the barriers between them disappear. The implications of the author's ideas are both far-reaching and practical.Soetsu Yanagi is often mentioned in books on Japanese art, but this is the first translation in any Western language of a selection of his major writings. The late Bernard Leach, renowned British potter and friend of Mr. Yanagi for fifty years, has clearly transmitted the insights of one of Japan's most important thinkers. The seventy-six plates illustrate objects that underscore the universality of his concepts. The author's profound view of the creative process and his plea for a new artistic freedom within tradition are especially timely now when the importance of craft and the handmade object is being rediscovered.

How to Architect


Doug Patt - 2012
    Changing the function of a word, or a room, can produce surprise and meaning. In How to Architect, Patt--an architect and the creator of a series of wildly popular online videos about architecture--presents the basics of architecture in A-Z form, starting with A is for Asymmetry (as seen in Chartres Cathedral and Frank Gehry), detouring through N is for Narrative, and ending with Z is for Zeal (a quality that successful architects tend to have, even in fiction--see The Fountainhead's architect-hero Howard Roark.)How to Architect is a book to guide you on the road to architecture. If you are just starting on that journey or thinking about becoming an architect, it is a place to begin. If you are already an architect and want to remind yourself of what drew you to the profession, it is a book of affirmation. And if you are just curious about what goes into the design and construction of buildings, this book tells you how architects think. Patt introduces each entry with a hand-drawn letter, and accompanies the text with illustrations that illuminate the concept discussed: a fallen Humpty Dumpty illustrates the perils of fragile egos; photographs of an X-Acto knife and other hand tools remind us of architecture's nondigital origins.How to Architect offers encouragement to aspiring architects but also mounts a defense of architecture as a profession--by calling out a defiant verb: architect!

Color Recipes for Painted Furniture and More: 40 step-by-step projects to transform your home


Annie Sloan - 2013
     Annie Sloan is a paint legend and one of the world’s most popular experts in the field of decorative painting. In Color Recipes for Painted Furniture and more, Annie presents 40 new projects and ideas, showing you the easy way to update tired furniture and transform your home. Working with her own range of chalk paints, Annie shows how to mix colors and how to achieve certain looks. Whether your taste is for colorful boho chic or restrained Swedish hues, cozy and comforting rustic shades, a modern and contemporary approach, or an elegant French look, here you will find a project to suit you. Start off by mastering the simple art of colorwashing, and work your way up to transfer printing, gilding, stenciling, and glazing. There are even instructions for dyeing fabric using paint. As well as painting furniture, the projects range from a staircase painted in a rainbow of colors to stenciled walls, transforming floors with a coat of paint to dyeing linen curtains and even painting a vintage chandelier. Throughout the book, Annie offers expert tips, techniques, shortcuts, and guidance, showing you the easy way to create a stylish home.

Bunker Archaeology


Paul Virilio - 1975
    In 1994 we published the first English-language translation of the classic French edition of 1975, which accompanied an exhibition of Virilio's photographs at the Centre Pompidou. In Bunker Archeology, urbanist Paul Virilio turns his attentionand camerato the ominous yet strangely compelling German bunkers that lie abandoned along the coast of France. These ghostly reminders of destruction and oppression prompted Virilio to consider the nature of war and existence, in relation to both World War II and contemporary times. Virilio discusses fortresses and military space in general as well as the bunkers themselves, including an examination of the role of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, in the rise of the Third Reich.

Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design


Robert Klanten - 2008
    Diagrams, data and information graphics are utilised wherever increasingly complex elements are present, whether it is in magazines, non-fiction books or business reports, packages or exhibition designs. Data Flow presents an abundant range of possibilities in visualising data and information. Today, diagrams are being applied beyond their classical fields of use. In addition to archetypical diagrams such as pie charts and histograms, there are manifold types of diagrams developed for use in distinct cases and categories. These range from chart-like diagrams such as bar, plot, line diagrams and spider charts, graph-based diagrams including line, matrix, process flow, and molecular diagrams to extremely complex three-dimensional diagrams. The more concrete the variables, the more aesthetically elaborate the graphics ???????????????????????? sometimes reaching the point of art ???????????????????????? the more abstract, the simpler the readability. The abundant examples in Data Flow showcase the various methodologies behind information design with solutions concerning complexity, simplification, readability and the (over)production of information. In addition to the examples shown, the book features explanatory text. On 256 pages, Data Flow introduces a comprehensive selection of innovatively designed diagrams. This up-to-date survey provides inspiration and concrete solutions for designers, and at the same time unlocks a new field of visual codes.

The Art of Building Cities: City Building According to Its Artistic Fundamentals


Camillo Sitte - 1889
    Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Camillo Sitte (1843-1903) was a noted Austrian architect, painter and theoretician who exercised great influence on the development of urban planning in Europe and the United States. The publication at Vienna in May 1889 of "Der Stadtebau nach seinen k�nstlerischen Grundsatzen" ("The Art of Building Cities") began a new era in Germanic city planning. Sitte strongly criticized the current emphasis on broad, straight boulevards, public squares arranged primarily for the convenience of traffic, and efforts to strip major public or religious landmarks of adjoining smaller structures regarded as encumbering such monuments of the past. Sitte proposed instead to follow what he believed to be the design objectives of those whose streets and buildings shaped medieval cities. He advocated curving or irregular street alignments to provide ever-changing vistas. He called for T-intersections to reduce the number of possible conflicts among streams of moving traffic. He pointed out the advantages of what came to be know as "turbine squares"--civic spaces served by streets entering in such a way as to resemble a pin-wheel in plan. His teachings became widely accepted in Austria, Germany, and Scandinavia, and in less than a decade his style of urban design came to be accepted as the norm in those countries.

Introduction to Architecture


Francis D.K. Ching - 2012
    K. Ching into a single volume Introduction to Architecture presents the essential texts and drawings of Francis D. K. Ching for those new to architecture and design. With his typical highly graphic approach, this is the first introductory text from Ching that surveys the design of spaces, buildings, and cities. In an easy to understand format, readers will explore the histories and theories of architecture, design elements and process, and the technical aspects of the contemporary profession of architecture.The book explains the experience and practice of architecture and allied disciplines for future professionals, while those who love the beauty of architecture drawing will delight in the gorgeous illustrations included.Overview of the issues and practices of architecture in an all-in-one introductory text Includes new chapters and introductory essays by James Eckler, and features more than 1,000 drawings throughout Professor Ching is the bestselling author of numerous books on architecture and design, all published by Wiley; his works have been translated into 16 languages and are regarded as classics for their renowned graphical presentation For those pursuing a career in architecture or anyone who loves architectural design and drawing, Introduction to Architecture presents a beautifully illustrated and comprehensive guide to the subject.

The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio


Witold Rybczynski - 2002
    Palladio elevated the architecture of the private house into an art form, and he not only designed and built, he wrote. His late-sixteenth-century architectural treatises were read and studied by great thinkers as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Inigo Jones, profoundly influencing the design of Monticello, the tidewater plantation houses of Virginia, and the White House. All across America today, Palladio's influence is evident in ample porches and columned porticoes, in grand ceiling heights and front-door pediments.In The Perfect House, Witold Rybczysnki, whose books on domestic and landscape architecture have transformed our understanding of parks and buildings, looks at Palladio's famous villas, not with the eye of an art historian but with the eye of an architect. He wanted to know why a handful of houses in an obscure corner of the Venetian Republic should have made their presence felt hundreds of years later and halfway across the globe.More than just a study of one of history's seminal architectural figures, "The Perfect House" reflects Rybczynski's intimacy with and enthusiasm for his subject. He not only reveals why the villas were so architecturally and culturally influential, he also imparts his enormous affection and admiration for the man who designed them. Embracing the elements of Rybczynski's most successful books on domestic architecture, Home and The Most Beautiful House in the World, this charming, revelatory meditation explores the dawn of domestic architecture and provides a new way of looking at everybuilding we inhabit or visit today.