with some 600 photos and 4000 drawings and plans, the Timber Construction Manual is a comprehensive and indispensable reference work in the specialist literature on timber. It looks at all types of timber and timber materials, also presenting detailed information on the current norms and standards. Chapters cover the basic principles of working with timber, providing detailed information on subjects such as heat, noise insulation, fire protection treatment. The significance of timber with particular reference to ecology is also investigated. Timber as a load-bearing material is considered, and topics such as new methods of joining, transport and montage are documented. The second part of the volume presents a large number of built examples which feature some "classic" structures but focus chiefly on more recent buildings. The spectrum presented ranges from heavy-load bridges to multi-storey residential buildings. The second part of the examples looks specifically at topics such as facades, building skins etc.

This book provides an intellectual history of the modernist "minimum dwelling", exploring how early modernism saw mass housing as a primary vehicle for achieving the utopian transformation of society. It reappraises the often-overlooked 2nd and 3rd CIAM conferences (1929-31), addressing their engagement with the "minimum dwelling" and revealing them both as milestones in the organisation's annals and as seminal moments in the history of interwar modernism. In 1929, an eclectic international group of avant-garde modernist architects, including Ernst May, Mart Stam, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, met in Frankfurt for the second instalment of the CIAM conferences. They discussed a design programme for cost-effective, good-quality housing, seeking new approaches and processes to maximize quality and functionality while ensuring affordability for the wider population. In exploring the meaning and form of the 'minimum dwelling', they also re-defined dwelling as the hub of a new way of living, proposing a revolutionary multi-scalar approach to urban design based on the concept of the Existenzminimum ('optimally minimal housing'). Despite the two conferences falling short of the organizer's expectations, and being overshadowed by later instalments, the participating architects sanctioned a semantic shift from minimum as bare necessity to a very different, aspirational, kind of minimalism – transforming the entire conversation on mass low-cost dwelling in design, social and ethical terms. Split into two parts, The Minimum Dwelling Revisited first takes a genealogical approach to explore the provenance of the concept of "minimum dwelling" prior to the 2nd and 3rd CIAM conferences, it then traces the proceedings of the two conferences themselves. Addressing the origins of the "minimum dwelling" concept but also its legacies, and serving as a corrective to the overemphasis on 4th CIAM conference and the Athens Charter, the book is essential reading for scholars researching urban design during the Interwar period.

Die Schwarze Spinne is a religious allegory about morals and religious living in the mid-nineteenth century, written by Jeremias Gotthelf. This work is an interlinear translation of Gotthelf's Die Schwarze Spinne with introductions to both the author and the work itself. In a small Swiss community, a baptism is the backdrop for a village elder to tell the story of his family and their life and death struggle with the devil himself. The elder relates the story of a knight and his ill treatment of the farmers of the area. The knight's inhuman demands upon the peasants bring about unforeseen consequences, which lead to the decimation of the village and, ultimately, the knight's own death. The plague released through a pact with the devil, the black spider, haunts the village for hundreds of years and must be fought with religious piety, courage, and devotion to traditional values. It is when one forgets God and his commandments that the black spider is at its most deadly. A true tale of morality written by a pastor in 1842, The Black Spider serves as a warning to those who, according to Gotthelf, go against the will of God.

Construction systems reduced to the smallest possible number of identical elements have long been used by architects to build structures as well as dismantle and change them as quickly, efficiently, and economically as possible. Think of the architecture of the nomads, the Crystal Palace designed by the architect John Paxton for the London World’s Fair of 1851, or the modern construction systems of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in steel, concrete, and wood. Coupled with modern digital planning and production methods, modular precast construction systems that are adaptable for many combinations and capable of being combined with one other will play an increasingly important role in architecture in the future. The volume Components and Systems offers an in-depth and clearly organized presentation of the various types of precast building components – from semifinished products to building with components, open and closed systems, and skeleton and panel construction all the way to spatial cell constructions. The systems are accompanied by detailed drawings and color photographs. Discussions of transporting and assembling the various systems round off the topic and make this book an indispensable practical companion. Seit jeher werden in der Architektur auf möglichst wenige, gleiche Elemente reduzierte Bausysteme verwendet, um möglichst schnell, effizient und ökonomisch ein Bauwerk errichten oder auch abbauen und verändern zu können. Man denke an die Architektur der Nomaden, den Kristallpalast, der 1851 anlässlich der in London stattfindenden Weltausstellung von dem Architekten John Paxton entworfen wurde, oder die modernen Bausysteme des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts in Stahl, Beton oder Holz. Elementierte, vorgefertigte, für viele Kombinationen anpassungsfähige und untereinander kombinierbare Systeme werden zukünftig, gekoppelt mit modernen digitalen Planungs- und Produktionsmethoden, einen immer wichtigeren Aspekt in der Architektur darstellen. Der neue Band Elemente und Systeme zeigt fundiert und übersichtlich die verschiedenen Arten vorgefertigter Bauteile auf – von Halbfabrikaten über das Bauen mit Komponenten, offenen und geschlossenen Systemen, Skelett- und Paneelbauweisen bis zu Raumzellenkonstruktionen. Ergänzt werden die Systeme durch detaillierte Zeichnungen und Farbfotos. Transport und Montage der verschiedenen Systeme runden das Thema ab und machen dieses Buch in der Praxis unverzichtbar.

The “old” material of wood has been used to construct dwellings of different types since the dawn of mankind. And not without reason. Its low density combined with high rigidity, good processability, and its resistance makes it an excellent building material. There is currently a pioneering renaissance of the timber construction, for two distinct reasons: first, wood is increasingly being rediscovered as one of the most important renewable raw materials for sustainable construction. Moreover, a revolution in the construction of timber structures began several years ago with the ever-progressive use of three-dimensional CAD models for digitally controlled robot manufacturing The book documents these developments, in particular the engineering bonding techniques, the introduction of digital production techniques, and the innovative material developments of this material. The chapter on composite structures and experimental structures specifically address trends toward the future-oriented dimensions of timber construction. In the final section, outstanding designs are documented in detail, such as the Club House of Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Course designed by Shigeru Ban in Yeoju, South Korea, and the double gymnasium in Borex-Crassier, Switzerland, by Graeme Mann and Patricia Capua Mann.

The complex and shifting relation between regionalism and modernity With its search for purity, honesty, modesty, and ‘fitness of purpose', the late 19th and early 20th century concept of architectural regionalism is seminal to the modern movement. In later historiography, however, regionalism in Europe was neglected and even labeled ‘backward'. The origins of this drastic change of perception can be traced to the 1930s, when regionalism as a positive form gradually turned into a ‘closed' form of regionalism, a folding back on one's own region as a defence mechanism in an economically and politically turbulent decade.