Born out of the drawingbuilding.org online archive, Architectural Inventions presents a stunning visual study of impossible or speculative structures that exist only on paper. Soliciting the work of architects, designers, and artists of renown –as well as emerging talents from all over the world –Maximilian Goldfarb and Matt Bua have gathered an array of works that convey architectural alternatives, through products, expansions, or critiques of our inhabited environments. From abstract and conceptual visual interpretations of structures to more traditional architectural renderings, the featured work is divided into thematic chapters, ranging from 'Adapt/Reuse' to 'Clandestine'' 'Mobile'' 'Radical Lifestyle', 'Techno-Sustainable', and 'Worship'. Along with arresting and awe-inspiring illustrated content, every chapter also features an essay exploring its respective themes. Highlighting visions that exist outside of established channels of production and conventions of design, Architectural Inventions showcases a wide scope in concept and vision, fantasy and innovation.

The power of design to create a life worth living even in a refugee camp: designs, inventions, and artworks from the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan. This book shows how, even in the most difficult conditions--forced displacement, trauma, and struggle--design can help create a life worth living. Design to Live documents designs, inventions, and artworks created by Syrian refugees living in the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan. Through these ingenious and creative innovations--including the vertical garden, an arrangement necessitated by regulations that forbid planting in the ground; a front hall, fashioned to protect privacy; a baby swing made from recycled desks; and a chess set carved from a broomstick--refugees defy the material scarcity, unforgiving desert climate, and cultural isolation of the camp. Written in close collaboration with the residents of the camp, with text in both English and Arabic, Design to Live, reflects two perspectives on the camp: people living and working in Azraq and designers reflecting on humanitarian architecture within the broader field of socially engaged art and design. Architectural drawings, illustrations, photographs, narratives, and stories offer vivid testimony to the imaginative and artful ways that residents alter and reconstruct the standardized humanitarian design of the camp--and provide models that can be replicated elsewhere. The book is the product of a three-year project undertaken by MIT Future Heritage Lab, researchers and students with Syrian refugees at the Azraq Refugee Camp, CARE, Jordan, and the German-Jordanian University. Copublication with Future Heritage Lab, MIT

This work travels the shifting terrains of architectural invention, where new spatial devices on a variety of scales - from the handheld to the inhabitable - reveal previously overlooked dimensions of the built and natural environments. From philosophical toys and ironic provocations to a room-sized kinetic mechanism that models future climates, these devices are not merely diagnostic but creative, deploying fictions as a means of exploring different futures. Exhibition: Nevada Museum of Art (13.08.2011-12.2.2012).

In the beginning, architecture was synonymous with survival. Early empires built walls to keep enemies out and to define their territory. Inventions including the arch (which was first created by the Romans) and the steel frames that support skyscrapers have elevated architecture to an art form. Inventions in Architecture: From Stone Walls to Solar Panels looks at the innovations responsible for architecture as we know it in the order they were invented. The book also demonstrates how these inventions shaped each other and how they have wider applications, including the potential to change the way we power our lives.

Michelangelo's fame as a painter and sculptor tends to eclipse his reputation as an architect, but his impact here was just as profound. In this book, Cammy Brothers takes an unusual approach to Michelangelo's architectural designs, arguing that they are best understood in terms of his experience as a painter and sculptor. By following the steps by which Michelangelo arrived at his extraordinary inventions, the author questions conventional notions of spontaneity as a function of genius. Rather, she explores the idea of drawing as a mode of thinking, using its evidence to reconstruct the process by which Michelangelo arrived at new ideas. By turning the flexibility and fluidity of his figurative drawing methods to the subject of architecture, Michelangelo demonstrated how it could match the expressive possibilities of painting and sculpture.

This inspiring and thought-provoking book explores how recent innovations in landscape architecture have uniquely positioned the practice to address complex issues and technologies that affect our built environment. The changing and expanding nature of "landscape" make it more important than ever for landscape architects to seek innovation as a critical component in the forward development of a contemporary profession that merges expansive ideas and applications. The editors bring together leading contributors who are experts in new and pioneering approaches and technologies within the fields of academic and professional landscape architecture. The chapters explore digital technology, design processes and theoretical queries that shape the contemporary practice of landscape architecture. Topics covered include: Digital design Fabrication and prototyping Emerging technology Visualization of data System theory Concluding the book are case studies looking at the work of two landscape firms (PEG and MYKD) and two academic departments (Illinois Institute of Technology and the Rhode Island School of Design), which together show the novel and exciting directions that landscape is already going in.

Comprehensive book describes how Filippo Brunelleschi built the dome of Florence's famed cathedral: masonry techniques, construction concepts, and more. 28 halftones. 18 line illustrations.