Jeanne Gang, one of America’s most distinguished contemporary architects, proposes applying the plant cultivation technique of grafting to architecture and urban design as a way of rethinking adaptive reuse and combatting climate change. Grafting is the process of connecting two separate living plants—one old and one new—so they can grow and thrive as one. This ancient practice continues to be performed today in search of more fruitful, palatable, and resilient varieties of plants. Grafting is also a useful paradigm for how architecture can address climate change on a broadly impactful scale by reusing and expanding older structures. Addressing both the environmental and cultural value of reuse, Gang shows how the concept of grafting can inform architecture across many scales, provoking the imagination and shaping tectonic, programmatic, formal, and regenerative adaptations.

Originally built for the 1962 World’s Fair, the Space Needle quickly became an international icon of the Pacific Northwest and a symbol of Seattle. At the time of its construction, the tower pointed the way toward the future with a sense of optimism, possibility, and invention. In its 55th year, the Space Needle is again representing an enhanced future with the Century Project, a holistic renovation of the upper levels led by Olson Kundig that repositions the iconic tower for its next fifty years. New Heights: Transforming Seattle’s Iconic Space Needle documents this latest chapter of the Space Needle’s story with an in-depth look at the innovations, challenges, and triumphs realized by the client and project team, as seen through the eyes of the architects.

A hundred miles north of San Francisco, the Sonoma County coast meets the Pacific Ocean in a magnificent display of nature. This is the location of The Sea Ranch, an area covering several thousand acres of large, open meadows and forested natural settings interspersed with award-winning architecture. The ecologically inspired plan drawn up for The Sea Ranch in the mid-1960s caused a quiet revolution in architecture. Renowned landscape designer Lawrence Halprin's master plan incorporated a set of building guidelines that structured the visual as well as physical impact upon the landscape. Subsequent buildings by architects such as Joseph Esherick, Charles Willard Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, and William Turnbull have been recognized worldwide for their remarkable environmental sensitivity. This revised and updated edition of the now-classic monograph, the only one on the Sea Ranch, contains eleven additional projects and an updated account of the ongoing development process and land management issues.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the open-air playground was a social laboratory. Innovative, wacky, educational, and exciting playground designs emerged in European and American cities, as well as elsewhere around the world: artists, landscape designers, architects, and activists sought to provide children with the best possible place to play, while also reimagining cities and communities. First published in 2018, The Playground Project instantly became a classic. This much-expanded new edition brings back the wealth of ideas of that period to inspire us today. It offers many previously unpublished images, numerous new portraits, especially of female protagonists of the time, as well as findings from the latest research on playground design. An incisive introductory essay places the playground at the intersections of education, architecture, urban politics, design history, and leisure policy. A detailed focus is placed on the forgotten history of playgrounds in the former German Democratic Republic. Moreover, young researchers explore the culture of memory surrounding the Shek Lei Playground in Hong Kong, and the role that playgrounds played in the process of state-building in Mexico. The book is a tribute to play in public spaces and a rich source for architects, designers, students, children, and political actors.

Pierre Chareau, aménagements et architecture is an unprecedented synthesis of almost 80 interior architecture projects (1908-1938), both private and public, and his architectural projects (1925-1950). It reveals the evolution of Pierre Chareau’s approach to interior design, from his beginnings as a decorator integrating his furniture into existing spaces, to the advent, over the course of his projects, of a resolutely architectural approach to space, in which furniture comes to life and becomes architecture in its own right. Listing all of these projects, it provides a detailed, illustrated analysis of twenty-five of them, most of which were commissioned by three families: the Dalsaces, the Bernheims and the Dreyfus. This second volume reveals the designer’s long-term commitment to architecture. It looks back at his involvement in the CIAM, the Société des architectes modernes and the Rassemblement des architectes, as well as his collaboration with the magazine L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui. It offers a critical analysis of Pierre Chareau’s work as an architect, deciphering the 13 projects he worked on in France from 1923 to 1938, and in the United States from 1945 to 1950, from Djemil Anik’s cottage to Robert Motherwell’s studio in East Hampton. Finally, this book offers an in-depth analysis of the Glass House. By drawing up a portrait of Jean Dalsace and his wife Annie, it helps us to understand the central role played by those who commissioned the project. It looks back at the architectural and societal context of the time, explaining the importance of light and hygiene in the Maison de verre. The building site and its vicissitudes are described, followed by a description of the main principles behind the design of the house, and an analysis of its volumes and spaces. Text in French.

If you are staying home, you will need a place. This is a a very cool collection of Home Office, in the best of a design sense. Twenty-five extraordinary new projects, from Mill Valley to London, from Vienna to Madrid, from Brooklyn to Kanagawa - all intent to make clear the precise genius of design. How grand, to see these projects, of such optimism, and invention, the best of materials brought right to the edge. Stay home, at least for the moment. Rizzoli, 2024. Hardcover, 304pp., 7.5x10 inches

This instalment of ‘Archives’ features Mexican architect Mauricio Rocha. Born into a family that enabled him to look at the world through different disciplines, he attended one of the most politically progressive schools and has spent his entire life in the company of photographers, sculptors, musicians, artists, and architects. This upbringing is reflected in Rocha’s work today, from his early association with Gabriel Orozco to his later interest in Gordon Matta-Clark. This volume presents a total of eleven works completed between 2009 and 2023, including the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City, the Fábrica de San Pedro Cultural Center in Michoacán, and the School of Plastic Arts in Oaxaca. 396 p, ills colour & bw, 17x24 cm, pb, Spanish/Portuguese/English

Edited by Jane Withers Studio, Social Sauna – Bathing and Wellbeing presents a new perspective on global sauna culture, ritual and design. By defining the sauna’s essence and exploring how this practice is evolving for the 21st century, the authors reveal how sauna is a deeply social practice that can offer renewed benefits for health, wellbeing, and community. Social Sauna explores sauna culture from ancient global traditions of steam bathing through to modern experimental sauna practices. The publication reveals the important role that design plays in creating spaces that contribute to wellbeing. With examples such as the Bathing Culture sauna in Gothenburg by architects raumlabor, the Agora sauna created for the nomadic SALT festival and Steam of Life by JKMM Architects for Burning Man Festival. Creatives such as Bauhaus Sauna Society observe sauna traditions and stage sauna lectures and workshops, developing their own rituals with a deep respect for the vernacular spirit. Therme Group/ Jane Withers Studio, Softcover, 160 x 230 mm, 126pp

Emilio Tuñón and Carlos Martínez de Albornoz have been working together since 2004, when the latter joined the practice of Mansilla + Tuñón. This monographic issue concentrates on their evolution, featuring numerous recent projects across a diverse range of typologies, from museums and concert halls to a health science facility, a winery, and houses, plus a conversation with the Madrid-based architects and illuminating essays. 360 p, ills colour & bw, 25 x 34 cm, pb, Spanish/English

Studio Mumbai, founded by Indian architect Bijoy Jain (born 1965), is composed of architects and craftsmen who design and build each project themselves using local resources. From December 2023 to April 2024, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain welcomed Jain and his studio to design an exhibition space. Inspired by the rhythm of breathing, Jain creates structures of bamboo, brick and stone, forming a meditative landscape ripe for contemplation in dialogue with Jean Nouvel’s original building. Sculptures, objects and furniture interact with artworks by Hu Liu and Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye, whom Jain invited to collaborate with him. Published in conjunction with the exhibition, the catalog, conceived as a “work in progress” of the finished space, invites readers to discover Jain’s aesthetics and philosophy. The extensively illustrated book includes Jain’s drawings, photographs of his studio and current projects. Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain, 2024. Hardcover, 11.5 x 14.25 inches.

In 1958, the architects Alison and Peter Smithson bought a derelict cottage on the Fonthill Estate in Wiltshire, southwest England. Over the next four years they transformed it into a country home for their young family and an extended experiment in the methods and materials that would shape their practice; a pavilion drawing on the tradition of the English folly, known as Upper Lawn or the Solar Pavilion. Retaining the cottage’s original stone walls and one of its chimneys, the Smithsons built what they described as ‘a simple climate house’: two open floors looking over the hills and valleys of Fonthill, where life could be lived simply and in consonance with the fluctuations of weather and seasons. The innovations developed in this private and modest home would feed into large-scale projects, such as Robin Hood Gardens housing estate, for which the Smithsons would become renowned. This publication explores the rich story of Upper Lawn’s construction and inhabitation by revisiting the small book Alison Smithson created with architect Enric Miralles in 1986. Here, the book’s contents, including diary entries, photographs, drawings, and references, are republished in full in a new design, expanded by extensive new materials from the Smithson archive. Together, these documents describe the building’s lived life, picturing it as a ledger of wear and use, a means of private and professional exploration, and a lens onto the passage of time inside and outside its walls. MACK, 2023. Softcover, 144 pages, 30 x 21 cm

142pp, 8 1/4 x 5 1/2" illustrations by Colleen Miller "There is a tradition of shopkeeping, a tradition of codes, etiquette, and customs. For the most part, it is an oral history, passed along person to person. You learn to be a retailer, not by going to college, but by going to work. You learn from people who have learned how to run a shop." The fourth book from Peter Miller, this one a manual, of sorts, to the task and art of shopkeeping. SHOPKEEPING can be pre-ordered now. It will be shipped to you the moment it is available this spring, May 7th, 2024.

A fine overview from Spain of the best new projects. The selection of 24 works reflects commitments to sustainability, materialised in buildings which use resources more efficiently. This includes refurbishments like Ombú for Acciona by Foster + Partners in Madrid and Palace-House by Tuñón & Albornoz in Cáceres. Nieto Sobejano and Alcolea, Ercilla, and Tárrago.  Each project is a celebration - of material, of light and of invention. 

Aldo and Hannie van Eyck were prominent Dutch architects in the structuralism movement. Bringing together drawings, photographs and text, this vibrant new collection features twenty four of the couple's projects. Walther König, 2023. Paperback, 160 pages, 6.5 x 9.5 inches

Monograph from DETAIL, documents 21 built projects by the Swiss office, from Royal College of Art to Prada in Tokyo. Texts and photos, drawings and illustrations, , process and construction details. cloth, 2023 4th edition, 224 pp

Steven Holl saw his first issue of DOMUS in the University of Washington Library, and he knew he would be an architect. When Domus, sixty years later, asked if he would consider being their first American guest editor, he knew he would have to say yes. Holl has produced the first five issues of Domus for 2023 - Oceanic, Questions of Perception, Urbanisms, Stochastic Thinking, Haptic Realm. For each issue, he has featured colleagues, friends, heroes, legends and titans to join his presentation. These include Doshi and Fuller, De Maria and Noguchi, Hadid and Woods, Scarpa and Kelly, many others. It is the finest collection of craftsmen, and artists, critics, philosophers, designers, the presentation of history and the current cast of this unfolding era.

37 examples, principally from nations in Europe, exploring the details and the promise of the micro-house. Brilliant solutions, in particular forms. 224 pp, full color

288pp, 2023, pub Die Gestalten, full color, 26 projects from Spain to Costa Rica, from Vancouver to Gothenburg, from France to Mexico. Includes two projects Olson/Kundig, one Rob Hutchison and MWWorks. Also Utzon's Can Lis and John Pawson.