Kate Ascher

A gorgeous graphic tour of the inner workings of skyscrapers--from the author of "The Works" Indispensable and unforgettable, "The Heights" is the ultimate guide to the way skyscrapers work--from the bases of their foundations to the peaks of their spires. With skyscrapers becoming essential elements of urban life, there has never been a greater need for understanding and embracing these complex structures. Using innovative illustrations to tackle the vast complexity of these buildings, "The Heights" explores with remarkable insight every aspect of designing, building, and maintaining a modern skyscraper, as well as the individuals who build and maintain these architectural cathedrals. In the process, "The Heights" provides a remarkable snapshot of urban life at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

"Is it possibly to write a stunning book about infrastructure? Kate Ascher's books are bliss... Using gorgeous graphics and clear, simple, language, Ascher explains the infrastructure and engineering marvels around us." --Slate.com In our digital age, it's easy to forget that almost everything we enjoy about modern life depends on motion. We ride in cars and on buses and trains to work; enjoy food shipped over oceans; fly high in the sky to any point on the planet. Over the last century, the world has come to rely on its ability to move just about anywhere effortlessly. But what prompted this transformation? What inventions allowed it to happen? And how do the vehicles and systems that keep us in motion today--airports, trains, cars, and satellites--really work? Exploring our incredible interconnected world is the task of Kate Ascher's "The Way to Go: Moving by Sea, Land, and Air." Lusciously illustrated and meticulously researched, "The Way to Go" reveals the highly complex and largely invisible network of global transportation. How is cargo moved from inland factory to seaside port, and how is it transferred from shore to ship? How do ships and planes navigate their routes without landmarks? What happens under the hood of a car or in the undercarriage of a people mover? How did planes become cheaper than ships or trains? Why are some spaceships reusable and others not? What tools are needed to build today's immense bridges and tunnels, and what ensures they don't collapse? How does a helicopter really stay aloft? What happens when lightning strikes an airplane or when one satellite crashes with another? What will the car of tomorrow look like? Focusing on the machines that underpin our lives, Ascher's "The Way to Go" also introduces the systems that keep those machines in business--the emergency communication networks that connect ships at sea, the automated tolling mechanisms that maintain the flow of highway traffic, the air control network that keeps planes from colliding in the sky. Equally fascinating are the technologies behind these complex systems: baggage tag readers that make sure people's bags go where they need to; automated streetlights that adjust their timing based on traffic flow; GPS devices that pinpoint where we are on earth at any second. Together these technologies move more people farther, faster, and more cheaply than at any other time in history. As our lives and our businesses become more entwined with others across the globe, there has never been a better time to understand how transportation works. Indispensable and unforgettable, Kate Ascher's "The Way to Go" is a gorgeous graphic guide to a world moving as never before.

A fascinating guided tour of the ways things work in a modern city "It's a rare person who won't find something of interest in The Works, whether it's an explanation of how a street-sweeper works or the view of what's down a manhole." -New York Post Have you ever wondered how the water in your faucet gets there? Where your garbage goes? What the pipes under city streets do? How bananas from Ecuador get to your local market? Why radiators in apartment buildings clang? Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and behind the scenes to explain exactly how an urban infrastructure operates. Deftly weaving text and graphics, author Kate Ascher explores the systems that manage water, traffic, sewage and garbage, subways, electricity, mail, and much more. Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, The Works gives readers a unique glimpse at what lies behind and beneath urban life in the twenty-first century.