This book fits the era of Obama and financial meltdown. It contains essays by mostly young architects who have gone grass roots to work with people, materials, and building types way off radar for earlier generations of architects. There is an eye-opening essay on bamboo. Jean Chae discusses her work using materials form Home Depot to build communal buildings in villages of Central America. Balkrishna Doshi introduces a "housing development" that its inhabitants, following a few guidelines, built from debris. The point throughout is a reversal of the usual flow of power and ideas. The architects have all endeavored to learn from people who, if noticed by mainstream authorities, have had buildings imposed on them. 175 illustrations

Born out of the drawingbuilding.org online archive, Architectural Inventions presents a stunning visual study of impossible or speculative structures that exist only on paper. Soliciting the work of architects, designers, and artists of renown –as well as emerging talents from all over the world –Maximilian Goldfarb and Matt Bua have gathered an array of works that convey architectural alternatives, through products, expansions, or critiques of our inhabited environments. From abstract and conceptual visual interpretations of structures to more traditional architectural renderings, the featured work is divided into thematic chapters, ranging from 'Adapt/Reuse' to 'Clandestine'' 'Mobile'' 'Radical Lifestyle', 'Techno-Sustainable', and 'Worship'. Along with arresting and awe-inspiring illustrated content, every chapter also features an essay exploring its respective themes. Highlighting visions that exist outside of established channels of production and conventions of design, Architectural Inventions showcases a wide scope in concept and vision, fantasy and innovation.

Eco-Visionaries surveys contemporary positions in art and architecture addressing environmental problems beyond mainstream notions of sustainability. This comprehensive volume is a companion to the collaborative 2018 exhibition staged by four participating European museums. Each show maintains a different focus and curatorial approach, and for each, artists investigate more sustainable approaches toward humankind's place on earth, through video and sound works, paintings and installations. While the series of exhibitions presents the works of artists and architects who offer critical reflections on pressing contemporary issues, the book unites research, essays and the artworks. Besides the historical antecedents of current ecological thinking in art and design, this catalog also promotes alternative visions for future uses of energy, resources and the environment.

In short, it is a book about those who have endeavored to preserve creativity in their profession and whose innovative ideas have led, in practical terms, to the development of new architectural concepts, new ways of living and working, and new aesthetic forms.

Who are history's most iconic graphic designers? Let the debate begin here. In this gorgeous, visual overview of the history of graphic design, students are introduced to 50 of the most important designers from the early 20th century to the present day. This fun-to-read, pretty-to-look-at graphic design history primer introduces them to the work and notable achievements of such industry luminaries as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, A.M. Cassandre, Alvin Lustig, Cipe Pineles, Armin Hofmann, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Herb Lubalin, Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Paula Scher, and more. Who coined the term "graphic design"? Who designed the first album cover? Who was the first female art director of a mass-market American magazine? Who created the "I Want My MTV" ad campaign? Who created the first mail-order font shop? In Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design, students start with the who and quickly learn the what, when, why, and where behind graphic design's most important breakthroughs and the impact they had, and continue to have, on the world we live in.

Featuring 75 of the world's most influential designers, this book presents the story of graphic design through the fascinating personal stories and significant works that have shaped the field. Arranged in chronological order, the book shows the development of design, from early innovators such as Edward McKnight Kauffer and Alexey Brodovitch to key figures of mid-century Swiss Design and corporate American branding. The book profiles masters of typography, such as Wim Crouwel and Neville Brody; visionary magazine designers, such as Leo Lionni and Cipe Pineles; designers who influenced the world of film, such as Saul Bass and Robert Brownjohn; and the creators of iconic poster work, such as Armin Hofmann, Rogério Duarte and Yusaku Kamekura. Combining insightful text and key visual examples, this is a dynamic and richly illustrated guide to the individuals whose vision has defined the world of graphic design.

The need to personalize our surroundings is a defining human characteristic. For some this need becomes a compulsion to transform their personal surroundings into works of art. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has undertaken the mission to preserve these environments, which are presented for the first time in Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds. This colorful and inspiring book features the work of twenty-two vernacular artists whose locales, personal histories, and reasons for art-making vary widely but who all share a powerful connection to the home as art. Featured projects range from art environments that remain intact, such as Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in California, tosites lost over the years such as Emery Blagdon's six hundred elaborate "Healing Machines," made of copper, aluminum, tinfoil, magnets, ribbons, farm-machinery parts, painted light bulbs, beads, coffee-can lids, and more. Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds is the first book to explore these spectacularly offbeat spaces in detail.From "Original Rhinestone Cowboy" Loy Bowlin's wall-to-wall glitter-and-foil living room to the concrete bestiary of "witch of Fox Point" Mary Nohl, each artist and project is described in detail through a wealth of visuals and text. Sublime Spaces and Visionary Worlds reminds us that our decorative choices tell the world not just what we like but who we are.