Domestic bliss: Innovative, intimate architecture from China to Chile

Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, requirements and vision of particular personalities becomes priority. The delicate task is to translate all the emotive associations and practical requirements of "home" into a workable, constructed reality.

This publication...

Audacious futurism: The forward-thinking work of a singular architect Zaha Hadidis a wildly controversial architect, who for many years built almost nothing, despite her designs winning prizes and critical acclaim. Some even said her work was unbuildable. Yet over the past decade she has completed numerous structures including theRosenthal Center for Contemporary Artin Cincinnati (which the New York Times called the most important new building in America since the Cold War ), theMAXXI Museumin Rome, the Guangzhou Opera House, her first completed project in China, and theLondon Aquatics...

Feats of design and engineering: The work of an unparalleled architectural engineer Santiago Calatravais not only one of the world s most prominent architects, but is also an engineer, sculptor, and painter. His reputation as an unparalleled architectural engineer was cemented with hisnumerous bridges for cities around the world. With more recent projects such as the stadium for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and the railway station in Liege, Belgium, he has unarguably made his name in Europe and continues to look further ahead.Calatrava s work is closely related to his own drawings of the...

Brazilian curves: A uniquely sensual modernism in Brasilia and beyondUntil his death at age 104, Oscar Niemeyer (1907 2012) was something of an unstoppable architectural force. Over seven decades of work, he designed approximately 600 buildings, transforming skylines from Bab-Ezzouar, Algeria, to his homeland masterpiece Brasilia.Niemeyer s work took the reduced forms of modernism and infused them with free-flowing grace. In place of pared-down starkness, his structures rippled with sinuous and seductive lines. In buildings such as the Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, Edificio Copan, or the...

Saving space: Big ideas for small buildings

Over the years, talented architects have occasionally indulged themselves with the challenge of designing small but perfectly formed buildings. Today, with reduced budgets, many architects have turned in a more focused way to creating works that may be diminutive in their dimensions, but are definitely big when it comes to trendsetting ideas. Whether in Japanese cities, where large sites are hard to come by, or at the frontier between art and architecture, small buildings present many advantages,...

Timberland
The wooden structures of the 21st century

Not so very long ago, some might have considered wood a material of the past, long since replaced by more modern components such as concrete and steel. The truth is radically different. Bolstered by new manufacturing techniques and ecological benefits, wood has seen a fabulous resurgence in contemporary construction.

This Bibliotheca Universalis edition explores how architects around the world have created and invented with this elementary material. Featuring...

Japanese houses today have to contend with unique factors that condition their design, from tiny plots in crowded urban contexts to ever-present seismic threats. These challenges encourage their architects to explore alternating ideas of stability and ephemerality in various ways, resulting in spaces that are as fascinating as they are idiosyncratic. Their formal innovation and attention to materials, technology and measures to coax in light and air while maintaining domestic privacy make them cutting-edge residences that suggest new ways of being at home. Contemporary Japanese architecture...

Sprouting with fresh ideas and sunny outlooks, this compact edition brings together the best examples of contemporary green buildings today. Well-known architects like Frank Gehry and Norman Foster sit alongside young, up-and-coming creators. Each entry introduces a key project through plans, photos, and a close reading of the sustainable and...

Discover the world's finest crop of new homes. This dependable global digest features such talents as Shigeru Ban, MVRDV, and Marcio Kogan alongside up-and-comers like Xu Fu-Min, Vo Trong Nghia, Desai Chia, and Shunri Nishizawa. Organized by architect and brimming with crisp photography and plans, the result is a sweeping survey of the...