'Meticulously researched yet accessible' GeographicalStanding in the busy streets of South London today, it is hard to imagine that much of this suburban townscape was once a vast wood, stretching unbroken for almost seven miles from Croydon to the Thames at Deptford. In The Wood That Built London, C.J. Schüler takes us on a journey through time, telling tales of invaders and trade guilds, map makers and soldiers, royals and working class people. From the 8th century to current conservation efforts, Schüler offers a fresh perspective on London's history, with tales of murder, Anglo-Saxon treasure, fires, pandemics, the blitz and more along the way. This compelling narrative history charts the fortunes of the North Wood from the earliest times: its ecology, ownership, management, and its gradual encroachment by the expanding metropolis.

A “smart and surprising” (Booklist) “expansive history” (Publishers Weekly) detailing the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem—including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires—in the bestselling tradition of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky’s Salt. As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood. “A lively history of biology, mechanics, and culture that stretches back 60 million years” (Nature) The Age of Wood reinterprets human history and shows how our ability to exploit wood’s unique properties has profoundly shaped our bodies and minds, societies, and lives. Ennos takes us on a sweeping journey from Southeast Asia and West Africa where great apes swing among the trees, build nests, and fashion tools; to East Africa where hunter gatherers collected their food; to the structural design of wooden temples in China and Japan; and to Northern England, where archaeologists trace how coal enabled humans to build an industrial world. Addressing the effects of industrialization—including the use of fossil fuels and other energy-intensive materials to replace timber—The Age of Wood not only shows the essential role that trees play in the history and evolution of human existence, but also argues that for the benefit of our planet we must return to more traditional ways of growing, using, and understanding trees. A brilliant blend of recent research and existing scientific knowledge, this is an “excellent, thorough history in an age of our increasingly fraught relationships with natural resources” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

As synthetic materials and mutant and hybrid concoctions attain prominence in our daily lives—in our handheld devices, cooking utensils, vehicles, even things as simple as our shopping bags—the design and construction industries have instead re-embraced the familiar, the conventional—wood, which has regained prominence through innovations in engineering and construction methodologies. Technology is now commonly used—and often (though not always) affordably used—to cut, perforate, assemble, erect, and even fabricate materials in a manner not previously possible. Wood is one such material, and Timber in the City documents both the imaginings of those in the nascence of their education and practice and the executed work of design professionals at the leading edge of architecture. These designers, regardless of the duration of their immersion in the field, have imaginatively rethought the means by which we build and the methods by which we define space merely through differing deployments of a familiar building material.

"Long ago the whole of Southern England was covered in forest. Over time, this woodland has been cut back, but small patches remain amidst the suburban sprawl of South-East London. The magic that once filled the ancient forest can still be felt. Memories of the Great North Wood are recorded in the place names - Forest Hill, Honour Oak. Stories are told of the bandits, outlaws and gypsies that once roamed the forest, and their presence can sometimes be sensed when the city is quiet. Tim Bird's longest work to date continues his interest in psychogeography and how memories live in the landscape."--Provided by publisher

Over the past 10-15 years a renaissance in wood architecture has occurred with the development of new wood building systems and design strategies, elevating wood from a predominantly single-family residential idiom to a rival of concrete and steel construction for a variety of building types, including high rises. This new solid wood architecture offers unparalleled environmental as well as construction and aesthetic benefits, and is of growing importance for professionals and academics involved in green design. Solid Wood provides the first detailed book which allows readers to understand new mass timber/massive wood architecture. It provides: historical context in wood architecture from around the world a strong environmental rationale for the use of wood in buildings recent developments in contemporary fire safety and structural issues insights into building code challenges detailed case studies of new large-scale wood building systems on a country-by-country basis. Case studies from the UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Italy, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia highlight design strategies, construction details and unique cultural attitudes in wood design. The case studies include the most ambitious academic, hospitality, industrial, multi-family, and wood office buildings in the world. With discussions from leading architectural, engineering, and material manufacturing firms in Europe, North America and the South Pacific, Solid Wood disrupts preconceived notions and serves as an indispensable guide to twenty-first century wood architecture and its environmental and cultural benefits.

In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.

This final volume in the British Sculptors and Sculpture series addresses the work of the important but neglected British sculptor Francis Derwent Wood RA (1871-1926). A student of Edouard Lanteri at the Royal College of Art, Derwent Wood's early artistic career was distinguished. His reputation grew rapidly and a period as Director of Modelling at the Glasgow School of Art saw him working on public commissions with many of the city's most important architects. Simultaneously, he built his London practice, perfecting the art of the rapidly executed, observationally astute portrait bust, and becoming a well-connected member of the Chelsea set. He exhibited at the Royal Academy every year from 1895 until his death in 1926, becoming a full Academician in 1920. During the First World War he carried out pioneering work in the field of facial prosthetics. He was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 1918, where Henry Moore was amongst his many pupils. Derwent Wood's Machine Gun Corps memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London, completed in the year of his death, is amongst the best-known and most consistently reviled sculptures in Britain. Matthew Withey offers readers a subtle and layered interpretation of the career that led up to this iconic and misunderstood work, together with a comprehensive catalogue of Derwent Wood's diverse body of work.