Among the critical adulation that follows VJAA wherever they build, you'll find words like graceful, beautiful, sublime, quiet, classic, disciplined, and lightall suggesting the kind of alchemy that makes the work of this Minnesota-based firm so highly regarded. The magic they performmarrying the simple forms of modernism with the rich materials of their sites in a thoughtful framework that encourages social interaction and environmental responsibilityis carefully illustrated and explained in this monograph, which evokes the very qualities that make their work so seductive and compelling. A former furniture maker, principal Vincent James brings the woodworker's appreciation of materials, details, joinery, and structure to the firm's work, which here includes both their award-winning houses such as the Dayton and Type/Variant houses and institutional projects, such as the Minneapolis Rowing Club, Tulane University Center, and St. John's Abbey and Monastery Guesthouse. Along with an introductory essay by Hashim Sarkis, partners Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos provide a captivating and insightful portrait of their talented young firm.

Departing from the simple question Why do we heat and cool buildings with air?, this book focuses on the technique of thermally active surfaces. This technique uses water in building surfaces to heat and cool bodies - a method that is at once more efficient, comfortable, and healthy. This technique thus imbues the fabric of the building with a more poignant role: its structure is also its primary heating and cooling system. In doing so, this approach triggers a cascading set of possibilities for how well buildings are built, how well they perform, and how long they will last: pointing the way toward multiple forms of sustainability. The first section of the book contrasts the parallel histories of thermally active surfaces and air conditioning. These histories explain the material, social, marketing, and technical unfolding of building technology in the twentieth century as a means to explain why we build the way we do and why that will change in the new century. The next section of the book covers the physiological and thermodynamic basis of thermally active surfaces. This section is designed for engineers and architects to grasp the logic and advantages of this technique. This section also includes a chapter on the de-fragmentation of buildings and design practice that is inherent in building with thermally active surfaces. The final section covers a series of contemporary case studies that demonstrate the efficacy of this technique. The project list currently includes Kunsthaus in Bregenz by Peter Zumthor, Zollverein School of Management in Essen, Germany by SANAA, and Linked Hybrid in Beijing by Steven Holl, amongst others.

"The data abstracted herein have been collected from over 7,100 issues of eighty-one 18th-century Virginia newspapers."--Introduction.

"Parallel Cities: The Multilevel Metropolis is edited by Andrew Blauvelt written by Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James, and published by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis."

This newest addition to the Pamphlet Architecture series, long admired for its willingness to propose architectural solutions to challenging problems addresses the issue of rising sea levels with an interrogation of the concept of floating cities, a field of inquiry gaining increasing relevance and urgency with the impending reality of climate change. The authors explore notions of buoyancy and the amphibious through a typology based on human response and adaptation, to one of the hosting pressing issues of our day.

In the first edition, the themes of hope, optimism, and progress of neoliberalism were examined in Asia and America. The second edition, Globalization: Power, Authority, and Legitimacy in Late Modernity, analyses the new pessimism that has descended on the globalized world. The America that was once the bastion of hope, optimism and progress is now showing clear signs of a superpower in decline. The first sign of the American decline since 1941 in Pearl Harbor was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001. The other signs are the Vietnamization of Iraq, a nuclear stand-off with North Korea, increasing trade imbalances with China and India, a stalemate with terrorists in Afghanistan, the challenge of European protectionism, a belligerent politics in the Middle East, overt American dependence on fossil fuels, and the mushrooming of various subprime crises into an escalating global recession. This second edition incorporates the latest developments in terms of culture, wealth and terrorism around the world and provides possible solutions to salvage the American Dream.