Архитектура

While enthusiasts of straw bales praise the exceptional energy efficiency of bale buildings, and the wise use of resources involved in utilizing an agricultural byproduct as an affordable construction material, the real reason straw bales have excited builders and homeowners nationwide goes beyond energy conservation, resource recycling, and affordability.

People love straw bale homes because they are so often extraordinarily beautiful and inviting.

In the past two decades, the bale-building renaissance has attracted some of our most gifted architects, artisan builders, and craftspeople. Certain qualities of straw as a material--and the hands-on process of constructing walls with a completely natural substance--have appealed to both very experienced builders and those who find this to be a uniquely accessible form of creating shelter. The characteristic thick walls and wide windowsills of straw bale houses, the possibility of incorporating curves and even arches, and the rousing experience of family "wall-raisings" have become well-known. Combined with older styles of plastering and earthen floors, these very contemporary buildings have a timeless quality that's easy to recognize yet hard to achieve with conventional manufactured materials.

These are buildings with personality--plus!

Athena and Bill Steen, co-authors of the original Straw Bale House book , have now created a book that celebrates in gorgeous color photographs the tactile, sensuous beauty of straw bale dwellings. Their selection of photos also demonstrates how far bale building has come in a very short period of time: In addition to handsome homes, small and not-so-small, this book shows larger-scale institutional buildings, including schools, office buildings, the Solar Living Center, and a Save the Children center in Mexico.

In addition, this book includes an introductory essay by the Steens noting the key lessons they have learned in years of building with bales: insights into the design and construction process, and critical advice about design elements that ameliorate the impacts of moisture, weather, and wear-and-tear over time. Each photograph is also accompanied by narrative text highlighting a given building's special features and personal touches.

This Old House is America’s longest-running home improvement show, airing on PBS since 1979. In this book, host Kevin O’Connor will chronicle 10 of the finest transformations rendered by the craftsmen and artists from the past decade of filming the show. Never before have completed projects from This Old House been displayed in such detail. From interiors to exteriors, with insights from every step of the process, the works presented in this book will give devotees of This Old House something they’ve never had before - the rarely shown finished spaces. With more than 200 stunning photographs showing the before-and-after of the best houses on the show, and unique insights and stories from O’Connor and some of the well-known crew members, fans of This Old House will be clamoring for this volume.

An insider’s tour of France’s most beloved and beautiful villages uncovers the country’s hidden treasures and idyllic holiday destinations.

The Best Loved Villages of France takes the reader to forty-four of the country’s most treasured locations. Always picturesque, but often well-kept secrets, the book offers insight into French village life. Visit a crumbling medieval fortress with the mayor of Lavardin or peruse the maritime objects found at sea by a mustached fisherman in Saint-Suliac, stroll along the windsurfer’s paradise at Wissant bay or promenade through the manicured grounds of Vaux-le-Vicomte, enjoy a fresh langoustine dinner in Corsica or catch the sunrise over the fairytale castle in Montsoreau.

This book offers an illustrated tour around all twenty-two regions of France, from Provence and the Alps, to Normandy and the Loire. A charming selection of aerial and intimate photographs invite the reader to explore these splendid locales, while the descriptions, anecdotes, and interviews with local village-dwellers plunge you into the individual history and character of France’s diverse regions. Feel inspired by journalist Stéphane Bern’s informative and practical travel tips and recommendations, and start planning your own adventure to France’s most loved villages or simply enjoy the armchair tour.

About the Author:

Stéphane Bern is a journalist for Le Figaro and a popular radio and television personality in France. He is the author of several biographies of royal families and society figures as well as coauthor of Highland Living: Landscape, Style, and Traditions of Scotland.
 

This paperback edition of The Big Book of Interiors features more than 600 different design ideas covering every room in the house…and then some.

For easy reference, the chapters are divided by location in the home:

• Living Rooms
• Bedrooms
• Kitchens
• Bathrooms
• Home Offices
• Kid Rooms
• Entrances and Corridors

Each section opens with text describing the decorating challenges unique to that part of the house, followed by full-color design ideas showcasing hundreds of different solutions to outfit every size room with a range of current interior style methods. The styles featured focus on the most popular used by today’s best interior designers, including New Rococo, Minimalism, New Rustic, Retro and Contemporary. Photographs are accompanied by captions explaining the different approaches from each designer and architect.

Whether it’s one room or an entire house, The Big Book of Interiors is the ultimate reference for every homeowner ready to redecorate.

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75 Award-Winning Plans for Your Dream House, 1,250 Square Feet or Less

Now available in paperback, this collection of 75 plans for small homes offers more than 500 usable blueprints and other illustrations for a variety of living spaces suitable for every environment and style, from a New England farmhouse to a sophisticated townhouse in the city to a Santa Fe ranch.

The designs include site drawings, floor plans, elevation drawings, section drawings, perspective drawings, and exploded views. A brief introduction to each home describes its setting, the philosophy behind the design and its intended use, materials used, recommended landscaping, and more. Many of the homes come with money-saving and environmentally sound features such as solar panels and water heaters, wood stoves, ceiling fans, airlock entries, wind power alternatives, and natural gas heaters.

This book illustrates trends in contemporary living on the basis of around twenty projects carried out by leading architects and interior designers. The reports demonstrate that contemporary living nowadays calls for more than the harmonious integration of the latest designer furniture in a modern context.

Over a million houses were built in Britain during the Edwardian period and another four million in the years between the two World Wars; most of these are still in use as homes today. This book explains to current owners of such houses why and by whom their properties were built, how the original occupants would have decorated, furnished and used them, and the development of the distinctive architectural styles of the time. The leading architects of the Edwardian period were enthusiasts for a return to English vernacular styles, in contrast to what they considered the dry rigidities of classicism and the extravaganzas of the Gothic revival and they were also obliged for the first time to address the changes necessary to incorporate innovations such as modern sanitation, bathing facilities and the use of electricity into their designs. The first half of the book looks at the styles which these men created for showpiece developments such as Hampstead Garden Suburb and Letchworth Garden City and the way in which their designs were copied by speculative builders and adapted for the first council houses as the suburbs started to spread ever-outwards along the railway lines and the new arterial roads from the centre of London and other great cities. There are also chapters on the gardens of the period. In the second half of the book individual chapters are devoted to the various elements of the house - fireplaces and chimneys, doors and windows, kitchens, bathrooms and WCs, staircases, etc - to the methods and materials used in their construction and to the decorative styles and materials fashionable at the time. For anyone who now owns or lives in a house built between 1900 and 1939 and who is interested in its history or in maintaining or restoring its period character this book will be an invaluable resource. Richard Russell Lawrence is the co-author, illustrator and designer of The Period Home: Style, Detail and Decoration 1774-1914 and the co-author or editor of six other books.

This beautifully illustrated book celebrates the Parisian mansion that has served as the residence of successive British Ambassadors to France since 1814.

The British Ambassadors Residence in Paris is one of the most splendid historic homes in the French capital and the most impressive of all British ambassadorial residences abroad. The author, Tim Knox, charts the stirring story of the house, from its origins as the home of the Ducs de Charost, to its opulent heyday under Napoleons sister, Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese, much of whose luxurious furniture and decoration survives intact. Since 1814, when Pauline sold the house to the 1st Duke of Wellington, the mansion has served as the residence of successive British Ambassadors to France, who altered the house to suit their taste and character, notably Sir Duff Cooper and his beautiful wife, Lady Diana, whose Empire-style study is still redolent of their brilliant social circle in post-war Paris.

This beautiful house on the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, furnished with masterpieces of French Empire furniture and decorative arts, English silver, and paintings by British artists, remains a splendid but hard-working setting for promoting the Franco-British relationship.

The Camondos were a family of bankers and philanthropists – ‘the Rothschilds of the East’. Arriving in Paris from Istanbul in 1869, their presence was soon noted in the worlds of business, music, art and the wealthier echelons of Paris society.

One man, Moïse de Camondo, made their mark permanent with the legacy of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, a magnificent Belle Époque mansion built to contain the family’s collection of 18th-century French art, and which became a memorial to his son who did not live to inherit it: Nissim de Camondo, a pilot during the First World War, was killed in aerial combat in 1917.

With Moïse’s death in 1935, and the deaths of remaining members of the family at Auschwitz in 1943–44, the Camondo line came to an end. The house was bequeathed to the French state, and survived the war intact.

The exceptional qualities of the house, its architecture and its beautiful decoration have been captured in superb photographs by Jean-Marie del Moral. Essays by curators and experts associated with the museum explore the splendour of each object and work of art in detail, tracing their history and setting them in context, and bringing to life the deeply moving story of a remarkable collection driven by passion.

Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York’s great public park, from its conception to its completion. This treasure trove of material ranges from the original winning competition entry; to meticulously detailed maps; to plans and elevations of buildings, some built, some unbuilt; to elegant designs for all kinds of fixtures needed in a world of gaslight and horses; to intricate engineering drawings of infrastructure elements. Much of it has never been published before. A virtual time machine that takes the reader on a journey through the park as it was originally envisioned, The Central Park is both a magnificent art book and a message from the past about what brilliant urban planning can do for a great city.

About the Authors:

Cynthia S. Brenwall is a conservator at the New York City Municipal Archives, which preserves the historical records of the government of New York City. She lives in New York City. 
Martin Filler is a prominent American architecture critic. He lives in New York City.
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Today’s glamorous chambers of curiosity are to apartment design what the dandy is to fashion.

The most fascinating apartments have always been those that reflect the essence of their interesting occupants. These apartments function as showcases for individual character, as chambers of curiosities reflecting unconventional life patterns. The apartment as dandy, as it were.

Apartments like these contain a conglomeration of objects and features that underscore the personalities of their occupants. Modern classics meet personal acquisitions and unconventional items with their own backstory. In these out-of-the-ordinary rooms, uniformity is avoided and the historical consorts with the futuristic. Anything goes: muted colors are set against geometric patterns, antiques against ultra-modern lights, an industrial lamp hovers over an oriental carpet, dark wood paneling offsets a Carl Auböck design, and paisley is a backdrop to onyx. The list of contrasts goes on.

Like the living spaces of modernist designers and architects, these collage-like interiors are not dull, utilitarian residential units but true chambers of curiosities. The acquisition of rare, weird, and often exotic articles has less to do with money spent and more to do with the fantasy and life path of its occupant and creator.

Thus we are presented with interiors reminiscent of movies by Kubrick, Fincher, or Lynch—sometimes with an ambiance that is cool and detached, sometimes glamorous, often enigmatic, and always engagingly different.

Over 256 pages The Chamber of Curiosity takes the reader on a tour of exciting interiors. As with our publication Northern Delights, this volume also provides portraits of trailblazing interior designers. Complementing features on Jean-Christophe Aumas from Voici-Voilá, Pietro Russo, Dimore Studio, Autoban, and the Harmony Club, additional texts about the featured owners and their furnishings reveal how lives and fantasies can be materialized into an interior universe of desire and wonder. The result is a book on pioneering interior designs that focuses not so much on the acquisition of the latest products as on the telling of a story.

The dense Asian city of Hong Kong has shaped and moulded Rocco Yim's views on architecure for more than 20 years. He sees architecture as being shaped by the city, rather than the reverse, a view that is fully expressed in his projects in the bustling Asian cities that are his specialty. His role as urban designer is that of a versatile, dynamic and incisive conceptual planner. This book features a selection of the early and later works of Rocco Yim, both built and unbuilt, and gives an unprecedented insight into the unique relationship this remarkable architect has with the city. Introductions by Professor Gary Hack of the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Dennis Sharp analyse the contribution that Rocco Yim has made to contemporary architecture. An essay by Rocco Yim adds further insight.

A sumptuous, large-format photographic tour of the extraordinary collections of antiques housed in fifteen private residences in Italy.

Over 150 superb photographs from the Country Life archive are selected especially here to highlight 25 major houses and their architects in a stunning and astoundingly thorough display.

In The Classical Country House architectural historian David Watkin takes a fresh and innovative look at the traditional British country house and shows how Classicism has been a seminal influence on British architecture since the seventeenth century. He demonstrates how the antecedents of the British Classical house, which lie in both Greek and Roman antiquity, were vigorously revived in the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, and enjoyed new life when transplanted to Britain by Inigo Jones, after his Grand Tour of the Continent in 1613 14. The book consists of five parts. The first looks at the birth of English Classicism in the seventeenth century, when houses such as Wilton House in Wiltshire (where Jones and John Webb designed the celebrated Double Cube Room) and Coleshill in Berkshire, reflect a rejection of contemporary styles in favour of a Renaissance-influenced design. The second part shows how the flowering of Classic design in the eighteenth century led to the creation of some of the most celebrated houses of the period: Chiswick House, Holkham Hall, Sir John Soane's Pitzhanger Manor, and the Grecian templar house, Grange Park. The third part recounts how the austerity of many buildings designed in the 18th century gave way to the richer styles of the Italian Renaissance Revival in the 19th century seen, for example, in Kingston Lacy, Dorset and Brodsworth Hall, Yorkshire. The final two chapters, on the twentieth century and beyond, reveal how even as individual an architect as Sir Edwin Lutyens immersed himself in a Classical language of design, in houses as diverse as Nashdom, Gledstone and the British Embassy in Washington D.C; and how, as the influence of Modernist design has waned, Classical styles have been revived most notably in the houses of Raymond Erith after the Second World War, and more recently by architects such as Quinlan Terry. David Watkin has selected over 150 of the finest images from the Country Life archive to illustrate an incisive study of 26 major houses and their architects. This highly informative and enlightening survey of Classicism through the centuries is a major addition to architectural history.

Readers who love new traditional design that's clean and refined yet comfortable will find inspiration and liberation in how acclaimed designer and author Darryl Carter perceives the home as a collection of beloved hand-selected items.

In The New Traditional, Darryl Carter laid out the principles of his widely recognized and beloved design aesthetic, which balances individual comfort with a subtle color palette to achieve serene and timeless style. Now, Darryl explores the essence of what brings a home to life, from textures to multipurpose furniture to unexpected objects.

The Collected Home dazzles with gorgeous photographs of rooms and details, and enlightening text about what makes a space extraordinary. Additionally, Darryl provides--for the first time ever--hands-on advice for approaching home design, such as defining short- and long-term goals, from selecting an antique door knocker to planning the architectural elements of an addition.

Lavishly illustrated, this book is a must-have for anyone who desires a home that feels richly layered, full of character, and unquestionably calm.

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