Landscape Architecture and Design in Urban and Peri-Urban Environment
Bruce Goff
A major exploration of the work of American architect Bruce Goff, including the paintings, objects, and ephemera often overshadowed by his architectural legacy Celebrated as one of the most innovative and daring architects of the twentieth century, Bruce Goff (1904-1982) imagined a truly independent modern American architecture throughout his six-decade-long career, which began when he was just twelve years old, working as an apprentice at an architectural firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Distinguishing himself from the restrained modernism of the postwar period, Goff created single-family homes that were at once livable and adventurous, featuring radical spatial relationships, and designed fantastical large-scale commercial and industrial spaces. His architectural legacy often overshadows his equally experimental artistic career; this book explores the full sweep of Goff's creativity, which flowed between media and artistic practices. It highlights 150 objects, including architectural drawings and models; abstract paintings; and photographs, ephemera, and building fragments. Inspired by a range of cultural and artistic traditions, from Native American art to Japanese joinery and the landscapes of science fiction, Goff's work represents a unique synthesis of diverse influences. In essays on Goff's connection to the Great Plains, his distinctly queer modernist vision, and his unique genesis of the arts, this book draws critical connections between Goff's life and work. Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition Schedule: Art Institute of Chicago (December 21, 2025-March 29, 2026)
Kengo Kuma
Kengo Kuma: Substance presents more than 30 projects by acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and explores his work through the inherent qualities of six materials--wood, fabric, metal, bamboo, stone, and paper. Kengo Kuma is an acclaimed Japanese architect whose work masterfully engages architectural experimentation, traditional Japanese design, and 21st-century technology. This results in highly advanced yet beautifully simple, gentle, human-scaled buildings. Kengo Kuma: Substance, the follow up to Topography (2021), explores the work of Kengo Kuma and Associates through six materials: wood, fabric, metal, bamboo, stone, and paper. The beautifully illustrated volume presents more than 30 projects, from captivating wood pavilions, ethereal textile installations, and sculptural woven structures to abstract stone fountains, aluminum chain screens, and monumental wood-and-steel bridges. The featured projects are from around the world and range in typology and scale. Highlights include the Taoist temple in Shinpu; Kusugibashi bridge in Yamaguchi; Ephemeral Tent in Shanghai; Namako pavilion for Design Canberra Festival; a bamboo tea house in China; and the Wakuni Shoten tobacco store in Tokyo; among many others. Each project is illustrated with exquisite imagery that showcases how Kuma's architectural designs are conceived and crafted to reveal the inherent qualities of the materials. As Kuma continues to forge a new design language, he offers readers insight into how he has engaged with different materials to further progress his ideas and advance the world of architecture and design.
Restoring America
Exploring how the New Deal shaped history through politically driven commemoration During the Great Depression, Americans employed historic preservation as a tool to address the political, economic, and social upheavals of the era. Inspired by the Roosevelt administration's unprecedented support of federal arts projects, US politicians, architects, laborers, artisans, and local boosters skillfully used New Deal funds to restore, mythologize, and politicize the "historic shrines" in their communities. Restoring America illustrates how and why Americans turned to historic preservation as a strategy for managing both political realities and ambitions. Stephanie Gray presents four thoroughly researched and diverse case studies: a colonial theater in the Deep South, a Puritan minister's home in New England, aviator Charles Lindbergh's modest farmhouse and parklands of the Upper Midwest, and a multi-layered Spanish-German-Mexican arts village in the Central South. Collectively, these examples show how the restoration of old places emerged as a popular form of cultural production, an instrument of economic reconstruction, and a striking expression of political theater during the Depression. Moreover, these New Deal preservation projects make evident that any exercise in physically preserving the past is both conservative and progressive, reactive and proactive. Restoring America contends that the federally funded and locally driven preservation initiatives of the 1930s and 1940s can help inform contemporary public history debates over the politics of commemoration and imagine possibilities for future preservation practice.
Tailored Interiors
Interior designer Patrick Sutton's highly anticipated second book, Tailored Interiors, explores his distinctive storytelling approach to crafting bespoke homes specially for his clients and their lives. In this follow up to Storied Interiors (2018), interior designer Patrick Sutton presents seven beautiful and unique residences. Taking a deep dive into Sutton's distinctive approach, acclaimed author Vicky Lowry tells the story of each home and how listening to his clients has inherently shaped the design. The seven homes, located in Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Wyoming, run the gamut from a crisply furnished, minimalist countryside retreat and a classic yet contemporary seaside estate, to a historic house given new life with striking furnishings and seductive colors, and a property in Jackson Hole with a pared-down aesthetic rather than the typical trappings of the American West. While Sutton's objectives for every project might be similar--discovering the 'story' to help him craft a design that is influenced by the location, history, and his clients--he is adept at working in a variety of styles, with an approach that remains fluid and open-minded. Each project in Tailored Interiors is illustrated with gorgeous photography and accompanied by a narrative about the client, their aspirations, and Sutton's compassionate approach to the design. It is through vision and empathy that Sutton creates such rich, meaningful, and liveable interiors and helps his clients achieve their dreams.
The Line
Take a journey along The Line, East London's innovative outdoor art trail featuring world-renowned contemporary artistsThe Line has transformed East London's urban landscape into a dynamic cultural corridor. Spanning nearly 8 kilometres (4.8 miles), the outdoor public art trail features monumental sculptures, intimate installations, and an evolving programme, offering a world-class contemporary art experience on a free and daily basis. Celebrating The Line's 10th anniversary, The Line: Public Art in East London replicates the unique experience of exploring its groundbreaking public art programme. Across more than 200 pages, readers will journey through the iconic neighbourhoods of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, The O2 arena, and the waterways that connect three London boroughs. This beautifully illustrated book presents work by 35 international artists, including Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Thomas J Price, Rasheed Araeen, Rana Begum, and Helen Cammock. More than 150 colour photographs - from eye-level images of the installations to spectacular aerial drone shots - contextualize The Line's natural and industrial environs, creating an immersive homage to this inspiring public art walk.
California Crazy. American Pop Architecture. 45th Ed.
At the dawn of the automobile age, Americans' predilection for wanderlust prompted a new wave of inventive entrepreneurs to cater to this new mode of transportation. Starting in the 1920s, attention-grabbing buildings began to appear that would draw in passing drivers for snacks, provisions, souvenirs, or a quick meal. The architectural establishment of the day dismissed these roadside buildings as "monstrosities". Yet, they flourished, especially along America's Sunbelt, and in particular, in Southern California, as proprietors indulged their creative impulses in the form of giant, eccentric constructions -- from owls, dolls, pigs, and ships, to coffee pots and fruit. Their symbolic intent was guileless, yet they were marginalized by history. But, over the past 40 years, California's architectural anomalies have regained their integrity, and are now being celebrated in this freshly revised compendium of buildings, California Crazy. Brimming with the best examples of this architectural genre, California Crazy includes essays exploring the influences that fostered the nascent architectural movement, as well as identifying the unconventional landscapes and attitudes found on Los Angeles and Hollywood roadsides which allowed these buildings to flourish in profusion. In addition, California Crazy features David Gebhard's definitive essay, which defined this vernacular movement almost forty years ago. The California Crazy concept is expanded to include domestic architecture, eccentric signage, and the automobile as a fanciful object.
Rewriting Alberti
A fresh, groundbreaking analysis of renowned Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti's five built works, suggesting a new relationship of form to meaning. Much has been written about Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti's mantra of part-to-whole as one of the continuing conditions of architecture. While this underlying thesis has often been repeated in the annals of architectural history and theory, architects have rarely questioned the idea. In Rewriting Alberti, architect Peter Eisenman suggests, however, that Alberti provoked a radical discourse beyond the part-to-whole dialogue featured in his Ten Books of Architecture. Eisenman's in-depth analysis of Alberti's five built works reveals a disjunction between the architect's buildings and theoretical writings, suggesting a new relationship of form to meaning based on the fragmentation of homogeneous space. Rewriting Alberti includes contributions by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Mario Carpo, and Daniel Sherer. Carpo, an architectural historian and critic, theorizes that Alberti's work initiated an idea of the discipline as a notational system akin to contemporary computational logics. By way of comparison, Sherer, an architectural historian, reconsiders critic Manfredo Tafuri's readings of Alberti, and architect and theorist Aureli draws on Alberti to propose another idea of the architectural "project." Here, in one book are four different discourses (and more than 60 drawings) that look back at the origins of architectural signs and semiology and forward to understand the way that history informs architecture today.
Can PMMs in IDAs be of Interest to Local Interventionist Agencies in Sub-Saharan Africa
Olle Lundberg
A monograph on the work of San Francisco architect Olle Lundberg, with a foreword by Andy Goldsworthy. Lundberg Design is an award-winning architectural firm based in the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco. Founded by Olle Lundberg in 1987, the studio focuses on the notion of craft--the unique piece or project handmade for just that client--and the use of recycled materials and objects. This illuminating book traces Lundberg's personal and architectural journey, from his experience as a young University of Virginia student to becoming the go-to architect for the Bay Area's digital elite, in addition to his obsession with materials and how his studio pushes them to their limits. Explore these lush, photo-rich pages to read Lundberg's personal narrative, take a deep dive into his preferred material palettes--metal, stone, glass, wood, and objects--and learn about the planning and execution of five outstanding projects: Rolling Wall Museum Curly's Cove Lava House on the Big Island of Hawaii Dog Leg House at Pebble Beach Lundberg's Northern California cabin A beautifully crafted architectural design book, Olle Lundberg offers inspiration and insight into the discipline for creative professionals, students, and design enthusiasts passionate about environmentally responsible and highly personal residential and commercial design. FOREWORD BY NOTED ARTIST: Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist known for site-specific works created outdoors from natural materials. His acclaimed work resides in both the land art and environmental art movements and can be found across the United States and Europe. AWARD-WINNING ARCHITECT: Lundberg Design has won many awards throughout its many years of operation, including The Architect's Newspaper (AN) Best of Practice Award (2024), UVA's Distinguished Alumni Award (2023), AN's Best of Design Award (2022), and Eater Awards Design of the Year (2019). DESIGN MEDIA FEATURES: From stunning private homes and hotels to corporate spaces and restaurants, including San Francisco's famous The Slanted Door, Bluestem Brasserie, and Presidio Social Club, Lundberg Design's projects have been published extensively in the design media, in such publications as the San Francisco Chronicle, Elle Decor, Interior Design, Dwell, Marie Claire Maison, Fortune, Fast Company, and Architectural Digest, among many others. Perfect for: Architecture professionals, students, and graduates Home design enthusiasts Environmental art and design professionals San Francisco Bay Area residents and visitors Fans of architecture coffee table books like Tom Kundig: Houses, DISC Interiors, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Escapology
Cottagecore
Explore the timeless charm of rural homes reimagined for modern living.In an age where cities swell and hum with endless demands, a quiet exodus is unfolding. Fueled by a yearning to escape the pressures of modern life, a new generation trades urban density for open skies, slower rhythms, and homes shaped by something more intentional.Though rooted in rural settings, these spaces carry the imprint of their inhabitants' cultivated sensibilities -- expressions of a design language shaped by urban influences. Tethered to their historic bones and quirks, they demand a reconsideration of what it means to live and occupy space -- revealing themselves far more beguiling than ideal.Cottagecore ventures into the heart of the Cottagecore lifestyle, assembling a portrait of interiors crafted by urban exiles with a knack for making even the most die-hard city dwellers dream of staking their claim to a quiet patch of land.
The Greenwich
The first monograph on The Greenwich, designed by the Uruguayan Rafael Vi簽oly, an opulent residential building in New York's most iconic architectural neighborhood. Downtown Manhattan, with its classical limestone facades and monolithic super-towers, has always been one of New York's most iconic architectural neighborhoods. In recent years, it has also become a high-level residential area. Enter The Greenwich, a huge real estate investment from Italian building company Bizzi & Partners, designed by Rafael Vi簽oly Architects. The architect's iconic work has included prestigious buildings in New York, from 432 Park to the Ritz-Carlton and Jazz at Lincoln Center. With The Greenwich, the firm has created a sophisticated modern landmark. The Greenwich's eighty-eight stories include different-sized apartments--from studios to three-bedrooms--flooded with abundant natural light and providing a range of skyline views. On the uppermost levels, floating 800 feet in the sky, over 15,000 square feet of amenities are available to every resident, creating an elevated members-club-like atmosphere. The sixteenth floor expands on the offerings with an additional 7,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor features. This monograph for lovers of contemporary architecture, edited by Philip Jodidio, includes interviews with Vi簽oly and original material provided by his studio, with drawings and plans, a stunning photo shoot of the finished building by Evan Joseph, and an informative introduction by New York author Malika Leiper.
Fougeron Architecture
Throughout her distinguished, award-winning practice, Anne Fougeron has remained clear: architecture can change lives, and everyone deserves access to design's transformative potential. Since founding her eponymous firm in 1986, Fougeron has continuously expanded the reach of design excellence. Working with her small team, she crafts a diverse body of work united by her vision of humane modernism, architecture that engages the full range of people's lives and society's fundamental responsibilities in the language of today. Whether transforming a historic building into a vibrant nonprofit hub or weaving much needed affordable housing into a burgeoning downtown district, her designs reflect her deep embrace of architecture's larger social and environmental promise. This book explores Fougeron's practice and architectural career, featuring critical texts, in-depth examinations of the firm's most acclaimed projects, and stunning photography, diagrams, and graphic design.
The Art & Science of Building Documentation
For over 20 years, Existing Conditions have helped professionals in the building industry implement solutions to some of the hardest problems they face, providing building documentation of superior quality - on-time and on-budget. Their experienced team upholds the highest standards for project planning and execution. The firm has scanned and modeled everything from Massachusetts General Hospital to Harvard Medical School, from the US Capitol to Carnegie Hall. Time and time again, their services have proven to save their clients time and money. Existing Conditions' core business is the creation of existing conditions surveys, drawings, and building information models. A veteran-owned firm, they document over 50 million square feet of space per year. By using the latest laser scanning technologies, proprietary workflows, and a highly trained staff, they have built an expansive portfolio of more than 10,000 buildings over the past 25 years. This book looks back over a quarter of a century of architectural expertise, documenting the firm's work on iconic and eye-catching buildings and demonstrating how valuable its staff's expertise in the field can be for architects, developers and individual clients.
Don't Build, Rebuild
In a time of climate crisis and housing shortages, a bold, visionary call to replace current wasteful construction practices with an architecture of reuse As climate change has escalated into a crisis, the reuse of existing structures is the only way to even begin to preserve our wood, sand, silicon, and iron, let alone stop belching carbon monoxide into the air. Our housing crisis means that we need usable buildings now more than ever, but architect and critic Aaron Betsky shows that new construction--often seeking to maximize profits rather than resources, often soulless in its feel--is not the answer. Whenever possible, it is better to repair, recycle, renovate, and reuse--not only from an environmental perspective, but culturally and artistically as well. Architectural reuse is as old as civilization itself. In the streets of Europe, you can find fragments from the Roman Empire. More recently, marginalized communities from New York to Detroit--queer people looking for places to gather or cruise, punks looking to make loud music, artists and displaced people looking for space to work and live--have taken over industrial spaces created then abandoned by capitalism, forging a unique style in the process. Their methods--from urban mining to dumpster diving--now inform architects transforming old structures today. Betsky shows us contemporary imaginative reuse throughout the world: the Mexican housing authority transforming concrete slums into well-serviced apartments; the MassMOCA museum, built out of old textile mills; the squatted city of Christiana in Copenhagen, fashioned from an old army base; Project Heidelberg in Detroit. All point towards a new circular economy of reuse, built from the ashes of the capitalist economy of consumption.
Dado Castello Branco
A celebration of the renowned Brazilian architecture and interior design firm, Dado Castello Branco Arquitetura e Interiores, showcasing the practice's signature style and sophisticated approach. Across Brazil and around the world, the elegant and meticulously crafted spaces designed by the firm Dado Castello Branco Arquitetura e Interiores are known for blending functionality with aesthetic allure. These places--residences, apartments, and villas, all in the signature style the firm has honed since its founding in S瓊o Paulo in the early 1990s--are brought to cinematic life by Brazilian artistic director and visual artist Ricardo van Steen. In these pages, van Steen stages a visual journey through four key elements of the company's sophisticated design vision: He considers light as medium and muse, almost a character in the drama of each living, breathing space. He attends to matter, meaning the very materials of wood, copper, stone, fabric, and glass through which Dado's designs achieve their richness and authenticity. He turns to the horizon, an essential feature that opens up perspectives and creates visual intrigue, serving as a metaphorical guide to the soul of the space. And he closes with art, paying tribute to Dado Castello Branco's lifelong passion for the artists who inspire him and the art objects whose presence enhances these meticulous interiors. This richly illustrated publication brings us into these worlds of drama and elegance with exclusive photography and a profound consideration of the legacy of this legendary firm.
Luis Bustamante
The world's first illustrated monograph showcasing the sophisticated, eclectic, and classical interior designs of the visionary Madrid-based studio of Luis Bustamante. Whether designing lavish private homes, popular hotels, or notable public buildings, Luis Bustamante is known for creating warmth and elegance in a fresh modernist style. Combining classical and contemporary aesthetics, Bustamante approaches each project with a holistic sensibility, considering every aspect--from the use of color to the choice of art and antiques, books, and bar counters. The concept of the space, the look of the facade, the landscaping, and of course every detail of the interiors all combine in what has become the signature style of this visionary designer. The richly illustrated volume displays an array of international projects and provides an exclusive glimpse into Bustamante's world, including never-before-seen images that expand our understanding of his life's work.
Bookverse
Bookverse: X+Living Architecture and Interior Design tells the story of how the groundbreaking architect, designer and founder of X+Living, Li Xiang, revolutionized bookstores across China. Beginning with the now legendary Zhongshuge Bookstore in Shanghai, this bilingual edition in English and Chinese takes readers on a thrilling journey through dozens of stunning bookstores built over the past couple of decades all across China, showing how Xiang helped to breathe new life into an industry; brick and mortar bookstores, that was in crisis. Reimagining the bookstore experience, Xiang celebrates the traditional virtues of physical books while also accommodating the modern world, creating spaces that delight and enchant avid and casual readers alike. Each featured case study, lavishly illustrated with diagrams, plans and photography, shows how Li Xiang developed the bookstores from a core concept inspired by the project's location, implementing original and stunning designs, layouts, and furniture that lead browsers into a magical world. The texts also provide a revealing insight into the architect's underlying philosophy and the thinking that went into every work.
Contemporary Interior Design. Masterpieces Around the World
Harmonizing spaces, inspiring realities: A reference, overview and source of inspiration for today's interior design, from private homes to stores, spas, restaurants, offices and more.Interior design today is versatile, ever-evolving, and open to experimentation and spontaneity. From materials and textures to light and color, shapes and lines, furniture and objects, and even stylistic references: This compendium provides an inspiring overview of the latest trends, techniques, and creative possibilities in interior design. It explores what can be achieved between floor and ceiling, within four walls - or more.Showcasing the best of today's design culture at the intersection of global trends, local traditions, and functional demands, this volume presents a carefully curated range of both private and public interior projects. Despite their diversity, all featured spaces share a common focus on authenticity, attention to detail, and a desire for personal expression.
Material Wonder
Fiona Lynch transforms the unyielding into the poetic. In her hands, the hardest materials--stone, metal, wood--become fluid, expressive, and alive. She sees worlds of possibility within them: the deep greens of forests and the shifting blues of the ocean within granite tiles, or the softness of liquid movement honed into creamy marble. What first appears as clean-lined minimalism reveals itself to be rich with layers of technique, texture and quiet complexity--spaces that evolve the longer you look, the longer you live within them.Named Design Anthology's Female Designer of the Year in 2021 and recognized by Architectural Digest Germany as one of the world's true design influencers, Fiona Lynch is renowned for her mastery of materiality and mood. Offering an intimate look at her process, where every project begins with deep research, sketching and an intuitive connection to materials, this monograph offers a rare glimpse into the visionary designer's world, where stone, metal, wood, and textiles are shaped into interiors of quiet complexity and lasting beauty.
Renato Maurizio Architekten
Founded in Maloja in 1981, the Renato Maurizio Architekten practice in the Val Bregaglia region designs buildings that are highly usable, with a strong connection to the location and great artisanal precision. Text in English and German. Founded in Maloja in 1981, the Renato Maurizio Architekten practice in the Val Bregaglia region designs buildings that are highly usable, with a strong connection to the location and great artisanal precision. The exterior and interior spaces combine with existing and new structures to form an unpretentious, harmonious unity. A prime example of the practice's work is a solid stone building from 1719 in Montaccio, Bregaglia, that interprets the Alpine building tradition in a respectful, contemporary way. Text in English and German.
Salento Dwellings
A photo book dedicated to the elegant residences of Salento, the southern area of Puglia that has become one of the most sought-after destinations internationally. Lower Salento, the so-called "heel of Italy," is a verdant plain south of Lecce overlooking two seas, the Adriatic and the Ionian. The area is strongly characterized by its territory and its color palette: the greens of the Mediterranean scrub and olive groves, the red earth, the warm shades of limestone, the dazzling white of the walls painted in lime, the intense blue of the sea, and the light of the south that envelops everything. In recent years, Salento has been discovered by an international public that understands its uniqueness and has chosen it as an ideal place for a retreat. Rural houses and old buildings have been carefully restored and transformed into private homes of great beauty. This book selects some of the most elegant and original of these: farms and historic buildings that differ in terms of their age, style, and taste, but all of which are imbued with the Mediterranean charm of that preserved corner of Puglia. All the homes have been freshly photographed by Filippo Bamberghi, with views and decorative details of the houses and glimpses of the surrounding landscape. A text by journalist Patrizia Piccinini, based on interviews with the owners of the houses, recounts the history of the buildings, the genesis of the projects, and the bond between the owners and the territory.
Disappearing Cities
Disappearing Cities is a collection of over fifty short stories of invented cities, set in the not too distant future, destroyed by varied climate change impacts and linked natural disasters. The stories bring into question the relation between the natural and unnatural forces of change and expose responses to, and lessons learnt, from different disaster crises situations. Stories also focus on how means to adapt are sought. The projected fictions are created from projected current climate facts; trends; and the author's experience of population displacement, relocation and design-based climate change responsive action. Central to the book is the recognition that to be able to respond and adapt to the scale of coming changes in the climate requires going beyond existing practical action and embracing a new way of imagining futures. Disappearing Cities aims to stimulate ways of meeting this need. The book opens with a Prologue that establishes the contextual frame of empirical foundation out of which the fictions are created. It recognises that we all live in a world in which the conditions that will result in huge numbers of cities disappearing are underway. From the human perspective, the process appears to be very slow, whereas in historico-geological time, it is happening exceptionally quickly. The number of the loss of cities is going to be huge, yet the recognition that this will occur is not arriving, In part, this is because of a lack of knowledge, but equally, it reflects a lack of imagination. Transposing what is known about climate change by a significant percentage of the societies of many nations to actual environments in which they live is just not arriving. What appears so solid and established fails to be seen and imagined as a risk and vulnerable. From establishing this opening perspective, the first part of the book presents stories of cities already disappearing as a result of the forces of nature changed by anthropogenically created global warming. Part two discusses the impacts of natural disasters being made unnaturally. For example, by the way industrial societies are damaging and changing natural systems, including the climatic. The final part goes to cities destroyed by completely un-natural means, including war. Disappearing Cities aims to contribute to meeting the need for a better understanding of, and ability to imagine, the risks to which vast numbers of cities are, and will be, exposed to forces of disappearance. To do this, the narratives are a hybrid of fact and fiction. The work was inspired by Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities and is intended to be a salient contemporary companion to this text. It mirrors its form but differs in style and content. Invisible Cities attained diverse readership, Disappearing Cities aspires to do likewise.
Disappearing Cities
Disappearing Cities is a collection of over fifty short stories of invented cities, set in the not too distant future, destroyed by varied climate change impacts and linked natural disasters. The stories bring into question the relation between the natural and unnatural forces of change and expose responses to, and lessons learnt, from different disaster crises situations. Stories also focus on how means to adapt are sought. The projected fictions are created from projected current climate facts; trends; and the author's experience of population displacement, relocation and design-based climate change responsive action. Central to the book is the recognition that to be able to respond and adapt to the scale of coming changes in the climate requires going beyond existing practical action and embracing a new way of imagining futures. Disappearing Cities aims to stimulate ways of meeting this need. The book opens with a Prologue that establishes the contextual frame of empirical foundation out of which the fictions are created. It recognises that we all live in a world in which the conditions that will result in huge numbers of cities disappearing are underway. From the human perspective, the process appears to be very slow, whereas in historico-geological time, it is happening exceptionally quickly. The number of the loss of cities is going to be huge, yet the recognition that this will occur is not arriving, In part, this is because of a lack of knowledge, but equally, it reflects a lack of imagination. Transposing what is known about climate change by a significant percentage of the societies of many nations to actual environments in which they live is just not arriving. What appears so solid and established fails to be seen and imagined as a risk and vulnerable. From establishing this opening perspective, the first part of the book presents stories of cities already disappearing as a result of the forces of nature changed by anthropogenically created global warming. Part two discusses the impacts of natural disasters being made unnaturally. For example, by the way industrial societies are damaging and changing natural systems, including the climatic. The final part goes to cities destroyed by completely un-natural means, including war. Disappearing Cities aims to contribute to meeting the need for a better understanding of, and ability to imagine, the risks to which vast numbers of cities are, and will be, exposed to forces of disappearance. To do this, the narratives are a hybrid of fact and fiction. The work was inspired by Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities and is intended to be a salient contemporary companion to this text. It mirrors its form but differs in style and content. Invisible Cities attained diverse readership, Disappearing Cities aspires to do likewise.
Br Design
BR Design was launched in 1985 to be a different type of design firm; their goals were different from many other firms by listening very carefully to their clients' desires and expectations. While some clients may complain that their "Designers don't listen," BR Design has always practiced design as a cooperative activity involving dialogue between designer and client, and especially intensive collaboration among the firm's designers. Michael Rait, ASID, founder and principal of BR Design, resembles many fellow designers in embracing aesthetics. He counts on artistic ability and sheer determination to pursue his passion.
