Chris van Uffelen

The building culture of China is currently one of the most innovative and adventurous in the world because of the bold ways architects approach materials and genres, as well as forms and functions. At the same time, it offers the opportunity to implement the most daring designs in the shortest possible time, as both the expertise and the necessary manpower...

An inspiring overview of contemporary homes set against the backdrop of high mountains, steep hillsides, and picturesque valleys with a focus on architecture and interior design. From the majestic peaks of the Alps to the green slopes of Japan's Shikoku Range and the rugged heights of the Rocky Mountains: the selected residential buildings at such dizzying heights are a reminder...

The volume takes you on a journey to the world's most beautiful houses set in gorgeous coastal settings. Living by the sea, surrounded by dunes, cliffs, or wide beaches, is a life in sync with nature, immersed in nature. Naturally, this preferred location near the water also leaves its imprint on the buildings there. On a functional level, beach houses...

Delving into the harmony of tradition and modernity in Japanese residential architecture to reimagine the art of home design.Life in Japan - and therefore also the culture of living - oscillates between two very contrasting poles: on the one hand, the tranquility of country life, surrounded by the sounds of nature, with tatami mats, sliding doors and engawa wooden verandas,...

Exploring the latest trends in Nordic home design, making it an inspiring source anyone looking to embrace the Hygge lifestyle.The design culture of the Nordic countries is celebrated for its successful blend of minimalism, coziness, comfort, and beauty. Few places in the world approach housing with such intentionality, where architecture and interior design continually strive to balance tradition and innovation....

Vertical elegance: exploring the cutting-edge world of today's apartment building design, with unique spatial ideas and innovative room concepts for inspiring living spaces. Today, multi-family buildings have become symbols of modern living that redefine both social cohesion and urban space. Their high resident density, low resource and space requirements, as well as communally used areas, make them the most sustainable...

Architecture involving and consisting of bamboo has developed into one of the most fascinating areas of global building culture. A material with many faces, more flexible than wood and stronger than steel: in addition to its individual and natural appearance, above all, the unique material properties such as extreme hardness combined with low weight, strong compressive and tensile strength, and...

The use and popularity of this building material has not diminished over the millennia and is even gaining more popularity today. Bricks are the only non-natural building material that can look back on several thousand years of history. As Mies van der Rohe stated: "Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins." Buildings made of this...

Libraries are spaces for learning, discovery, and also for interaction. Their architecture is currently the subject of much discussion as the demands on these cornerstones of modern civilisation have changed enormously since they have had to meet the requirements of the new multimedia and digital age. The library as an institution underwent a real image change from an introverted knowledge...

Communicative living on a single level thanks to a wide variety of layouts, ingenious spatial solutions by playing with building structures, and the symbiosis of architecture and environment: The bungalow is the epitome of a self-determined life – and inspires builders and architects alike. The one or one-and-a-half-story type of detached single-family house today is resplendent with elegant monopitch roofs,...

This compendium presents an international showcase of contemporary landscape design between global trends, local traditions, climatic conditions, functional demands, new technologies, economic circumstances, and individual styles. Whether around, beside, on top of, or even in buildings, in populated areas or in the countryside, landscape architecture develops and designs outdoor spaces for humans as independent creations. It mediates between nature and...

Who wants to live how? The most diverse life patterns and lifestyles are reflected in the way a person designs his or her home. Architects and interior designers have to get involved with the individual character of their clients. They need to understand how their clients want to live and implement this in their room concepts and designs. From the...

An extraordinary variety of well-designed middle-class family dwellings in Germany For many people, home ownership is one of the most important goals in life and the biggest private investment. In Germany, about two-thirds of the residential building stock consists of single-family homes. With 80,000 to 90,000 new residences built every year, it is by far the most important construction task...

More and more architects and builders are exploring the possibilities of a material for the construction of houses that offers unparalleled major advantages regarding design, function, and ecology. Wood is a renewable building resource that impresses with its natural qualities as well as its astonishing versatility, especially given a number of new techniques, processing options, and innovations. Moreover, wooden architecture...

Exchange and interaction, an escape from everyday life, letting the imagination flow, writing, reading, or simply doing nothing: Drinking a coffee in a nice café, spontaneously or on a date, alone or with friends, is undoubtedly one of the things we miss the most during the 2020/21 pandemic — even if we have always felt the importance of these semi-private,...

Nearly exactly ten years after the publication of the Atlas of World Architecture, this new follow-up publication reviews the last architectural decade by means of current exemplary buildings from all continents. Not only have building tasks, techniques and styles changed greatly in the last decade, but the world has transformed, which is significantly reflected in global building culture. Conversion and...

A reference, overview and source of inspiration for today's interior design, from private homes to stores, spas, restaurants, offices, and more. Interior design today is versatile, constantly changing, and allows room for experimentation and spontaneity. From materials and textures, through light and colours, shapes and lines, furniture, and design objects, to style references and much more: This compendium offers an...

Buildings designated brutalist in style were largely built in the 1960s and 1970s, exuding an aura of daring, uncompromising design today. It is the French term brut, meaning raw or unrefined, that lent its name to this particular architectural phenomenon. Vilified for decades as the step-child of modernism, brutalist architecture is now enjoying an astonishing comeback as the latest discovery...

In almost no other European region is the connection between nature and design as pronounced and, at the same time, as varied as in the Scandinavian countries. The rugged wilderness and dark days require comfortable interiors with warm colours, while lovely landscape scenarios and long midsummer nights are juxtaposed with functional-minimalist and timeless design. Nordic Style presents the impressive wealth...

An authoritative guidebook in chronological order whereby the buildings can be understood in their respective architectural-historical context. Berlin. The Architecture Guide showcases Berlin not just as the capital city and largest metropolis in Germany, but as a city characterized by its diverse architectural landscape. This guide, now in its latest expanded and updated version, offers comprehensive access to this amazing...

The purpose and primary function of wayfinding and signage design is to provide spatial orientation as quickly and clearly as possible. Respective concepts and systems can be designed for individual buildings, for example corporate headquarters, museums or hospitals, for areas such as a university campus or distinct municipal district, or for entire systems like a city's public transport. In addition...

The desire for beautiful gardens is as strong as ever. One's own garden, as a private oasis of well-being and a place of prestige, can be much more than just lawn and flowerbed, path, and hedge. The projects by professional landscape and garden architects presented in Hortus Conclusus demonstrate which elements, components, and structures, composed and conceived with care and...

Single-Family Houses in Switzerland & Austria is dedicated to a common and very frequent construction task in Switzerland and Austria: the detached house. Current design trends and new interpretations of alpine building cultures, different life forms and realities, changed demands and needs can be discovered in what architects and designers have created in recent years. A particularly exciting phenomenon in...

An important material for many centuries and used in countless diverse ways before being almost despised for a long time in the modern era, wood has now become a source of fascination and inspiration in contemporary architecture. The sustainable and locally available building material is easy to process, structurally very powerful and extremely simple to combine with other materials. It...

Amazing Possibilities for Hoteliers and Designers Alike to Prove Their Ingenuity. The adaptive reuse approach is gaining ground in the hotel industry. The careful and respectful handling of the building fabric is as important in this process as the creative extension. Converting old structures is a great way to offer an authentic experience for guests, while also conserving land, reducing...

Whether strict and orthogonal or undulating and curved, whether rough and natural or polished and elegant... Wood is nature's greatest resource, embedded in the history, culture, and life of humans worldwide. It is ingenious as a building material: remarkably malleable and at the same time resilient, recyclable in many ways, and reducing greenhouse gases. It is universally applicable, locally available,...

After the Middle Ages, concrete fell into oblivion and was only rediscovered around 1700. Through constant further development and improvement, it became the most widely used building material of our time. New and innovative applications make it an incredibly valuable design tool for contemporary architectural concepts, as its properties and appearances can be influenced by the respective mixture of components....

Creating Identity with Trees, Plants and Street Furniture The design of open spaces around a company headquarters or within a company premises is increasingly important, and in some cases now also a lucrative field of activity in landscape architecture. On the one hand, company gardens fulfil the function of a signboard advertising the company. On the other hand, in times...

"Less is More" is one of the most frequently quoted and most influential principles of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It demands abstraction, functionality, and clarity. The minimalist design approach applies to space and light, rhythm and texture, shape and colour. Less is more is also the common denominator of the projects that were carefully selected for this volume. The...

Their function as a link between two or more places over otherwise impassable obstacles distinguishes bridges from all the other types of structures or buildings. In the history of mankind, they evolved with a great variety of profiles and construction methods. Today, new technologies allow the implementation of projects with previously unattainable shapes and sizes. Because bridges are very often...

After the success of Architectural Visions, with its focus on the German-speaking countries, this volume is devoted to the individual "handwriting" of architects and designers from around the world. As computer-aided design becomes ever more prevalent, the handmade drawing is experiencing an amazing Renaissance. In its characteristic touch, it often shows much more clearly which aesthetic impression the planned building...

In the world of architecture and construction, there is a general consensus that many existing residential buildings will have to be substantially renovated within the next few years. This necessity arises not only because they are technically outdated but also because their functionality and aesthetics are no longer in line with contemporary demands and requirements. For each venture of this...

Product packaging has, first of all, to fulfil functional demands such as structural stability, air-tightness or air-permeability, information requirements and cost-effectiveness. However, it is much more than just a kind of container made of glass, wood, or plastic protecting its contents: it is also the face of the product. Like the façade of a building, the package gives an impression...

The Beauty of a New Beginning Housing shortages and building dereliction are fundamental challenges, concerning also the current architectural landscape. That these problems can be overcome by addressing them together has been proven by the increasingly successful reactivation and conversion of existing real estate in both urban and rural contexts. Real-world examples show that these measures can also make sense...

Pharmacies constitute a special form of commercial architecture. The market for medicines, which is heavily regulated in most countries, has led to a veritable competition of the "atmosphere of space": since where product and price can no longer provide a competitive advantage, customer loyalty must be created with other means. In addition to professional competence and familiarity with the customers,...

Water is the scarcest of all natural resources. It is a global challenge to develop, produce, and deploy technologies, systems, and products for sustainable water consumption. The model for this approach is the world leader GROHE, which has been working for some time in the field of ecological solutions for water resources. The GROHE idea is not simply to deal...

At the beginning of the 20th century, the department store developed from markets and urban arcades, from which the shopping mall evolved in the post-war period. The operators of department stores and shopping centres are coming under increasing pressure from the competition of the continuously growing internet trade. By the same token, however, there is also an increasing tendency for...

Street Furniture is the secret star of urban outdoor design. Though rarely noticed at first glance, it significantly contributes towards the urban experience. Benches, fountains, street lamps, rubbish bins, post boxes, tourist information signs, bus stops as well as public toilets are items that reoccur in various urban spaces. Just like outstanding monuments and landmarks, they determine the identity of...

Office construction is one of the largest building tasks today. Architects and designers face the challenge of creating buildings and spaces that are functional yet stylish. Collection: Offices presents 170 of the most interesting office projects of the past years, which range from small-scale two-roomed offices to vast corporate buildings that comprise more than 100 stories. Open-plan offices, single-roomed bureaus,...

The greening of façades with plants gives a piece of nature back to the city. But a green façade is much more than a charming view: thanks to its insulating effect, it evens out extreme swings in temperature, protects against UV radiation, and improves sound insulation. In that regard, one does not have to always rely on the usual ivy....

Small but Smart explores enthralling room concepts and convincing spatial solutions for the efficient use of limited space. The aim to live in a mini house can have various reasons: for many, it represents a better, more liveable existence based on what is necessary, possible and desired, making one's life easier, more economical and more sustainable. Limiting the floor space...