Ruth Slavid

Timber is having a renaissance as an architectural material, as more architects come to understand its properties and enjoy adding it to their repertoire of materials. With a growing crop of good new timber buildings, architects are coming to realize that this is no longer the sole preserve of the traditionalist, but a material that has an important role to play in the contemporary world. The book's introduction examines the ways in which a raw material of diminishing quality (but abundant quantity) can be stretched to perform as it has never done before using new technology and careful detailing. The 40 case studies are devoted to some of the most interesting new wood projects from around the world. The projects are grouped in seven themed chapters. Featured architects include Steven Holl, Foster and Partners, Rural Studio, Renzo Piano and Shigeru Ban.

The rules of architecture have been discussed since the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius coined the trilogy 'firmitas, utilitas and venustas', most commonly translated as firmness, commodity and delight. Put simply, this means that a building should stand up and endure, that it should serve its function, and that it should give pleasure to its users and the wider community. Great buildings, like great art, contain something that is impossible to define or pin down. But that greatness, in almost all cases, overlays the principles set out in this book. While one cannot guarantee that a building will be great, if all the principles are followed, you will avoid the pitfalls to which too many are subject. This new title in Vivays Publishing's '10 Principles' series provides clear explanations of each tenet along with useful illustrations to help the reader visualise what is being discussed. The author assumes no background on the subject, but an interest in learning more about what goes into making a building work. An experienced writer on this subject, Ruth Slavid provides a useful and illuminating primer to the field that is accessible to students of architecture, architects or architectural historians or anyone interested in the principles behind the buildings that surround them.

What kind of architecture emerges in an extreme environment? Responding to some of the ultimate challenges in architecture, the buildings featured in this book provide valuable insight into the extremes of architectural thinking. In an increasingly unstable world, some of the lessons that they teach about self-sufficiency may yet become more generally applicable. Lessons from terrestrial environments are being used in designs for space, while space technology is also being applied on earth.Divided into five chapters—Hot, Cold, High, Wet, and Space—Extreme Architecture showcases 45 examples of recent buildings designed for challenging environments. It includes a desert refuge in southern Arizona, a floating marine research center, an underground seed vault in northern Norway, and a South Pole research station. Each case study begins with a clearly presented table listing the altitude, annual rainfall, and average temperatures of the site. This information is accompanied by photographs showing the project in its environment, as well as by drawings, site plans, and computer renderings where appropriate.