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Title:
Skyscrapers : structure and design

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$54.00
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Summary:
An investigation of thirty skyscrapers from around the world - both recently built and under construction - that explains the structural principles behind their creation. Skyscrapers, ever taller, astound us with their immensity and beauty. Despite the challenges associated with their design and safety, there is continued growth in the size and number of tall buildings being built around the world. In this fascinating book, Matthew Wells, a practicing structural engineer, explains the principles behind the construction of skyscrapers and the ways they are designed to withstand such forces as earthquakes, high winds, and fire. Beginning with a concise architectural and cultural history of the skyscraper, Wells then offers thirty case studies of high profile buildings recently built or under construction by some of the world’s most renowned architectural firms, including Foster and Partners; Zaha Hadid Architects; Cesar Pelli and Associates; the Renzo Piano Building Workshop; and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Each is illustrated in colour alongside accompanying text, drawings, plans, and details that show how the building is constructed and what particular innovative design features it incorporates in order to address such issues as sustainability, the needs of mixed-use sites, local vernacular traditions, and technological advancements in building materials.

Title:
High-rise manual : typology and design, construction and technology

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$115.95
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Summary:
What constitutes a high-rise building? A high-rise is, in fact, any building with more than 9 storeys and not just those striking skyscrapers which shape modern city skylines. In the past, architects who designed such structures used to be the exception but in the last 10 years more and more architectural offices have begun to focus on this type of building. However, the sheer complexity of designing and planning the construction of a high-rise as opposed to other building types requires a wealth of specialized experience and expertise. The High-Rise Manual is the first comprehensive reference work on this subject. All relevant aspects of such an undertaking are examined in detail by some 25 specialist authors. Each step is extensively documented. Theoretical contributions present the basic principles of selected topics revealing how the task is viewed from the different perspectives. With countless illustrations, plans, and CAD drawings, this volume highlights the basic principles and details vital to building high-rise structures.

Title:
Ken Yeang : Eco Skyscrapers

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$60.00
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Summary:
For many, eco skyscrapers are synonymous with Ken Yeang. In more than three decades of practice, Ken Yeang has almost single-handedly pioneered and developed this building genre. This book presents Ken Yeang's work on the design of ecologically responsive skyscrapers, and includes his essay on applying green-design principles to the skyscraper typology, as well as a preface by Steve Featherstone, an introduction by David Scott (Chairman of The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat) and a critique by Professor Ivor Richards. Ken Yeang makes it clear at the outset that the skyscraper building type is probably the most ecologically unfriendly of all building types, but states that until an economically viable alternative is identified, it is necessary to make them as humane and as sustainable as possible. Each project is presented together with data on its climatic location, the local vegetation, plot ratio, net and gross areas. The book is invaluable to those seeking to design green skyscraper.

Title:
Gratte-ciel contemporains

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$74.95
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Mieux que toute autre espèce de création architecturale, le gratte-ciel est à la fois un élément du paysage urbain et un symbole ancré dans l'imaginaire collectif. A travers une approche originale et pluridisciplinaire du sujet, ce livre expose une réflexion d'ensemble sur le passé récent et le futur potentiel de ce type de construction. Le propos est illustré par une centaine d'exemples contemporains, choisis dans le monde entier et dus à des architectes de renommée internationale, parmi lesquels Christian de Portzamparc, Renzo Piano, jean Nouvel. Les réalisations majeures des dernières décennies sont ainsi décrites, expliquées et replacées au sein des grandes tendances artistiques dont elles sont l'expression. L'ouvrage contient également plusieurs projets inédits pour le nouveau World Trade Center de New York.

Title:
Nearest thing to heaven : the Empire State Building and American dreams

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$32.50
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Summary:
The book leads through the facts surrounding the skyscraper’s conception and construction, then enters into a theoretical discussion of its function as an icon, its representation in pictures, literature, and film, and the implications of its iconic status as New York’s most important architectural monument to ambition and optimism.

Title:
The international highrise awards 2008

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$32.00
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Summary:
Never before have so many high-rises been built. Spectacular skyscrapers with landmark character are not only appearing in boom cities like Dubai and Beijing or in the USA — the high-rise is also experiencing a renaissance in Europe. No type of building generates stronger emotions, but differentiated debate on these tower blocks only began recently. It is no longer merely a question of how many meters tall, but of new qualities in the construction of high-rise buildings, e.g. energy efficiency, sustainability, and social, economic and ecological compatibility. The projects of the International Highrise Award 2008 demonstrate current developments and so present the full range of contemporary high-rise construction, from utilisation to site-specifics.

Title:
Empire : a tale of obsession, betrayal, and the battle for an American icon

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$26.50
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Summary:
In this fast-paced book, Mitchell Pacelle tells the story of the ten-year struggle for control of America’s most famous skyscraper–a tale of greed and duplicity that consumed, and nearly destroyed, some of the real estate world’s most controversial tycoons.

Title:
The Chrysler Building : creating a New York icon, day by day

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$75.00
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Summary:
The never-before-seen collection of images in this book documents the construction of the Chrysler Building from street to spire.

Title:
Tower and office : from modernist theory to contentemporary practice

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$67.95
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Summary:
In "Tower and office", Spanish architects Inaki Abalos and Juan Herreros look at the role and impact of advanced building technologies in American architecture since World War II. The war, they claim, marked the end of the first cycle of modernism, challenging the belief that technological progress alone could produce a perpetually better future. At the same time, the war was the source of powerful new structural models and construction methods. The authors examine the ways these technologies have been inflected over the last half century by more subjective and integrated processes of spatial organization.

Title:
The skyscraper and the city: the woolworth building and the making of modern New York

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$74.00
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Once the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Woolworth Building is noted for its striking but incongruous synthesis of Beaux-Arts architecture, fanciful Gothic ornamentation, and audacious steel-framed engineering. Here, in the first history of this great urban landmark, Gail Fenske argues that its design serves as a compelling lens through which to view the distinctive urban culture of Progressive-era New York. Fenske shows here that the building’s multiplicity of meanings reflected the cultural contradictions that defined New York City’s modernity. For Frank Woolworth—founder of the famous five-and-dime store chain—the building served as a towering trademark, for advocates of the City Beautiful movement it suggested a majestic hotel de ville, for technological enthusiasts it represented the boldest of experiments in vertical construction, and for tenants it provided an evocative setting for high-style consumption. Tourists, meanwhile, experienced a spectacular sightseeing destination and avant-garde artists discovered a twentieth-century future. In emphasizing this faceted significance, Fenske illuminates the process of conceiving, financing, and constructing skyscrapers as well as the mass phenomena of consumerism, marketing, news media, and urban spectatorship that surround them. As the representative example of the skyscraper as a “cathedral of commerce,” the Woolworth Building remains a commanding presence in the skyline of lower Manhattan, and the generously illustrated Skyscraper and the City is a worthy testament to its importance in American culture.