Download or read book The Skycourt and Skygarden written by Jason Pomeroy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-20 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Population increases, advances in technology and the continued trend towards inner-city migration have transformed the traditional city of spaces into the modern city of objects. This has necessitated alternative spatial and technological solutions to replenish those environments that were once so intrinsic to society’s day-to-day interactions and communal activities. This book considers skycourts and skygardens as ‘alternative social spaces’ that form part of a broader multi-level urban infrastructure – seeking to make good the loss of open space within the built environment. Jason Pomeroy begins the discussion with the decline of the public realm, and how the semi-public realm has been incorporated into a spatial hierarchy that supports the primary figurative spaces on the ground or, in their absence, creates them in the sky. He then considers skycourts and skygardens in terms of the social, cultural, economic, environmental, technological and spatial benefits that they provide to the urban habitat. Pomeroy concludes by advocating a new hybrid that can harness the social characteristics of the public domain, but be placed within buildings as an alternative communal space for the 21st century. Using graphics and full colour images throughout, the author explores 40 current and forthcoming skycourt and skygarden projects from around the world, including the Shard (London), Marina Bay Sands (Singapore), the Shanghai Tower (China) and the Lotte Tower (South Korea).
Download or read book Skyscrapers written by Sally Spray and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2018 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the physics and engineering involved in famous skyscrapers.
Download or read book Eco Towers written by K. Al-Kodmany and published by WIT Press. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eco-Towers introduces readers to groundbreaking designs, most progressive projects, and innovative ways of thinking about a new generation of green skyscrapers that could provide solutions to crises the world faces today including climate change, depleting resources, deteriorating ecology, population increase, decreasing food supply, urban heat island effect, pollution, deforestation, and more. The book suggests that the eco-tower culminates the cultural and technological evolutions of the 21st century by building and improving on the experiences of earlier designs of skyscrapers and philosophies particularly green, sustainable, and ecological. It argues that the true green skyscraper is the one that engages successfully with its larger urban context by establishing symbiotic relationships with the social, economic, and environmental aspects. Since tall buildings are becoming larger and taller, serving greater number of people, and exerting higher demand on the environment and existing infrastructure, any improvements in their design and construction will significantly enhance urban conditions. The book elucidates how green skyscrapers better serve tenants, mitigate environmental impacts, and improve integration with the city infrastructure. It explains how skyscrapers’ long life cycle offers the greatest justifications for recycling precious resources, and makes it a worthwhile to employ green features in constructing new skyscrapers and retrofitting existing ones. Subsequently, the book explores new designs that are employing cutting-edge green technologies at a grand scale including water-saving technologies, solar panels, helical wind turbines, sunlight-sensing LED lights, rainwater catchment systems, graywater and blackwater recycling systems, seawater-powered air conditioning, and the like. In the future, new building materials and smart technologies will continue to offer innovative design approaches to sustainable tall buildings with new aesthetics, referred to as “eco-iconic” skyscrapers.
Download or read book Milan written by Enrico Massetti and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To most Italians, Milan is the unofficial capital of Italy and arguably the most interesting city in the country, where old and new meet in an ever changing relationship. Milan cannot claim the opulent and breathtaking beauty of Rome nor the Renaissance glories of Florence but Milan has its own charms Ð and certainly enough to keep you entertained for a weekend. In fact, Milan is, arguably, the most interesting city in Italy, where old and new meet in an ever changing relationship. Milan is both elegant and vulgar, technology-driven and full of old world charm, money-obsessed and genteel, brassy and inviting. Milan is a curious, engaging mix. To most Italians, Milan is the unofficial capital of the country. Milan is ItalyÕs powerhouse, where money is made. Money brings people, people create vibe and energy: Milan is the place where Òthings happenÓ. Milan is internationally famous for its fashion and design, of course.
Download or read book Ecologies Design written by Maibritt Pedersen Zari and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of ecology has become central to contemporary design discourse. This reflects contemporary concerns for our planet and a new understanding of the primary entanglement of the human species with the rest of the world. The use of the term ‘ecology’ with design tends to refer to how to integrate ecologies into design and cities and be understood in a biologically-scientific and technical sense. In practice, this scientific-technical knowledge tends to be only loosely employed. The notion of ecology is also often used metaphorically in relation to the social use of space and cities. This book argues that what it calls the ‘biological’ and ‘social’ senses of ecology are both important and require distinctly different types of knowledge and practice. It proposes that science needs to be taken much more seriously in ‘biological ecologies’, and that ‘social ecologies’ can now be understood non-metaphorically as assemblages. Furthermore, this book argues that design practice itself can be understood much more rigorously, productively and relevantly if understood ecologically. The plural term ‘ecologies design’ refers to these three types of ecological design. This book is unique in bringing these three perspectives on ecological design together in one place. It is significant in proposing that a strong sense of ecologies design practice will only follow from the interconnection of these three types of practice. Ecologies Design brings together leading international experts and relevant case studies in the form of edited research essays, case studies and project work. It provides an overarching critique of current ecologically-oriented approaches and offers evidence and exploration of emerging and effective methods, techniques and concepts. It will be of great interest to academics, professionals and students in the built environment disciplines.
Download or read book Green Obsession written by Stefano Boeri Architetti and published by Actar D, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-12-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Green Obsession traces the long path that architect Stefano Boeri and his studio - Stefano Boeri Architetti - have followed in the last fifteen years of practice, aiming at the redefinition of the relationship between city and nature. The book follows a discursive thread, alternating dialogues and scientific essays by some of the main protagonists who have contributed to widening the perspective on this subject, helping to raise awareness while protecting the world and its biodiversity. Cities have contributed for centuries to the promotion of some of humanity’s greatest ideas, we must now urgently include them as among the principal players in the environmental debate and at the forefront of any policy tackling and countering – possibly reversing - climate change. Nevertheless, even today one of the most significant technologies capable of absorbing CO2 and restoring our environment is photosynthesis. Planting trees, in addition to protecting existing natural areas and biodiversity, together with de-carbonization, renewable energies, digitalization, smart mobility and the circular economy could be the set of strategies necessary to tackle climate change. Today the effects of the Anthropocene age are ever more visible, changing our environment and affecting every species that lives within it. Green Obsession offers a path to be taken, a hard but still necessary paradigm shift – even for architecture and urbanism – that aims to give a voice to this much needed ecological transition. This book aims to unveil the processes and the complexity involved in the search for a new kind of urbanism, while raising questions and opening old wounds related to the relationship between the human species and Nature and finally putting these fragments together to create a portrait of our era. We need to conceive cities as new green catalysts. Now more than ever, it is essential to act together as separate individuals and professionals, joining the cause as members of the global community with a shared environmental strategy. We all have to open the era of a new alliance between Nature and City. With Contributions from Emanuele Coccia, Jane Goodall, Paul Hawken, Cecil Konijnendijk, David Miller, Harini Nagendra, Giuseppe Sala and Giorgio Vacchiano."
Download or read book Nature Inside written by Penny Sparke and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how plants and flowers have shaped interior design for over 200 years From ferns in 19th-century British parlors to contemporary "living walls" in commercial spaces, plants and flowers have long been incorporated into the design of public and private spaces. Spanning two centuries, Nature Inside explores the history and popularity of indoor plants, revealing the close relationship between architecture, interior design, and nature. Studying the international modern interior through the lens of plants in the human environment, author Penny Sparke attributes a degree of the interest in indoor plants to urbanization, and, more recently, the climate crisis, which serve as ongoing reminders that people must maintain a connection to, and respect for, the natural world. While architectural and interior design styles have evolved alongside the popularity of various plant species, the human need to bring nature indoors has remained constant.
Download or read book Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic written by Jana VanderGoot and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite population trends toward urbanization, the forest continues to have a strong appeal to the human imagination, and the human preference for forest over many other types of terrain is well documented. This book re-imagines architecture and urbanism by allowing the forest to be a prominent consideration in the language of design, thus recognizing the forest as essential rather than just incidental to human well-being. In Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic, forest is a large-scale urban construct that is far more extensive and nuanced than trees and shrubbery. The forest aesthetic opens designers to the forest as a model for an urban architecture of permeable floors, protective canopies, connected food chains, beneficial decomposition, and resilient ecologies. Much can be learned about these features of the forest from the natural sciences; however, when they are given due consideration technically and metaphorically in the design of urban habitat, the places in which humans live become living forests. What is present here in Architecture and the Forest Aesthetic is both a review of many ingenious ways in which the forest aesthetic has already been expressed in design and urbanism, and an encouragement to further use the forest aesthetic in design language and design outcomes. Case study projects featured include the Chilotan building craft of Southern Chile, the yaki sugi of Japan, the Biltmore Forest in the Southeastern United States, the Australian capital city Canberra, Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy, the Beijing Olympic Forest Park in China, and more.
Download or read book Urban Jungle written by Ben Wilson and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this exhilarating look at cities, past and future, Ben Wilson proposes that, in our world of rising seas and threatening weather, the natural world may prove the city's savior "Illuminating...Wilson leaves readers with hope about the future of efforts to preserve the ecosystems that surround us, as well as a new perspective that looks beyond the concrete and asphalt when walking along a city’s streets."—Associated Press Since the beginning of civilization, humans have built cities to wall nature out, then glorified it in beloved but quite artificial parks. In Urban Jungle Ben Wilson—the author of Metropolis, a seven-thousand-year history of cities that the Wall Street Journal called “a towering achievement”—looks to the fraught relationship between nature and the city for clues to how the planet can survive in an age of climate crisis. Whether it was the market farmers of Paris, Germans in medieval forest cities, or the Aztecs in the floating city of Tenochtitlan, pre-modern humans had an essential bond with nature. But when the day came that water was piped in and food flown from distant fields, that relationship was lost. Today, urban areas are the fastest-growing habitat on Earth and in Urban Jungle Ben Wilson finds that we are at last acknowledging that human engineering is not enough to protect us from extremes of weather. He takes us to places where efforts to rewild the city are under way: to Los Angeles, where the city’s concrete river will run blue again, to New York City, where a bleak landfill will be a vast grassland preserve. The pinnacle of this strategy will be Amsterdam: a city that is its own ecosystem, that makes no waste and produces its own energy. In many cities, Wilson finds, nature is already thriving. Koalas are settling in Brisbane, wild boar may raid your picnic in Berlin. Green canopies, wildflowers, wildlife: the things that will help cities survive, he notes, also make people happy. Urban Jungle offers the pleasures of history—how backyard gardens spread exotic species all over the world, how war produces biodiversity—alongside a fantastic vision of the lush green cities of our future. Climate change, Ben Wilson believes, is only the latest chapter in the dramatic human story of nature and the city.
Download or read book Alain Elkann Interviews written by and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alain Elkann has mastered the art of the interview. With a background in novels and journalism, and having published over twenty books translated across ten languages, he infuses his interviews with innovation, allowing them to flow freely and organically. Alain Elkann Interviews will provide an unprecedented window into the minds of some of the most well-known and -respected figures of the last twenty-five years.
Download or read book Small Space Revolution written by Tayshan Hayden-Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Create green outdoor spaces no matter how small and see how transformative they can be. Gardener and activist Tayshan Hayden Smith demonstrates 20 different practical projects you can create to positively change small outdoor spaces and pulls out inspiration from a variety of successful community gardens around the world. Tayshan's practical advice will help you make the most of your projects, with easy-to-follow steps and photography alongside inspiring examples of how simple garden projects-on even the smallest scale and budget-can open the doors to better well-being, uniting communities and reviving natural spaces to help create the greener future we're all fighting for. Reconnect with the outdoor space around you-perhaps start growing your own food or build a learning bed to educate children (and even adults) about the soil beneath their feet. Begin to reimagine how even the smallest of spaces can be green and living-transform a drainpipe into the perfect trellis for a climbing clematis or construct a pollinator wall out of repurposed tin cans to support local wildlife. Tayshan underpins all his practical takeaways with inspiring manifestos on why we need to improve small spaces, the environmental benefits for nature, and the wider issues around connections with growing and greening space. He also emphasizes the importance of recycling and reusing, both for the environment and keeping costs down. Most importantly, his message is clear: Everyone can play their part in creating green spaces to benefit us as individuals, communities, and the environment, too.
Download or read book The Vertical City written by K. Al-Kodmany and published by WIT Press. This book was released on 2018-06-25 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each century has its own unique approach toward addressing the problem of high density and the 21st century is no exception. As cities try to cope with rapid population growth - adding 2.5 billion dwellers by 2050 - and grapple with destructive sprawl, politicians, planners and architects have become increasingly interested in the vertical city paradigm. Unfortunately, cities all over the world are grossly unprepared for integrating tall buildings, as these buildings may aggravate multidimensional sustainability challenges resulting in a “vertical sprawl” that could have worse consequences than “horizontal” sprawl. By using extensive data and numerous illustrations this book provides a comprehensive guide to the successful and sustainable integration of tall buildings into cities. A new crop of skyscrapers that employ passive design strategies, green technologies, energy-saving systems and innovative renewable energy offers significant architectural improvements. At the urban scale, the book argues that planners must integrate tall buildings with efficient mass transit, walkable neighbourhoods, cycling networks, vibrant mixed-use activities, iconic transit stations, attractive plazas, well-landscaped streets, spacious parks and engaging public art. Particularly, it proposes the Tall Building and Transit Oriented Development (TB-TOD) model as one of the sustainable options for large cities going forward. Building on the work of leaders in the fields of ecological and sustainable design, this book will open readers’ eyes to a wider range of possibilities for utilizing green, resilient, smart, and sustainable features in architecture and urban planning projects. The 20 chapters offer comprehensive reading for all those interested in the planning, design, and construction of sustainable cities.
Download or read book Flow written by Penny Sparke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flow combines cutting-edge scholarship with practitioner perspectives to address the concept of 'flow' and how it connects interiors, landscapes and buildings, expanding on traditional notions of architectural prominence. Contributors explore the transitional and intermediary relationships between inside/outside. Through a range of case studies, authors extend the notion of flow beyond the western industrialised world and embrace a wider geography while engaging with the specificity of climate and place. Accompanied by stunning colour illustration and photography, Flow brings together historical, theoretical and practice-based approaches to consider themes of nature, mobility, continuity and frames.
Download or read book Handbook of Research on Form and Morphogenesis in Modern Architectural Contexts written by D'Uva, Domenico and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As architectural designs continue to push boundaries, there is more exploration into the bound shape of architecture within the limits of spaces made for human usability and interaction. The Handbook of Research on Form and Morphogenesis in Modern Architectural Contexts provides emerging research on the process of architectural form-finding as an effort to balance perceptive efficiency with functionality. While highlighting topics such as architectural geometry, reverse modeling, and digital fabrication, this book details the geometric process that forms the shape of a building. This publication is a vital resource for scholars, IT professionals, engineers, architects, and business managers seeking current research on the development and creation of architectural design.
Download or read book The Urban Condition written by Ghent Urban Studies Team and published by 010 Publishers. This book was released on 1999 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the Western city at the end of the twentieth century look like? How did the modern metropolis of congestion and density turn into a posturban or even postsuburban cityscape? What are edge cities and technoburbs? How has the social composition of cities changed in the postwar era? What do gated communities tell us about social fragmentation? Is public space in the contemporary city being privatized and militarized? How can the urban self still be defined? What role does consumer aestheticism have to play in this? These and many more questions are addressed by this uniquely conceived multidisciplinary study. The Urban Condition seeks to interfere in current debates over the future and interpretation of our urban landscapes by reuniting studies of the city as a physical and material phenomenon and as a cultural and mental (arte)fact. The Ghent Urban Studies Team responsible for the writing and editing of this volume is directed by Kristiaan Versluys and Dirk De Meyer at the University of Ghent, Belgium. It is an interdisciplinary research team of young academics that further consists of Kristiaan Borret, Bart Eeckhout, Steven Jacobs, and Bart Keunen. The collective expertise of GUST ranges from architectural theory, urban planning, and art history to philosophy, literary criticism and cultural theory.
Download or read book House Plants written by Mike Maunder and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2022-08-04 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the economics, science, and cultural significance of houseplants, a many-tendrilled history of our domestic, pot-bound companions. Our penchant for keeping houseplants is an ancient practice dating back to the Pharaohs. House Plants explores the stories behind the plants we bring home and how they were transformed from wild plants into members of our households. A billion-dollar global industry, house plants provide interaction with nature and contribute to our health, happiness, and well-being. They also support their own miniature ecosystems and are part of the home biome. Featuring many superb illustrations, House Plants explores both their botanical history and cultural impact, from song (Gracie Fields’s “Biggest Aspidistra in the World”), literature (Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying), and cinema (Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors) to fashion, technology, contemporary design, and painting.
Download or read book Who Is the City For written by Blair Kamin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-11-21 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vividly illustrated collaboration between two of Chicago’s most celebrated architecture critics casts a wise and unsparing eye on inequities in the built environment and attempts to rectify them. From his high-profile battles with Donald Trump to his insightful celebrations of Frank Lloyd Wright and front-page takedowns of Chicago mega-projects like Lincoln Yards, Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin’s newest collection, Who Is the City For?, does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past decade: it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin’s former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times. Together, they paint a revealing portrait of Chicago that reaches beyond its glamorous downtown and dramatic buildings by renowned architects like Jeanne Gang to its culturally diverse neighborhoods, including modest structures associated with storied figures from the city’s Black history, such as Emmett Till. At the book’s heart is its expansive approach to a central concept in contemporary political and architectural discourse: equity. Kamin argues for a broad understanding of the term, one that prioritizes both the shared spaces of the public realm and the urgent need to rebuild Black and brown neighborhoods devastated by decades of discrimination and disinvestment. “At best,” he writes in the book’s introduction, “the public realm can serve as an equalizing force, a democratizing force. It can spread life’s pleasures and confer dignity, irrespective of a person’s race, income, creed, or gender. In doing so, the public realm can promote the social contract — the notion that we are more than our individual selves, that our common humanity is made manifest in common ground.” Yet the reality in Chicago, as Who Is the City For? powerfully demonstrates, often falls painfully short of that ideal.
