Informal


Cecil Balmond - 2002
    His structural thinking differs from that of others in his field, in its completely innovative conception of the engineer's contribution to architecture. The plasticity of architectural plans is enhanced through a decisive promotion of their structural designs. The borderline between structure and architecture thus becomes increasingly blurred. This process is explained in detail in "Informal" by reference to eight seminal projects. Balmond elucidates the theoretical basis of his engineering and architectural solutions, and his sketches transcend purely technical illustration - they are key to his approach. "Informal" invites readers to rethink their understanding of the relationships between architecture, design and engineering.

Gaudi: The Life of a Visionary


J. Castellar-Gassol - 1999
    

Parallax


Steven Holl - 2000
    Holl reveals his working methods in this book, part treatise, part manifesto, and part, as Holl writes, "liner notes" to fifteen of his projects. Parallax traces Holl's ideas on topics as diverse as the "chemistry of matter" and the "pressure of light," and shows how they emerge in his architectural work: "criss-crossing" at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, "duration" in the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice, "correlational programming" in the Makuhari housing in Japan. The result is a book that provides a personal tour of the work of one of the world's most esteemed architects. Parallax is designed by Michael Rock of the award-winning design firm 2x4.

Breaking Ground


Daniel Libeskind - 2004
     Drawing on his uncommon background and global perspective, in Breaking Ground Daniel Libeskind explores ideas about tragedy and hope, and the way in which architecture can memorialize-and reshape-human experience. Born in 1946 to Holocaust survivors in Poland, Daniel Libeskind eventually emigrated to New York City in 1959. A virtuoso musician before studying architecture, Libeskind has designed iconic buildings around the world, including the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England. In February 2003, Libeskind was chosen as the Master Plan Architect for the World Trade Center reconstruction. Full of the vitality, humor, and visionary spark that helped win him the Trade Center Commission, Breaking Ground invites readers to see architecture-and the larger world-through new perspectives.

Why a man should be well-dressed


Adolf Loos - 2011
    

An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy


Roy W. Spencer - 2017
    As was the case with Gore's first movie (An Inconvenient Truth), the movie is bursting with bad science, bad policy and some outright falsehoods. The storm events Gore addresses occur naturally, and there is little or no evidence they are being made worse from human activities: sea level is rising at the same rate it was before humans started burning fossil fuels; in Miami Beach the natural rise is magnified because buildings and streets were constructed on reclaimed swampland that has been sinking; the 9/11 memorial was not flooded by sea level rise from melting ice sheets, but a storm surge at high tide, which would have happened anyway and was not predicted by Gore in his first movie, as he claims; the Greenland ice sheet undergoes melt every summer, which was large in 2012 but then unusually weak in 2017; glaciers advance and retreat naturally, as evidenced by 1,000 to 2,000 year old tree stumps being uncovered in Alaska; rain gauge measurements reveal the conflict in Syria was not caused by reduced rainfall hurting farming there, and in fact the Middle East is greening from increasing CO2 in the atmosphere; agricultural yields in China have been rising, not falling as claimed by Gore. The renewable energy sources touted by Gore (wind and solar), while a laudable goal for our future, are currently very expensive: their federal subsidies per kilowatt-hour of energy produced are huge compared to coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. These costs are hidden from the public in increased federal and state tax rates. Gore is correct that "it is right to save humanity", but what we might need saving from the most are bad decisions that reduce prosperity and hurt the poor.

Alien Disclosure at Area 51: Dr. Dan Burisch Reveals the Truth About ETs, UFOs and MJ-12


C. Ronald Garner - 2014
    Dan Burisch and his encounters at Area 51 S4 with J-Rod, an alien from the Zeta Reticuli star system whose UFO crashed in Kingman, Arizona. With the implicit consent of the most powerful and secretive organization in the US government, Majestic 12 (MJ-12), Dan reveals for the first time: Why Dan was taken aboard a UFO as a child, The actual procedures used to extract tissue from an ET at Area 51, The real reason the US went to war in Iraq (hint: it wasn't about oil!), The cause of global warming (it's not man-made), and Who the "winged angels" mentioned in the ancient scriptures actually were. SPECIAL BONUSES: The Anatomy of the Aliens - images and descriptions of alien anatomy verified by Dr. Dan Burisch, The actual members of MJ-12 and the layout of their living quarters at Area 51, and Letter from Admiral John M. "Mike" McConnell, head of MJ-12, authorizing disclosure of certain information. This book will challenge your belief system, but if you're ready for the Truth, scroll up to click the buy button and get your copy now - every single detail is corroborated by multiple sources!

Language of Post-Modern Architecture 6


Charles Jencks - 1977
    The buildings of Robert Venturi and Michael Graves, among others, are featured.

Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing


Michael Engle - 2019
    It was a sea in name only. It was actually a bone dry, ancient dusty basin pockmarked with craters and littered with rocks and boulders. Somewhere in that 500 mile diameter basin, the astronauts would attempt to make Mankind’s first landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong would pilot the Lunar Module “Eagle” during its twelve minute descent from orbit down to a landing. Col. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would assist him. On the way down they would encounter a host of problems, any one of which could have potentially caused them to have to call off the landing, or, even worse, die making the attempt. The problems were all technical-communications problems, computer problems, guidance problems, sensor problems. Armstrong and Aldrin faced the very real risk of dying by the very same technical sword that they had to live by in order to accomplish the enormous task of landing on the Moon for the first time. Yet the human skills Armstrong and Aldrin employed would be more than equal to the task. Armstrong’s formidable skills as an aviator, honed from the time he was a young boy, would serve him well as he piloted Eagle down amidst a continuing series of systems problems that might have fatally distracted a lesser aviator. Armstrong’s brilliant piloting was complemented by Aldrin’s equally remarkable discipline and calmness as he stoically provided a running commentary on altitude and descent rate while handling systems problems that threatened the landing. Finally, after a harrowing twelve and a half minutes, Armstrong gently landed Eagle at “Tranquility Base”, a name he had personally chosen to denote the location of the first Moon landing. In “Landing Eagle-Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing”, author Mike Engle gives a minute by minute account of the events that occurred throughout Eagle’s descent and landing on the Moon. Engle, a retired NASA engineer and Mission Control flight controller, uses NASA audio files of actual voice recordings made inside Eagle’s cockpit during landing to give the reader an “inside the cockpit” perspective on the first Moon landing. Engle’s transcripts of these recordings, along with background material on the history and technical details behind the enormous effort to accomplish the first Moon landing, give a new and fascinating insight into the events that occurred on that remarkable day fifty years ago.

Many Masks: A Life of Frank Lloyd Wright


Brendan Gill - 1987
    His works—among them Taliesin North, Taliesin West, Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax buildings, the Guggenheim Museum—earned him a good measure of his fame, but his flamboyant personal life earned him the rest. Here Brendan Gill, a personal friend of Wright and his family, gives us not only the fullest, fairest, and most entertaining account of Wright to date, but also strips away the many masks the architect tirelessly constructed to fascinate his admirers and mislead his detractors. Enriched by hitherto unpublished letters and 300 photographs and drawings, this definitive biography makes Wright, in all his creativity, crankiness, and zest, fairly leap from its pages.

Laurie Baker: Life, Works & Writings


Gautam Bhatia - 2000
    His distinctive brand of architecture, usually moulded around local building traditions (especially those of Kerela, his adopted home state in south India), is instantly identifiable and has, unsurprisingly, revolutionized traditional concepts of architecture in India. Baker's architecture is responsive, uses local materials and lays stress on low-cost design.This biograpy of Laurie Baker, like his work, is direct, simple and comprehensive; further embellished with sketches, plans, photographs and some of Baker's own writings, the book offers the professional architect view of the life, methods and thoughts of an unorthodox genius.

Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education: Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Complex Dilemmas, Third Edition


Joan Poliner Shapiro - 2000
    Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education: Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Complex Dilemmas, Second Edition: *demonstrates the application of different ethical paradigms (the ethics of justice, care, critique, and the profession) through discussion and analysis of real-life moral dilemmas that educational leaders face in their schools and communities;*addresses some of the practical, pedagogical, and curricular issues related to the teaching of ethics for educational leaders;*emphasizes the importance of ethics instruction from a variety of theoretical approaches; and*provides a process that instructors might follow to develop their own ethics unit or course.Part I provides an overview of why ethics is so important, especially for today's educational leaders, and presents a multiparadigm approach essential to practitioners as they grapple with ethical dilemmas. Part II deals with the dilemmas themselves. It includes a brief introduction to how the cases were constructed, an illustration of how the multiparadigm approach may be applied to a real dilemma, and ethical dilemmas written by graduate students that represent the kinds of dilemmas faced by practicing administrators in urban, suburban, and rural settings in an era full of complexities and contradictions. Part III focuses on pedagogy and provides teaching notes for the instructor. The authors discuss the importance of self-reflection on the part of both instructors and students, and model how they thought through their own personal and professional ethical codes as well as reflected upon the critical incidents in their lives that shape their teaching and frequently determine what they privileged in class.New in the Second Edition: *A completely new chapter emphasizing religious differences and presenting the contradictions between religion and culture;*A completely new chapter on testing, juxtaposing the paradox of accountability with responsibility;*Several new dilemmas focusing on higher education, recognizing that many educational leadership training programs include students with this focus; and*Changes throughout to update the text, including a discussion of recent scholarship in the field of ethical leadership.Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education: Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Complex Dilemmas, Second Edition is easily adaptable for a variety of uses with a wide range of audiences. It is equally valuable as a text for university courses related to the preparation of educational leaders and as a professional reference for aspiring and practicing administrators, teacher leaders, office personnel, and educational policy makers.

The Smell of Kerosene: A Test Pilot's Odyssey - NASA Research Pilot Stories, XB-70 Tragic Collision, M2-F1 Lifting Body, YF-12 Blackbird, Apollo LLRV Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (NASA SP-4108)


Donald L. Mallick - 2012
    This book puts the reader in the pilot's seat for a "day at the office" unlike any other. It recounts the tragic 1966 mid-air collision with the XB-70; describes flights of the lifting body and YF-12 blackbird, and details work with the Apollo Lunar Landing Research Vehicle.The Smell of Kerosene tells the dramatic story of a NASA research pilot who logged over 11,000 flight hours in more than 125 types of aircraft. Donald Mallick gives the reader fascinating firsthand descriptions of his early naval flight training, carrier operations, and his research flying career with NASA and its predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).Mallick joined the NACA as a research pilot at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory at Hampton, Virginia, where he flew modified helicopters and jets, and witnessed the NACA's evolution into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.After transferring to the NASA Flight Research Center (now NASA Dryden Flight Research Center) at Edwards, California, he became involved with projects that further pushed the boundaries of aerospace technology. These included the giant delta-winged XB-70 supersonic research airplane, the wingless M2-F1 lifting body vehicle, and the triple-sonic YF-12 Blackbird. Mallick also test flew the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) and helped develop techniques used in training astronauts to land on the Moon.Excerpt: " I was onboard an airliner, on 28 January 1986, when I heard the news that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded 73 seconds after launch that morning. Even knowing the complexity and risk involved in Shuttle operations, I was shocked by the news. The shuttle commander, Dick Scobee, had been an Air Force test pilot at Edwards and flown a number of research missions at NASA Dryden. I grieved for all the crew, but especially Dick, who I knew best. I can still recall his broad grin when he visited the Dryden pilot's office following the announcement of his selection as an astronaut. He showed great pride in his selection, and I congratulated him heartily. The results of the accident review board were hard to accept. The commission that investigated the accident blamed the Shuttle loss on poor management decisions. Challenger had been launched against the recommendations of knowledgeable technical personnel who insisted that low temperatures that day increased the chance of hot gas leakage around the seals of the solid rocket boosters. The commission found that the decision making process leading to the launch was flawed and that launch temperature constraints were waived at the expense of flight safety. It was a black day for NASA. I could sense a change in people's attitude concerning the space program. After the Challenger accident report was released, the public's pride in and respect for NASA diminished. At Dryden, we had always striven not to allow the desire to "get a flight off" to interfere with good judgment on flight safety. It was a cardinal rule. There were occasions when visiting Headquarters personnel and other VIPs were on hand to witness a test flight and we had to cancel the event due to some technical problem. We forced ourselves to avoid the desire to "press on" just to meet a schedule or impress a visiting VIP."

Color in Interior Design


John F. Pile - 1995
    Coverage ranges from the basic principles of color to the effect of color on the human psyche. Includes extensive color charts and photos showing design do's and don'ts and a portfolio of color charts and renderings of work done by practicing design professionals. 250 full-color illus./photos; 30 b&w photos.

Not So Big House Coll-2cy


Sarah Susanka - 2002
    Available for the first time, Sarah Susanka's best-selling books in one handsome slipcase set.-- Great gift package-- Offers all of Sarah Susanka's trendsetting architectural ideas in one set