Architects imagine the planet: fifty speculative world-scale projects from Patrick Geddes, Alison and Peter Smithson, Kiyonori Kikutake, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Luc Deleu, and others. The world's growing vulnerability to planet-sized risks invites action on a global scale. The World as an Architectural Project shows how for more than a century architects have imagined the future of the planet through world-scale projects. With fifty speculative projects by Patrick Geddes, Alison and Peter Smithson, Kiyonori Kikutake, Saverio Muratori, Takis Zenetos, Sergio Bernardes, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Luc Deleu, and many others, documented in text and images, this ambitious and wide-ranging book is the first compilation of its kind. Interestingly, architects begin to address the world as a project long before the advent of contemporary globalism and its assorted anxieties. The Spanish urban theorist and entrepreneur Arturo Soria y Mata, for example, in 1882 envisions a system that connects the entire planet in a linear urban network. In 1927, Buckminster Fuller's “World Town Plan—4D Tower” proposes to solve global housing problems with mobile structures delivered and installed by a Zeppelin. And Joyce Hsiang and Bimal Mendis visualize the conditions of a worldwide “City of Seven Billion” in a 2015–2019 project. Rather than indulging the cliché of the megalomaniac architect, this volume presents a discipline reflecting on its own responsibilities.

The spirit of an era is reftected by its architecture. The worldwide turbulences of the past years have led to a correspondingly unparalleled diversity of buildings. This compendium presents an international exhibition of contemporary architecture against a backdrop of global trends, local traditions, functional demands, economical constraints and individual styles. The selection includes stunning designs from the most sought-after architecte and talented up-and-coming companies, demonstrating new interpretations of forms to suit anticipated future demands. The Atlas of World Architecture sets a benchmark for buildings of all typologies from the past five years that have earned their place in architectural history.

World Architecture provides the most comprehensive and contemporary survey of the field. Each chapter is organized chronologically and focuses on three unique architectural cultures, simultaneously providing instructors with flexibility and offering students a comprehensive method forunderstanding and appreciating the history, cultural significance, beauty, and diversity of architecture from around the world.

"The ground we walk on and grow crops in also just happens to be the most widely used building material on the planet. Civilizations throughout time have used it to create stable warm low-impact structures. The world's first skyscrapers were built of mud brick. Paul Revere Chairman Mao and Ronald Reagan all lived in earth houses at various points in their lives and several of the buildings housing Donald Judd's priceless collection at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa Texas are made of mud brick." "While the vast legacy of traditional and vernacular earthen construction has been widely discussed, little attention has been paid to the contemporary tradition of earth architecture. Author Ronald Rael founder of Eartharchitecture.org provides a history of building with earth in the modern era focusing particularly on projects constructed in the last few decades that use rammed earth mud brick compressed earth cob and several other interesting techniques. Earth Architecture presents a selection of more than 40 projects that exemplify new creative uses of the oldest building material on the planet."--BOOK JACKET.

Global investigation of 20th-century architecture, 750+ masterpieces richly illustrated.

Twenty-five beautifully made wineries by contemporary architects the world over illustrate the connection between winery design and the modern movement toward integrating wine-making with lifestyle and the enjoyment of living. Wineries of the World celebrates the architecture and design of contemporary viniculture. From a vineyard in Napa Valley in the U.S., to an Italian winery estate in the hills of Tuscany, to an Australian enterprise at the cutting edge of organic viniculture, the projects featured are all exemplars of the finest taste in both wine and design, and increasingly popular destinations for wine lovers. With the rise in destination travel by wine lovers over the past years, vintners the world over have embraced the opportunity to create splendid spaces for visitors to enjoy unique varieties alongside good company. Rather than repeat established, even ancient traditions cultivated over centuries throughout Europe, the contemporary architecture of wine has become a modern celebration of place, reflecting the topography of the landscape in which a winery is situated, the agricultural heritage, and at times the regional vernacular. Ultimately, these projects comprise an expression of bold vision coupled with a passion for sustainability and design.