Architecture in the Emirates
Philip Jodidio
Hardcover, 9.1 x 11.4 in.,
192 pages

Construction fever in the Gulf

The small emirates and states located on the Gulf, at the eastern edge of the Saudi Arabian peninsula, are building new cities in the desert at an astonishing rate, from Bahrain to Doha, and south to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Comprised of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain, the UAE is an oil-and-gas-rich region that has experienced an unparalleled architectural boom in recent years. With a dizzying array of ultra-modern towers popping up throughout the area, it's no surprise that the Gulf region has attracted many of the world's most prominent architects, including Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Jean Nouvel, who are all designing groundbreaking projects for the ambitious Cultural District project on Saadiyat Island off the coast of Abu Dhabi. With these and many more remarkable, large-scale projects recently built or in progress, the Gulf emirates are perhaps today's top architectural hotspot.

Architects featured: AEDAS, Tadao Ando, Asymptote, Atkins, Behnisch Architects, Frank O. Gehry, Gensler, Zaha Hadid, HOK Sport, Kazuhiro Kojima+Kazuko Akamatsu/C+A, KPF, Greg Lynn Form, Jean Nouvel, OMA/Rem Kohlhaas, ONL, Carlos Ott, I.M. Pei, RNL, Hadi Simaan, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Studio Pei Zhu

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Reaching Beyond the Gold
The impact of global events on urban development
Tim van Vrijaldenhoven
Designed by Joost Grootens
Translation by John Kirkpatrick

English
224 pp / 240 x 170 mm / paperback
published 2007
 
Reaching Beyond the Gold assesses the influence of global events on urban developments. Six cities - Genoa, Barcelona, Athens, Bilbao, Shanghai and London - have been chosen as case studies. These have all recently hosted a global event or will do so in the near future.
After an introduction of the characteristics and impact of global events in general the history of each city is sketched and the political and urban implications of the events are examined. Three key aspects - organisation, management and city marketing - are dwelt on at length. Over forty facets including site size, visitor attendance figures, investments, populations, stakeholders, aims and methods, are then compared. A timeline, pictograms and drawings together with clear definitions of the different categories of events are used to give the best possible conditions in which to compare and analyse
the events in question.
Reaching Beyond the Gold analyses the successes and the failures of host cities in the past. The conclusions it draws can put an end to the structural errors still being made when organising large-scale events.

24H Architecture

Binding: 260mm x 235mm, Pages:    124, Illustrations: Full Colour
As a firm founded on the first day of the first month of the new millennium, 24H is a practice dedicated to engaging the technology and sensibility of our contemporary era, along with a commitment to produce architecture that both enriches and invigorates the built environment and its users at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Still in its infancy, the firm has already been commissioned for projects in The Netherlands, the UK, Sweden and Germany. Although many of its projects are at design stage only, it also has an impressive collection of built work under its belt.

The projects in this book demonstrate how 24H Architecture employs creative solutions that incorporate decoration and an eye for detail, without straying from the authenticity of solutions produced by modern construction technology.

Atmosphere, The shape of things to come
Authors: Hanneke Kamphuis and Hedwig van Onna
240 pages, Hardcover, English, 2007

Not just another book on architecture and design, Atmosphere invites, encourages and motivates. The atmosphere is a useful and meaningful metaphor for the artistic climate that fills our lives and responds to our sensors. Here, too, one can distinguish various layers that can be analysed and reduced to the basic components of any creative effort: form, colour and material.

This book explores seven atmospheric layers that not only exist simultaneously but – owing to their fleeting nature – can easily merge to form new combinations, over and over again. Atmosphere is a seven-part exploration of the themes that spark such work. It delves into a renewed interest in handicrafts, into creases and crinkles as generators of form, into nature as an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Learn how designers deal with the chill perfection of computer-aided design and how they counter a period of baroque extravagance. Each chapter is lavishly illustrated with recent work by top designers, architects and artists. Here’s hoping the oxygen in Atmosphere will be pumped into future projects – including yours.