Situated on a ten-mile stretch of rugged Northern California coastline, The Sea Ranch was conceived as a retreat from urban living with connection to nature as a guiding principle. This striking book examines the development of the site's master plan and iconic early designs through sketches, drawings, and contemporary and archival photographs of its astonishing landscapes and distinctive timber-framed structures. A collection of essays that consider The Sea Ranch in relation to popular leisure destinations and within the context of the architectural history of California are accompanied by conversations with designers and others associated with the project from its inception. This book showcases the exemplary balance between land stewardship and modernist architecture that has made The Sea Ranch a model for living in harmony with nature. Exhibition: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2018 December 22-2019 April 28).

One 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 and 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.

This guide will introduce you to the vision, life, and culture that is The Sea Ranch. To help you understand our core philosophy and to give you a sense of what it is like to be part of this remarkable community, here is Living at The Sea Ranch, written in friendship by current owners.

Originally published: New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, c1974.

As the twentieth century draws to a close, the desire for communities that offer an improved quality of life - where the pedestrian is as viable as the motorist; where the architecture is varied, human-scaled, and responsive to its environment; where residents can find privacy yet enjoy the company of their neighbors - has taken on a particularly significant urgency. As Richard Sexton convincingly documents in Parallel Utopias, two special places - The Sea Ranch in Northern California and Seaside in the Florida panhandle - have arrived at two unique solutions in the search for the ideal community. A lively introductory essay outlines the nature of this archetypal quest, followed by an engaging discussion of the philosophy, architecture, history, and character of both communities. Sexton's sumptuous full-color photographs tour each community in detail, from their built environment and the surrounding dramatic coastal landscape to the furnishings residents have chosen for their homes. In their contributing essays, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg analyzes with piercing clarity the evolution and contradictions of our contemporary communities, and architect William Turnbull, Jr., lucidly examines the role of the architect in shaping viable living spaces.

Many people have lamented the pollution and outright loss of beaches along the coasts of California and Mexico, but very few people have fought on behalf of beaches as hardÑor as successfullyÑas Serge Dedina. Whether taking on an international conglomerate or tackling a state transportation agency, Dedina is truly an eco-warrior. In this sparkling collection of articles, many written for popular magazines, Dedina tells the stories as only an insider could. He writes with a firm grasp of facts along with an advocateÕs passion and outrage. Sprinkled with just the right mix of humor and surf lingo, DedinaÕs writing is Òweapons gradeÓÑsurfer speak for totally awesome. Dedina grew up in Imperial Beach, California, just north of the Mexican border, and he feels equally at home in Mexico and the States. An expert on gray whales, he eloquently describes the fight he helped to lead against the Mitsubishi Corporation, whose plan to build a salt-processing plant in the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California would have destroyed the worldÕs last undeveloped gray whale lagoon. With similar fervor, Dedina describes helping to construct the unlikely coalition that succeeded in defeating a proposed toll road that would have decimated a legendary California surf spot. In between, he writes about the first surfers in Baja, the Great Baja Land Rush of the 1990s, TijuanaÕs punk music scene, the pop-culture wrestling phenomenon lucha libre, the reasons why ocean pollution must be stopped, and the way HBO took over his hometown. Anyone interested in whatÕs happening to our natural places or just yearning to read about someone really making a difference in the world will find this a book worth sinking their teeth into.