The first book to present the work of Surfacedesign, an innovative San Francisco landscape architecture and urban design firm with major public and private projects throughout the Bay Area and in Hawaii, Mexico, and New Zealand. This monograph explores the design philosophy of the three partners of Surfacedesign, who are committed to solutions that emerge from the site itself and challenge conventional approaches to landscape. The work is informed by the vast openness and frontier spirit of the West, expressed in rugged materials and sustainable planting. Surfacedesign focuses on cultivating a sense of connection to the built and natural world, pushing people to engage with the landscape in new ways. The design approach emphasizes and celebrates the unique context and imaginative potential of each project. The studio's process is rooted in asking novel questions and listening to a site and its users, a process that has led to engaging and inspiring landscapes that are rugged, contemporary, and crafted. Twenty-five projects are presented, ranging in scale from the landscape approach to Auckland International Airport in New Zealand to intimate residential gardens in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Featured are Anaha, a Honolulu residential complex overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Land's End Lookout in the Golden Gate National Recreation area, Barnacles, a community gathering space on the Embarcadero, restoration of the Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, the first commercial winery in California, and the landscape for the Museum of Steel in Monterrey, Mexico, a repurposed foundry that now incorporates the largest green roof in Central America.

Presents step-by-step instructions for creating surface designs on fabric using textile paints and printing ink, and includes tips on such techniques as stamping, silkscreen, image transfer, marbling, and Japanese shibori.

This studio reference captures all the popular techniques available for embellishing clay, as well as a wealth of practical information and detailed images that lead readers through every phase of the design and decorating process.

The renowned knitter shares her year-long adventure through America’s colorful, fascinating—and slowly disappearing—wool industry. Join Clara Parkes as she ventures across the country to meet the shepherds, dyers, and countless workers without whom our knitting needles would be empty, our mills idle, and our feet woefully cold. Along the way, she encounters a flock of Saxon Merino sheep in upstate New York, tours a scouring plant in Texas, visits a steamy Maine dyehouse, helps sort freshly shorn wool on a working farm, and learns how wool fleece is measured, baled, shipped, and turned into skeins. In pursuit of the perfect yarn, Parkes describes a brush with the dangers of opening a bale (they can explode), and her adventures from Maine to Wisconsin (“the most knitterly state”) and back again. By the end of the book, you’ll be ready to set aside the backyard chickens and add a flock of sheep instead.

Contemporary craft, art and design are inseparable from the flows of production and consumption under global capitalism. The New Politics of the Handmade features twenty-three voices who critically rethink the handmade in this dramatically shifting economy. The authors examine craft within the conditions of extreme material and economic disparity; a renewed focus on labour and materiality in contemporary art and museums; the political dimensions of craftivism, neoliberalism, and state power; efforts toward urban renewal and sustainability; the use of digital technologies; and craft's connections to race, cultural identity and sovereignty in texts that criss-cross five continents. They claim contemporary craft as a dynamic critical position for understanding the most immediate political and aesthetic issues of our time.

Stamping: Southwest-motif pillows, dog and cat vests, a variegated leaves table, leaf cushions, a dragonfly bedroom, gossamer organza pillows, Asian chair pads, a novelty linen duster, a child's beanbag chair, an ombré ginkgo dress, Miyaki-style aprons, a layered organza shawl, a Samurai shirt, and a shawl collar bathrobe; embossing: an embossed leather table and suede chair, a black velvet evening bag, a soft wrapped sweater, a Miyaki-inspired jacket, and a falling leaves skirt.

For centuries, the creation of Jacquard cloth required the collaborative efforts of teams of designers and technicians working on vastly complex equipment. In the past three decades, developments in loom technology and CAD systems have made it possible for a single individual to design and produce this most challenging class of textiles. Digital Jacquard Design presents a comprehensive introduction to the creation of weave patterning in the era of digitally piloted looms. It offers both aesthetic and technical training for students of figured weaving, covering the Jacquard medium in fantastic breadth and depth. The book is an essential guide for all who create figured textiles with modern materials and tools, and provides the reader with a 'digital' key to access and employ the great textile traditions of the past. Digital Jacquard Design examines the design process from end to end, progressing from visual analysis, sample analysis and weave-drafting methods, to figuring techniques and the selection and building of weaves. It provides a guide to converting traditional drafts to digital polychrome format, a design terminology and a weave glossary. The book concludes with a rich set of case studies to demonstrate ingenious and effective weave and design solutions.