|
Browse categories
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
|
|
|
 |
How to Be a Happy Architect
|
Bauman Lyons Architects;
;
|
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £16.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Thinking Architecture
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £16.57
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
A brick of a book., 05 Nov 2008
Syllabus reading: this book is a brick of words. It is excellent in terms of delivering a very intensive and conscise history of modern architecture; and provides a great interlocking understanding of many important modern buildings. If I had a single criticism about it, it would be that the words are so packed together in it, as are the tiny thumbnail images that accompany them, that it can be quite a strain on the eyes to read. As a cohesive representation of 100 or so years of architecture it provides a main route from which personal investigation can begin. I, certainly, went searching the internet, and other books, for better images of many of the buildings mentioned in here.
|
|
|
 |
|
Treehouses of the World
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £13.23
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
A brick of a book., 05 Nov 2008
Syllabus reading: this book is a brick of words. It is excellent in terms of delivering a very intensive and conscise history of modern architecture; and provides a great interlocking understanding of many important modern buildings. If I had a single criticism about it, it would be that the words are so packed together in it, as are the tiny thumbnail images that accompany them, that it can be quite a strain on the eyes to read. As a cohesive representation of 100 or so years of architecture it provides a main route from which personal investigation can begin. I, certainly, went searching the internet, and other books, for better images of many of the buildings mentioned in here.
fab, 02 May 2008
this is a beautiful coffee table book, great pix and short informative text, it's very inspirational visually. I recomend it to anyone who is looking to design a treehouse, although it is not a builders manual it does have some tips.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
A brick of a book., 05 Nov 2008
Syllabus reading: this book is a brick of words. It is excellent in terms of delivering a very intensive and conscise history of modern architecture; and provides a great interlocking understanding of many important modern buildings. If I had a single criticism about it, it would be that the words are so packed together in it, as are the tiny thumbnail images that accompany them, that it can be quite a strain on the eyes to read. As a cohesive representation of 100 or so years of architecture it provides a main route from which personal investigation can begin. I, certainly, went searching the internet, and other books, for better images of many of the buildings mentioned in here.
fab, 02 May 2008
this is a beautiful coffee table book, great pix and short informative text, it's very inspirational visually. I recomend it to anyone who is looking to design a treehouse, although it is not a builders manual it does have some tips.
Fun and original, 01 Aug 2003
Rem Koolhas is surely one of the funniest architectural commentators alive and this highly readable book does a great job of explaining (a) Manhattan for us. Skipping across a series of repressions (high culture lambasts the glee of fantastic technology on coney island only to adopt and raze its origins to flat grasslands) and fantasies (architects insistance on congestion increasing road widenings as pragmatic moves to decongestion disguises venetian fantasies of archipelagic towerstates) the author paints a vivid picture of the metropolis, plausible.
Compelling History of Manhattan, 24 Feb 1998
A romp through New York's sometimes jaded history with a view to uncover the roots of the modern metropolis and the singular element devised by architects to inspire (amuse?) the masses - the Skyscraper. The book looks at Coney Island as the testing ground of the Skyscaper, Manhatten as further exploration of the Skyscaper which is trialed in the name of symbols of a propserous future, economic rationale and pushing the envelope to its limits and finishes with Office of Metropolitian Architecture's own experimental projects in New York. A very compelling history of a complex city.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
A brick of a book., 05 Nov 2008
Syllabus reading: this book is a brick of words. It is excellent in terms of delivering a very intensive and conscise history of modern architecture; and provides a great interlocking understanding of many important modern buildings. If I had a single criticism about it, it would be that the words are so packed together in it, as are the tiny thumbnail images that accompany them, that it can be quite a strain on the eyes to read. As a cohesive representation of 100 or so years of architecture it provides a main route from which personal investigation can begin. I, certainly, went searching the internet, and other books, for better images of many of the buildings mentioned in here.
fab, 02 May 2008
this is a beautiful coffee table book, great pix and short informative text, it's very inspirational visually. I recomend it to anyone who is looking to design a treehouse, although it is not a builders manual it does have some tips.
Fun and original, 01 Aug 2003
Rem Koolhas is surely one of the funniest architectural commentators alive and this highly readable book does a great job of explaining (a) Manhattan for us. Skipping across a series of repressions (high culture lambasts the glee of fantastic technology on coney island only to adopt and raze its origins to flat grasslands) and fantasies (architects insistance on congestion increasing road widenings as pragmatic moves to decongestion disguises venetian fantasies of archipelagic towerstates) the author paints a vivid picture of the metropolis, plausible.
Compelling History of Manhattan, 24 Feb 1998
A romp through New York's sometimes jaded history with a view to uncover the roots of the modern metropolis and the singular element devised by architects to inspire (amuse?) the masses - the Skyscraper. The book looks at Coney Island as the testing ground of the Skyscaper, Manhatten as further exploration of the Skyscaper which is trialed in the name of symbols of a propserous future, economic rationale and pushing the envelope to its limits and finishes with Office of Metropolitian Architecture's own experimental projects in New York. A very compelling history of a complex city.
Romantic Manual, 10 Jul 2007
This book is not about architecture. It is manual for the unimaginative. Whilst Alexander's observations are pertinent and accurate, they cannot make up for the actual act of creation, which requires more thought. Maybe his other books provide what is missing in this. It is romantic design "features", and can be applied to mainly small scale, socially inspired building of limited durability and more importantly, sustainability. The book provides "ideas" for the intellectually impoverished, however, it is not a panacea, you use it at your peril!
essential tool for making "places", 16 Mar 2007
As an architecture student, I'm amazed by how useful this book has turned out to be - whether you are just planning a small dwelling and want some tips regarding the size of balcony to put in (which will actually be used) or if you are looking at a bigger scheme or town planning on a grand scale, Alexander has done his research and observed carefully what works and what doesn't. The book is neatly divided up by sub-heading for types of features, users, types of habitation, you name it, if it features in any sort of conurbation, Alexander will have made an observation about how people behave in those places. Its very accessible despite its size - the short chapters (there are over 250 in the book) means you can quickly reference the problem you are looking to understand, or just dip into it and read something - for example, a three page explanation of why living in skyscrapers drives you made. So anyone just interested in humankind and living patterns from a trivia level would also probably enjoy this book. It should be on every architecture student's bookshelf.
Going beyond architecture, 19 Nov 2006
Alexander builds a picture of the common connection elements that make a house, a building, a community and a city work. Going beyond trying to quantify or even causation in its narrower sense, he discovers for us how things fit together so we enjoy it and feel comfortable with it. Amazinly, he then uses this "language" as he goes on to give tangible examples, things that we can all relate to. In a way, he discovers elements of post-modern architecture and it challenges thoughts about form and function by insisting on talking about feelings. If you are studying the philosophy of complexity, please consider this book as part of your library.
everyone sould read this........, 14 Nov 2006
I'm an archcitecture student and this was recomended to me by a tutor, as he said i have a similar attitude to design. Asuming it was the same old architecture book i looked it up in the library, my tutor was right.
This book is a must have for anyone, in any feild of design.
This book does not talk about construction methods or techniques but is purely about design.
I stronglly belive that anyone could pick up this book, read it from cover to cover, then read it again as alexander recomends. after doing this anyone could 'design' a 'competent' building.
This book means so much to me (after spending 4 years trying to find a copy) that i affectionetly refer to it as...
... 'the bible'.
Eden would have felt like this...., 06 Jun 2002
When I picked up this book from a friend's bookshelf, I thought it was about language. Being an English graduate, I was curious. However, I was not expecting to respond the way I did. I found a book that has been immensely important to me (even as a non-architect) for the last ten years. I discovered photos and patterns of living and building that connected with something very deeply within me. It is a book that can move to tears. One reviewer has called it Utopian - I disagree. To me it's Edenic. It has stumbled across something that expresses a latent desire within all of us - to experience true community. We have been starved over the centuries, especially since the Industrial Revolution, of an environment that is fully congruent with community, with life and with relationships. The patterns of building in this book are patterns for living in a connected way. It refuses to view buildings as merely aesthetic singularities but recognises the connections between humanness, the land and our constructions. The book is timeless, not dated, hopeful, insightful, caring for the whole person. I abhor some of the urban monstrosities that are raised up without a single thought for how people experience them whether visually or kinaesthetically, or how they connect with other buildings or the land they are built on. It's a magical book. Even if you know nothing about architecture, it will delight and stun you. It should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in urban planning or architecture. Please read it!
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
Experiencing Architecture
Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
*Best price found from Amazon Marketplace seller
|
*Amazon: £11.38
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
A brick of a book., 05 Nov 2008
Syllabus reading: this book is a brick of words. It is excellent in terms of delivering a very intensive and conscise history of modern architecture; and provides a great interlocking understanding of many important modern buildings. If I had a single criticism about it, it would be that the words are so packed together in it, as are the tiny thumbnail images that accompany them, that it can be quite a strain on the eyes to read. As a cohesive representation of 100 or so years of architecture it provides a main route from which personal investigation can begin. I, certainly, went searching the internet, and other books, for better images of many of the buildings mentioned in here.
fab, 02 May 2008
this is a beautiful coffee table book, great pix and short informative text, it's very inspirational visually. I recomend it to anyone who is looking to design a treehouse, although it is not a builders manual it does have some tips.
Fun and original, 01 Aug 2003
Rem Koolhas is surely one of the funniest architectural commentators alive and this highly readable book does a great job of explaining (a) Manhattan for us. Skipping across a series of repressions (high culture lambasts the glee of fantastic technology on coney island only to adopt and raze its origins to flat grasslands) and fantasies (architects insistance on congestion increasing road widenings as pragmatic moves to decongestion disguises venetian fantasies of archipelagic towerstates) the author paints a vivid picture of the metropolis, plausible.
Compelling History of Manhattan, 24 Feb 1998
A romp through New York's sometimes jaded history with a view to uncover the roots of the modern metropolis and the singular element devised by architects to inspire (amuse?) the masses - the Skyscraper. The book looks at Coney Island as the testing ground of the Skyscaper, Manhatten as further exploration of the Skyscaper which is trialed in the name of symbols of a propserous future, economic rationale and pushing the envelope to its limits and finishes with Office of Metropolitian Architecture's own experimental projects in New York. A very compelling history of a complex city.
Romantic Manual, 10 Jul 2007
This book is not about architecture. It is manual for the unimaginative. Whilst Alexander's observations are pertinent and accurate, they cannot make up for the actual act of creation, which requires more thought. Maybe his other books provide what is missing in this. It is romantic design "features", and can be applied to mainly small scale, socially inspired building of limited durability and more importantly, sustainability. The book provides "ideas" for the intellectually impoverished, however, it is not a panacea, you use it at your peril!
essential tool for making "places", 16 Mar 2007
As an architecture student, I'm amazed by how useful this book has turned out to be - whether you are just planning a small dwelling and want some tips regarding the size of balcony to put in (which will actually be used) or if you are looking at a bigger scheme or town planning on a grand scale, Alexander has done his research and observed carefully what works and what doesn't. The book is neatly divided up by sub-heading for types of features, users, types of habitation, you name it, if it features in any sort of conurbation, Alexander will have made an observation about how people behave in those places. Its very accessible despite its size - the short chapters (there are over 250 in the book) means you can quickly reference the problem you are looking to understand, or just dip into it and read something - for example, a three page explanation of why living in skyscrapers drives you made. So anyone just interested in humankind and living patterns from a trivia level would also probably enjoy this book. It should be on every architecture student's bookshelf.
Going beyond architecture, 19 Nov 2006
Alexander builds a picture of the common connection elements that make a house, a building, a community and a city work. Going beyond trying to quantify or even causation in its narrower sense, he discovers for us how things fit together so we enjoy it and feel comfortable with it. Amazinly, he then uses this "language" as he goes on to give tangible examples, things that we can all relate to. In a way, he discovers elements of post-modern architecture and it challenges thoughts about form and function by insisting on talking about feelings. If you are studying the philosophy of complexity, please consider this book as part of your library.
everyone sould read this........, 14 Nov 2006
I'm an archcitecture student and this was recomended to me by a tutor, as he said i have a similar attitude to design. Asuming it was the same old architecture book i looked it up in the library, my tutor was right.
This book is a must have for anyone, in any feild of design.
This book does not talk about construction methods or techniques but is purely about design.
I stronglly belive that anyone could pick up this book, read it from cover to cover, then read it again as alexander recomends. after doing this anyone could 'design' a 'competent' building.
This book means so much to me (after spending 4 years trying to find a copy) that i affectionetly refer to it as...
... 'the bible'.
Eden would have felt like this...., 06 Jun 2002
When I picked up this book from a friend's bookshelf, I thought it was about language. Being an English graduate, I was curious. However, I was not expecting to respond the way I did. I found a book that has been immensely important to me (even as a non-architect) for the last ten years. I discovered photos and patterns of living and building that connected with something very deeply within me. It is a book that can move to tears. One reviewer has called it Utopian - I disagree. To me it's Edenic. It has stumbled across something that expresses a latent desire within all of us - to experience true community. We have been starved over the centuries, especially since the Industrial Revolution, of an environment that is fully congruent with community, with life and with relationships. The patterns of building in this book are patterns for living in a connected way. It refuses to view buildings as merely aesthetic singularities but recognises the connections between humanness, the land and our constructions. The book is timeless, not dated, hopeful, insightful, caring for the whole person. I abhor some of the urban monstrosities that are raised up without a single thought for how people experience them whether visually or kinaesthetically, or how they connect with other buildings or the land they are built on. It's a magical book. Even if you know nothing about architecture, it will delight and stun you. It should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in urban planning or architecture. Please read it!
essential architectural reading, 05 Dec 2001
combining both a sensual and analytical appraisal, this book communicates the aesthetic values by which this author believes architecture can be comprehended. An optimistic book predating the excess of postmodernism and strong on sensitivity.
After Lego, 16 Jul 1998
Experiencing Architecture was a basic text in my first year of design school; the principles that I learned from it have followed me ever since. Rasmussen takes the visual world apart and taught me to see things in their simplest forms. His commentaries on form, texture, and massing heightened my appreciation for all forms of design; his discussion of color--for one who is colorblind--provided a life-long guidedog. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wanted to pioneer the Lego curriculum at university--
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Customer Reviews
inspiring, 08 Oct 2008
A truly inspiring book that I will no doubt refer to in my teaching and continue to learn from for years to come. The basic human perspective..., 23 Jun 2006
An excellent book, a book that peals away your pre-conceptions as you read and installs on, the most natural way of thinking. It gives you a clearer conscious when considering the environment.
I recommend this book to any one. Although I do think you need a dictionary on hand, because there are some words in this book that I never thought the meanings of existed, like the word 'haptic'. The word haptic isn't even on Word spell checker. All the better though, a big vocabulary is what's probably needed when studying and expressing architecture. I'm starting an architecture degree this September and this book has made me more interested.
A really interesting perspective, 16 Sep 2005
This book totally makes you think - whether you're a designer who should be thinking more about all the senses, or just an interested layman like me, this book is a really fascinating read and highly recommended. Essential reading!!, 04 Feb 2005
I would recommend this to everyone, actually. This is the only book so far that has the biggest impact in my student years as an interior designer. Juhani Palasmaa manage to say plenty of strong meanings statement while using simple words. I say this book is a bible for anyone who wants to design and be human in their design. Dont get what i mean? read it yourself!! Necessary Reading..., 19 Apr 2004
An subtly epic piece of text... A book that had a truly profound influence on my own practice and perception in regards to how one could and should consider ones built environment. Get your hands on it if you can...
The Beauty of Absence, 12 Aug 2008
The slim volume of less than one hundred pages and small format is in a way in harmony with the minimalist aesthetics of the charismatic architect. The book is a distillate of beauty.
The exquisite colour photographs display the magic of the spare aesthetics, elegance and strength of Ando's buildings and surrounding landscape. The accompanying text is succinct and incisive and does justice to the architect and its creations through dissecting and providing a penetrating analysis of the elements that characterize Ando's architecture and individual buildings.
In all, nineteen projects are presented covering a broad spectrum of Ando's work comprising houses, apartment buildings, churches, temples, museums, art foundations, the Japan pavilion expo '92 and the Meditation Space, Unesco.
Three are the primary characteristics in Ando's architecture: the geometry of walls, the geometry of sky and elements derived from the Japanese minimalist aesthetics.
Ando's architecture is an architecture of walls e.g. a freestanding wall, an angled wall piercing a concrete cube or a wall, bisected horizontally, encircling an inner courtyard like a medieval rampart.
Ando employs a limited range of materials and expresses their naked textures. His choice of materials gives his work its characteristic ascetism and tension. His buildings convey a feeling of purity, beauty and strength.
Ando though a master of poured concrete, still relies on natural materials for points that a human being may touch. He invariably uses natural wood for floors, doors, and furniture. As natural materials decay, they become repositories for memory.
Nature, especially the sky, plays a crucial role in Ando's architecture. He abstracts it to his purposes. In order to elude architecture's fundamental nature as a closed-off box, he relies on the sky as the natural element which most affects architectural interiors. In Ando's architecture, the sky is a crucial spatial-structural element. The interplay of light and shadow created by a sharply delineated sky and the three-dimensional forms expressed in concrete walls generate a special fascination in Ando's architecture.
The interlocking relationship between site, structure and empty space provides a formula for bringing a confined area to life.
Ando's architecture is simple, strong and gentle. It joins simplicity of form to complexity of space. It uses naked materials delicate to the touch. Ando's architecture is considered the culmination of Japanese aesthetics. Because the place of nothing is the essence of Japanese culture. A container of aesthetic emotions.
What Ando's buildings always communicate to us is the conviction that architecture is able to give order to the world only when it is based on strong emotions, and the faith that strong emotions are born only by taking up challenges and prevailing. Beauty is not the goal of architecture, only the result.
Full of ideas to power your imagination, 23 Oct 2007
This is a luxurious book that will keep drawing you back to it time and time again. Filled with photos and illustrations along with fascinating stories, it details the background to several 'shelters' across the world ranging from driftwood shacks to really large structures. The key thing is that each one was built by hand as a home to be lived in.
As a book for design inspiration it is without equal (although the original 'Shelter' by the same author comes close!
There is a rustic feel about the whole book - it's almost like you are reading through someone's personal scrapbook, which in a way you are.
If you are interested in building, whether it's a shed in the garden or something much bigger, don't delay - get this book.
wonderful book, 04 Oct 2007
this book is a wonderful collection of photos and information of many of the diverse ways people house themselves through their own effort. buy it and read it for the rest of your life.
Inspirational, 21 May 2007
As first time builders embarked on a hand-made earthship project we have been constantly inspired by the photos and stories in this book. A fantastic volume to leaf through for ideas and motivation, there is always something you missed last time to discover and wonder at.
Perfect for bedside, coffee table, bookshelf - wherever it'll be looked at!
A brick of a book., 05 Nov 2008
Syllabus reading: this book is a brick of words. It is excellent in terms of delivering a very intensive and conscise history of modern architecture; and provides a great interlocking understanding of many important modern buildings. If I had a single criticism about it, it would be that the words are so packed together in it, as are the tiny thumbnail images that accompany them, that it can be quite a strain on the eyes to read. As a cohesive representation of 100 or so years of architecture it provides a main route from which personal investigation can begin. I, certainly, went searching the internet, and other books, for better images of many of the buildings mentioned in here.
fab, 02 May 2008
this is a beautiful coffee table book, great pix and short informative text, it's very inspirational visually. I recomend it to anyone who is looking to design a treehouse, although it is not a builders manual it does have some tips.
Fun and original, 01 Aug 2003
Rem Koolhas is surely one of the funniest architectural commentators alive and this highly readable book does a great job of explaining (a) Manhattan for us. Skipping across a series of repressions (high culture lambasts the glee of fantastic technology on coney island only to adopt and raze its origins to flat grasslands) and fantasies (architects insistance on congestion increasing road widenings as pragmatic moves to decongestion disguises venetian fantasies of archipelagic towerstates) the author paints a vivid picture of the metropolis, plausible.
Compelling History of Manhattan, 24 Feb 1998
A romp through New York's sometimes jaded history with a view to uncover the roots of the modern metropolis and the singular element devised by architects to inspire (amuse?) the masses - the Skyscraper. The book looks at Coney Island as the testing ground of the Skyscaper, Manhatten as further exploration of the Skyscaper which is trialed in the name of symbols of a propserous future, economic rationale and pushing the envelope to its limits and finishes with Office of Metropolitian Architecture's own experimental projects in New York. A very compelling history of a complex city.
Romantic Manual, 10 Jul 2007
This book is not about architecture. It is manual for the unimaginative. Whilst Alexander's observations are pertinent and accurate, they cannot make up for the actual act of creation, which requires more thought. Maybe his other books provide what is missing in this. It is romantic design "features", and can be applied to mainly small scale, socially inspired building of limited durability and more importantly, sustainability. The book provides "ideas" for the intellectually impoverished, however, it is not a panacea, you use it at your peril!
essential tool for making "places", 16 Mar 2007
As an architecture student, I'm amazed by how useful this book has turned out to be - whether you are just planning a small dwelling and want some tips regarding the size of balcony to put in (which will actually be used) or if you are looking at a bigger scheme or town planning on a grand scale, Alexander has done his research and observed carefully what works and what doesn't. The book is neatly divided up by sub-heading for types of features, users, types of habitation, you name it, if it features in any sort of conurbation, Alexander will have made an observation about how people behave in those places. Its very accessible despite its size - the short chapters (there are over 250 in the book) means you can quickly reference the problem you are looking to understand, or just dip into it and read something - for example, a three page explanation of why living in skyscrapers drives you made. So anyone just interested in humankind and living patterns from a trivia level would also probably enjoy this book. It should be on every architecture student's bookshelf.
Going beyond architecture, 19 Nov 2006
Alexander builds a picture of the common connection elements that make a house, a building, a community and a city work. Going beyond trying to quantify or even causation in its narrower sense, he discovers for us how things fit together so we enjoy it and feel comfortable with it. Amazinly, he then uses this "language" as he goes on to give tangible examples, things that we can all relate to. In a way, he discovers elements of post-modern architecture and it challenges thoughts about form and function by insisting on talking about feelings. If you are studying the philosophy of complexity, please consider this book as part of your library.
everyone sould read this........, 14 Nov 2006
I'm an archcitecture student and this was recomended to me by a tutor, as he said i have a similar attitude to design. Asuming it was the same old architecture book i looked it up in the library, my tutor was right.
This book is a must have for anyone, in any feild of design.
This book does not talk about construction methods or techniques but is purely about design.
I stronglly belive that anyone could pick up this book, read it from cover to cover, then read it again as alexander recomends. after doing this anyone could 'design' a 'competent' building.
This book means so much to me (after spending 4 years trying to find a copy) that i affectionetly refer to it as...
... 'the bible'.
Eden would have felt like this...., 06 Jun 2002
When I picked up this book from a friend's bookshelf, I thought it was about language. Being an English graduate, I was curious. However, I was not expecting to respond the way I did. I found a book that has been immensely important to me (even as a non-architect) for the last ten years. I discovered photos and patterns of living and building that connected with something very deeply within me. It is a book that can move to tears. One reviewer has called it Utopian - I disagree. To me it's Edenic. It has stumbled across something that expresses a latent desire within all of us - to experience true community. We have been starved over the centuries, especially since the Industrial Revolution, of an environment that is fully congruent with community, with life and with relationships. The patterns of building in this book are patterns for living in a connected way. It refuses to view buildings as merely aesthetic singularities but recognises the connections between humanness, the land and our constructions. The book is timeless, not dated, hopeful, insightful, caring for the whole person. I abhor some of the urban monstrosities that are raised up without a single thought for how people experience them whether visually or kinaesthetically, or how they connect with other buildings or the land they are built on. It's a magical book. Even if you know nothing about architecture, it will delight and stun you. It should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in urban planning or architecture. Please read it!
essential architectural reading, 05 Dec 2001
combining both a sensual and analytical appraisal, this book communicates the aesthetic values by which this author believes architecture can be comprehended. An optimistic book predating the excess of postmodernism and strong on sensitivity.
After Lego, 16 Jul 1998
Experiencing Architecture was a basic text in my first year of design school; the principles that I learned from it have followed me ever since. Rasmussen takes the visual world apart and taught me to see things in their simplest forms. His commentaries on form, texture, and massing heightened my appreciation for all forms of design; his discussion of color--for one who is colorblind--provided a life-long guidedog. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wanted to pioneer the Lego curriculum at university--
A guide for modern architects, an eye-opener for anyone, 19 Oct 2003
A great book detailing traditional building styles through history and accross the world. From the yurt to the stone shepherds' cottage, vernacular building shows that high-tech is not always the best solution, and that the construction methods that people have been evolving over thousands of years to suit their climate and local materials are actually very sophisticated. An insigh | | |