The book itself represents Morphosis's unusual method of architectural production: gatefolds and layered vellum pages echo the firm's method of generating and reshaping form throughout the design phase and even beyond--a process from which the name Morphosis is derived. Complementing this rich visual analysis, Richard Weinstein's introduction investigates the firm's work as both in and of its social context to discuss Morphosis's design process and to place the firm within today's architectural debates.

A resounding masterpiece of architectural publishing, this volume, Rizzoli's sixth on Morphosis and its founder, architect Thom Mayne, features the work of the award-winning interdisciplinary architectural and design practice over the past fourteen years. Known for its architecture of complexity, disruption, and ambiguity, Morphosis is on the cutting edge of exploration and discovery in design. Sometimes on the border of controversy with daring vision and provocative large-scale urban projects, the firm continually invites us to question what architecture is and can be while remaining sensitive to its central purpose--to provide safe, sheltering spaces for life, work, and play. This book documents the great variety of the firm's creations across the globe, a new academic building for the Cooper Union in New York, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Texas, the Casablanca Finance City Tower in Morocco, and the Sejong M-Bridge, in Sejong City, South Korea. Like the architecture of this trailblazing firm, the book is an exhilarating demonstration of visual excitement, bold graphics, and innovative design.

Morphosis/Diamond Ranch High School presents a detailed story of the design and construction of a single building, Diamond Ranch High School by avant-garde California architecture firm Morphosis. The volume opens with an interview with Thom Mayne, founder and principal of Morphosis and winner of the 2005 Pritzker Prize. The interview outlines Mayne's working methods and chronicles his development as an architect from his years as a student through the realization of such influential projects as the widely published Crawford House. The presentation of Diamond Ranch High School, a state-of-the-art public school in Pomona, California, offers a level of detail not normally found in architectural monographs. Here every crucial architectural decision is extensively illustrated with conceptual sketches, key working drawings, and photographs of the project under construction and after completion.

In an age flooded with gizmos and gadgets, where technology rules the roost, with Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram getting the better of all of us, where everyone seems to have less connect with people and themselves, where people lead more stressful and anxious lives – in short, a world fueling unhappiness, there is this growing need to pause and think – to realize the beauty of life and its true meaning, to experience happiness. Students these days face undue stress, be it exam pressure, peer pressure, depression or other psychological factors. Adults too need to meet deadlines and work pressure seems to be taking its toll. Happy Morphosis is the author’s attempt to take you across the boulevard in the pursuit of happiness. How we all need to work on the different facets required for everlasting bliss is what is touched upon in this book. Happiness is being talked about all over the globe. “ Universities around the world are teaching on it, scientists have been making a study of it, governments are appointing cabinet positions to oversee it, and Google analytics prove that people are searching for it. In fact, it is one of humanity’s oldest pursuits’. All of us can be catalysts to spread happiness. Are YOU the one ?

Anyone viewing what we call a landscape from a distance will recognize that it is an artifact, a habitat created by humans as part of our built environment. Designing this realm carefully is a discipline that is taking on increasing importance today. Gunter Vogt, with his practice in VOGT Landscape Architects and as a professor at ETH Zurich, has developed a set of tools and a working method that incorporate all the different dimensions of the human-designed environment, from the large-scale landscape to the small-scale urban public space.00'Mutation and Morphosis' looks at all the many aspects involved in the collective process of designing and shaping landscapes, from planning to implementation. The model as a tool and the collection as a driving force are illustrated on the basis of an astonishing variety of topics. In theoretical discussions and the examination of detailed dossiers of facts on the ground, a trajectory is traced: from the emergence of new landscapes as a result of climate change to the migration of the wolf to Central Europe, from the impact of invasive plants to the study of geological formation processes. The panorama that unfolds gives us insights into the broad context that landscape architects must consider in their work, exemplifi ed by the outstanding projects realized by VOGT.