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Mute Icons
Interrogating historical, contemporary, and more importantly speculative images, “Mute Icons” aims to construct a viable alternative to the icon's cliche and exhausted form of communication, positing one that is decidedly introverted and withdrawn. Developing a language and a sensibility for discovering simultaneous, contradictory, and even unexpected readings of architectural form, PATTERNS' new book “Mute Icons”, aims to carve out a niche in contemporary culture and history by suggesting that far from being a crowd-pleaser, architecture can persist as a constructive cultural and social irritant.
Part history, part theory, and part monographic atlas, “Mute Icons” includes contributions by Georgina Huljich, Guillermo Martinez, Ciro Najle, Marcelo Spina, Brett Steele, and Constance Vale.
Part history, part theory, and part monographic atlas, “Mute Icons” includes contributions by Georgina Huljich, Guillermo Martinez, Ciro Najle, Marcelo Spina, Brett Steele, and Constance Vale.
Against the Grain
Against the Grain, features the work of three studios of the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professors at Yale. Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich in “Brutal Beauty: Piles, Monoliths and the Incongruous Whole” explored ways to make mute icons through monolithic form so that the buildings were foreign to their context and difficult to read formally for a film center in Los Angeles. Dan Wood in “Boulevard Triumphant: ecological infrastructure, architecture, modernization, and the image of the city” a studio for a civic center in Gabon that challenged the architectural language in Africa beyond the clichés and nostalgia to create an architecture that embodied a new ambition. Lisa Gray and Alan Organschi in “Timber Innovation District: new timber technologies and contemporary high performance wood architecture” researched wood as a material for larger-scale projects for a site on New Haven’s working waterfront, with projects ranging from bridges to manufacturing facilities and multi-family housing. Edited by Jackie Kow and Nina Rappaport the book is designed by MGMT.design and is distributed by Actar D
Patterns Embedded
‘Embedded’, PATTERNS’s first comprehensive monograph argues for the need of closer proximity between discipline and practice in architecture by articulating concepts, drawings, projects and buildings. Founded in Los Angeles in 2002 and headed by Argentinean Architects Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich, the award-winning practice thoughtful research, innovative mission and collaborative approach moves seamlessly between digital and material expressions. In addition to their material and formal research, built projects include Prism Art Gallery in West Hollywood, FYF Residence and Jujuy Redux both in Rosario (Argentina) and Fluid Core Yard in Chengdu, China as well as small objects, sculptures and installations. The book includes essays by Marcleo Spina, Georgina Huljich, Todd Gannon, Marcelyn Gow.and John Mcmorrough.
Material Beyond Materials
There are a multitude of different approaches regarding the application and significance of composites in contemporary design, many of which are represented by the speakers who participated in the SCI-Arc-hosted conference, "Material Beyond Materials-Composite Tectonics." The event centered on investigating the relationships that currently exist between technological advances in materials, innovations in the building industry, and contemporary design discourse and pedagogy. This book documents one of the largest events SCI-Arc has ever organized and probably the first one with a direct emphasis on advanced materials and their use in the architecture field.