The book establishes a correlation between architectural theory and the biosemiotic project, and suggest how this coupling establishes a framework leading to an architectural-biosemiotic paradigm that puts biosemiotic theory at the heart of cognising the built environment, and offers an approach to understanding and shaping the built environment that supports (and benefits) human, and organismic, spatial intelligence.

A unique perspective on a fundamental skill - Character Design is necessary for animators, game designers, comic book artists and illustrators.

Elements of Architecture explores new ways of engaging architecture in archaeology. It conceives of architecture both as the physical evidence of past societies and as existing beyond the physical environment, considering how people in the past have not just dwelled in buildings but have existed within them. The book engages with the meeting point between these two perspectives. For although archaeologists must deal with the presence and absence of physicality as a discipline, which studies humans through things, to understand humans they must also address the performances, as well as temporal and affective impacts, of these material remains. The contributions in this volume investigate the way time, performance and movement, both physically and emotionally, are central aspects of understanding architectural assemblages. It is a book about the constellations of people, places and things that emerge and dissolve as affective, mobile, performative and temporal engagements. This volume juxtaposes archaeological research with perspectives from anthropology, architecture, cultural geography and philosophy in order to explore the kaleidoscopic intersections of elements coming together in architecture. Documenting the ephemeral, relational, and emotional meeting points with a category of material objects that have defined much research into what it means to be human, Elements of Architecture elucidates and expands upon a crucial body of evidence which allows us to explore the lives and interactions of past societies.

This book looks at specific instances in the Renaissance, Enlightenment and our own time when architectural ideas and ideas of biological life come into close proximity with each other. These convergences are fascinating and complex, offering new insights into architecture and its role. Establishing architecture as a product of the ascendancy of the position of human life, the author shows here that while architecture is dependent on life forces for its existence, at the same time it must be, at some level, indifferent to the life within it. Life, for its part, privileges itself above all else, and seeks to continuously expand its field of expression. This, then, is the asymmetrical condition, and to understand it is to gain important new theoretical perspectives into the nature of architecture.

* * * 'Informative and entertaining, this publication is a feast for the eyes, while also thought provoking, and offers excellent inspiration for daydreaming about what makes the perfect, modern house.' Wallpaper 'A fascinating selection of innovative homes....this is a thoughtful journey through the evolution of domestic architecture.' Sunday Express Over the last century the way that we live at home has changed dramatically. Nothing short of a design revolution has transformed our houses and the spaces within them - moving from traditional patterns of living all the way through to an era of more fluid, open-plan and modern styles. Whether we live in a new home or a period house, our spaces will have been shaped one way or another by the pioneering Modernists and Mid-century architects and designers who argued for a fresh way of life. Architectural and design writer Dominic Bradbury charts the course of this voyage all the way from the late 19th century through to the houses of today in this ground-breaking book. Over nineteen thematic chapters, he explains the way our houses have been reinvented, while taking in - along the way - the giants of Art Deco, influential Modernists including Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as post-war innovators such as Eero Saarinen and Philip Johnson. Taking us from the 20th to the 21st century, Bradbury explores the progress of 'modernity' itself and reveals the secret history of our very own homes.

Design for Life: The Architecture of Sim Van der Ryn surveys the work and principles of Sim Van der Ryn, one of the world's most important leaders in the field of sustainalbe architecture. Sharing his years of experience as a teacher and using his building designs as examples, the author shows us that buildings are not objects but organisms, and cities are not machines but complex ecosystems. Fleeing Holland just weeks before Hitler's invasion, the Van der Ryn family settled in the outskirts of New York City. Young Sim grew up exploring the tiny pockets of grass, puddles, and swamps he found in Queens. An avid high school art student, he progressed to studying architecture in college. But he found the pervading modernist-style buildings to be emotionally cold and lacking human sensitivity. He longed for a way to restore architecture back to life. His breakthrough came during the frequent campus visits of R. Buckminster Fuller, who inspired him to think and design with the geometries of the natural world. Design for Life shows how the young architect began to look at the world with new eyes and saw the shifting patterns in nature and how these patterns profoundly affect how we live and work in the structures we build. Using his own projects and teaching experiences as examples, the author reveals the evolution of his thinking and the emergence of a new process of collaborative design that honors the buildings' users and connects them to the Earth. The book shows how architecture has created physical and mental barriers that separate us from our world, but how we can recover the soul of architecture and reconnect with our natural surroundings. Sim Van der Ryn is the president of Van der Ryn Architects, a Northern California firm known for its work in sustainable architecture. He taught architecture and design at the University of California, Berkeley, for over 30 years, inspiring a new generation to create buildings and communities that are sensitive to place, climate, and the flow of human interactions. Appointed California State Architect in the 1970s by then-Governor Jerry Brown, Van der Ryn introduced the nation's first energy-efficient government building projects. His vision and persuasive skills heralded a golden age of ecologically sensitive design and resulted in the adoption of strict energy standards and disability access standards for all state buildings and parks. As the author of six groundbreaking books about planning and design, including Sustainable Communities (1986, with Peter Calthorpe), Ecological Design (1996, with Stuart Cowan) and numerous articles, Van der Ryn has helped inspire architects to see the myriad ways they can apply physical and social ecology to architecture and environmental design. The author lives and works in Northern California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

This book offers a wealth of interdisciplinary approaches to urbanization strategies in architecture centered on growing concerns about the future of cities and their impacts on essential elements of architectural optimization, livability, energy consumption and sustainability. It portrays the urban condition in architectural terms, as well as the living condition in human terms, both of which can be optimized by mathematical modeling as well as mathematical calculation and assessment. Special features include: • new research on the construction of future cities and smart cities • discussions of sustainability and new technologies designed to advance ideas to future city developments Graduate students and researchers in architecture, engineering, mathematical modeling, and building physics will be engaged by the contributions written by eminent international experts from a variety of disciplines including architecture, engineering, modeling, optimization, and related fields.

In times where the very concept of ‘nature’ is questioned not only in its philosophical dimension, but in the core of its biological materiality, we need to reconsider the interrelations between architecture and nature. This not only applies to strategies on environmental responsibility but equally on anticipatory human behavior and cultural or demographic variety. To address these challenges this book proposes to embrace the unknown and cultivate the architectural discipline towards an integrated and cross-disciplinary practice. It unravels compelling innovative and forward-thinking design narratives by leading international practitioners and researchers who investigate novel associations between architecture, nature and humanity for a future, alive architecture. Structured around the three closely cross-linked core themes “bioinspiration”, “materiability”, and “intelligence” the book engages with the starting point of an emerging new design field, where the symbiosis of physics, biology, computing and design promises the redefinition of what we call architecture today.

Composed of a series of essays, this book deals with the broad issues affecting the nature of architectural materials and provides a focused review of the state of the art materials. It also provides designers with the tools they need to evaluate and select from the thousands of different materials that are available to them. The book is organized into three sections; 'Time' looks at how the materials used in architectural design have changed over the years showing how we have come to use the materials we do in contemporary design. 'Materials' covers all five material families; metals, polymers, ceramics, composites and natural materials giving in depth information on their properties, behavior, origins and uses in design. It also introduces a review of the cutting edge research for each family. 'Systems' outlines the technical design-orientated research that uncovers how new architectural assemblies can be designed and engineered. All of this practical advice is given along with many real case examples illustrating how this knowledge and information has been, and can be, used in architectural design.