Pulse
March 2019

Desire April 2019

Coffee Table Books

By Jaq Greenspon

There’s something about a well-designed book, full of beautiful photos and illustrations, sitting atop your coffee table. Not only is it informative, but it also provides conversation starters when you have guests and a delightful way to kill a few idle moments of relaxation. This month, we look at books about design and architecture, guaranteed to impress cynics and hipsters alike.

Hadid

Zaha Hadid was a revolutionary architect, who for many years achieved critical acclaim and won numerous prizes, while building almost nothing. During the latter years of her life, Hadid’s daring visions became a reality, bringing a unique new architectural language to cities and structures. This TASCHEN monograph, now available in an updated edition, covers Hadid’s complete works, right through to the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, with abundant photographs, in-depth sketches, and Hadid’s own drawings.

Living in the Desert: Stunning Desert Homes and Houses

The desert provides a sense of mystery and rugged beauty that attracts architects, home owners, vacationers, and anyone looking for an escape within its arid climate. This book showcases 50 works of residential architecture, each with a unique connection to the desert. Each building includes a short text and several exterior and interior images of its structure and surroundings.

Greetings from Retro Design: Vintage Graphics Decade by Decade

A lively history of graphic design in the 20th century, providing information about the typefaces and color palettes defining each decade. The book is introduced by a series of illustrated timelines highlighting the century’s movements, visual trends, and technological breakthroughs, with pointers towards influences from other fields such as politics, technology and architecture.

Homes for Our Time: Contemporary Houses around the World

This cutting-edge global digest features the world’s most beautiful private abodes. Here, there are homes in Australia and New Zealand, from China and Vietnam, in the United States and Mexico, and on to less expected places like Ecuador and Costa Rica. The result is a sweeping survey of the contemporary house, and a reminder that we all have a lot more in common than might be expected.

Green City Spaces: Urban Landscape Architecture (Architecture in Focus)

In addition to the importance for the structure and appearance of urban spaces, Green areas have a wide range of social, ecological and economic functions. They can serve as relaxation and communication rooms, or they can have an extremely positive influence on the micro-climate, not to mention the increasing attention they receive from the real estate business as a factor in site evaluation. This volume presents a broad spectrum of green areas like: urban parks, public roof gardens, greened façades, and city squares.

Off the Grid: Houses for Escape

The ultimate escapist collection of environmentally sustainable houses, cabins, and retreats, this book circles the globe to find the best eco-architecture in the most stunning and remote locations. Surveying some of the world’s most innovative off-grid homes, Off the Grid reveals the creative architecture and cutting-edge technologies that are redefining where and how we live – enabling us to escape to some of the most extraordinary and secluded natural environments on the planet.

Kaleidoscope: The Art of Illustrative Storytelling

Derived from magazines, posters, books, blogs and personal projects, Kaleidoscope includes interviews with six talented and enthusiastic artists who are masters of the art of storytelling. The artists utilize traditional illustration techniques along with embroidery, paper cutting, carving and collage to create pieces that standout for their low-tech charm. The result relies heavily on the artists ability to turn the lens just right and capture the essentials of setting characterization, mood, detail, motion and more to convey the intended meaning.

Books Make a Home: Elegant ideas for storing and displaying books

This book explores the important role books play as decoration, as well as functional items. Touring the rooms of a home in turn and discovering a host of techniques for stacking, shelving, and closeting volumes, the book illustrates how each space can be brought to life by books. Alongside inspirational photography is a wealth of practical design. Learn how to make the best use of existing storage, create new space for a collection and how to combine books with other personal effects to create eye-catching displays

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