Mini House Now

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McMansion Antithesis

Mini House Now
Agata Losantos
Manufacturer: Collins Design
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Design & Construction | Home Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Interior Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0061139335
Release Date: 2006-11-21

As the success of MINI HOUSE proved, bigger is not necessarily better, certainly not where your home is concerned. MINI HOUSE NOW demonstrates this point, showcasing dozens of homes that ingeniously make the most out of a small amount of space. For anyone living in or building small–scale home, this is the perfect source of inspiration.

The design of a single-family house addresses the most fundamental and intimate issue of architecture: namely, defining a human place in the world. In European House Now, Susan Doubilet and Daralice Boles showcase current trends in domestic design as represented by extraordinary projects from across the European continent, where contemporary architecture is thriving. This book features some of the most remarkable examples of residential architecture completed within the last fifteen years, many of which have never been published in the United States.

The twenty-nine houses in this volume share a common premise; they extend and enrich the established principles of European modernism. At the same time, they differ markedly from one another and in so doing demonstrate the diversity implicit in that style. Including examples from all the major European nations, the projects shown here represent a broad range and illustrate both international themes and specific regional characteristics. At one end of the spectrum are the pure, minimalist forms of Alberto Campo Baeza's Gaspar House in Cadiz, Spain; at the other is the complex layering of Rem Koolhaas's Villa dall'Ava in Paris. This collection presents the work of established European architects, such as Mario Botta and O.M. Ungers, and architects who have recently achieved international renown, like Herzog & de Meuron and Ben van Berkel.

Beautiful exterior and interior photographs, plans, and sections of each house are accompanied by individual essays and captions. Together with the introduction they provide a meditation on the meaning of domestic space, as privacy and individuality become both more valued and more scarce.

From its earliest days as a burgeoning colonial port blending European, Caribbean, and Asian influences, Charleston has maintained a unique brand of southern cosmopolitanism. Charleston Style, Then and Now, a condensed edition of the bestselling Charleston Style: Past and Present, traces the city's allure through its exquisite and sometimes eccentric architecture, decorative arts, and garden designs, which express a wide range of European and American styles, including Georgian, Federal, Chinese, Chippendale, Gothic and Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Eastlake, and more. Author Susan Sully explores Charleston as a medium through which this spectrum of styles becomes transmuted into a distinctive regional mode.

Sully's Charleston is a place where antique and modern, fantasy and reality, playfully intersect. During Charleston's ascendance as one of America's wealthiest cities, its most privileged citizens acquired sophisticated, even decadent, tastes that continue to infuse their homes and gardens. After the Civil War, hardship, pride, and nostalgia shaped an aesthetic in which peeling gilt and tattered lace became badges of honor. Thanks to one of the earliest and most energetic American preservationist movements, the past extends into the present in Charleston, and the city's spaces reveal its complex spirit.

Charleston Style, Then and Now features fourteen residences ranging from archetypally gracious antebellum mansions to cottage-like dependencies to the iconic Charleston "single houses," with their sweeping piazzas, high ceilings, and tall windows. Also featured are some of the city's most charming gardens, inspired by the formal and picturesque landscape designs of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe as well as by the exotic gardens of Japan. With rich color photography by John Blais and a delightful foreword by acclaimed novelist Josephine Humphreys, Charleston Style, Then and Now delivers an evocative portrait of this fascinating city.

Organized around a series of themes—Branded, Fluid, Local, Minimal, Narrative, Physical, Reclaimed, and Unbelievable—Design Culture Now presents projects from over 75 designers, ranging from new names to current work by established figures. Some of the people whose work is represented include graphic designers Bruce Mau and Stefan Sagemeister, style guru Martha Stewart, product designers Jonathan Ive (Apple Computer) and Tinker Hatfield (Nike), product designers Robert Egger and Moss, film set designer Dante Feretti, The Lion King director and costume, puppet, and set designer Julie Taymor, architects Neil Denari and Frank Gehry, and digital special effects designers Pixar, Digital Domain, and Industrial Light and Magic.?

This exhaustive survey contains hundreds of full-color images and a groovy design by Ellen Lupton, designer of Mixing Messages.

I agree about the fluorescent pages. I was really, really surprised that anyone would actually box large clumps of body copy (which by the way were written by someone who exists on a much higher plane of existence that the rest of us!) in to heavy fluorescent frames, which basically served to give me the worst headache I've had in weeks.

I was relieved though, that there was some redeeming content in the book. I appreciated the attention to various art disciplines, however, I would (as a graphic designer), have appreciated a LITTLE more attention to print projects.

I agree that it is perhaps, mis-titled, as I wonder if it truly represents "design culture," but there is much to inspire, and I found it worth having.