I hope this book can inspire readers to unleash their greatest gifts in life. Value life as it is and help others to succeed. Living one’s life by your own choices and not by default or choices of others. Be grateful for all that you have and not waste too much time dwelling at what you do not have. I wish entrepreneurs, parents and anyone who read this book can share the gems they found in the book to their children, their families, friends, associates, and beyond. This book is written ba...

Dreams + Disillusions explores the plethora of ideas and ideologies that have shaped and reshaped cities in profound ways. However, unlike a conventional title on the history of urbanism and architecture, its research fluctuates between the world of concrete reality and the multiple universes that exist in lucid prose, poetic visions, and the outrageous imaginations of history’s greatest and most (in)famous minds. In their thoughts are the foundations for political trends and new ...

Once Upon a China is an unconventional architectural story of great beauty, empathy, honour and sadness. The chapters are ingenious reimaginations of ‘Dream of the Red Mansion’, ‘Journey to the West ’, ‘The Water Margin’, and ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, and are conceived as specific themes of Chinese identity: domesticity, consumerism, democracy and adaptability. These four seminal pre-modern fictions contain diverse voices and philosophical perspectives on history as well as...

Embedding memories into landscape. Measuring moisture, pressure and wind speed within a bedroom. Drawing power with a potato. These are but a few of the preoccupations described within this book. ‘Devices’ is a manual celebrating the invention of architectural and spatial machines. Nostalgic, metaphorical, analytical or even the down-right daft, each of the illustrated pieces demonstrates the potential for spatial occupation, leading to new territories in architectural design. A detailed a...

In Food City, a companion piece to Smartcities and Eco-Warriors, innovative architect and urban designer CJ Lim explores the issue of urban transformation and how the creation, storage and distribution of food has been and can again become a construct for the practice of everyday life. Food City investigates the reinstatement of food at the core of national and local governance -- how it can be a driver to restructure employment, education, transport, tax, health...

Following on from the success of the first edition, Smartcities + Eco-Warriors (2010), this book is the latest innovative response on urban resilience from one of the world’s leading urban design and architectural thinkers. An ecological symbiosis between nature, society and the built form, the Smartcity cultivates new spatial practices and creates diverse forms of resilient landscapes including and beyond urban agriculture.The notion of the Smartcity is developed through ...

Inhabitable Infrastructures: Science fiction or urban future?, the follow up to Food City and Smartcities and Eco-Warriors, from one of the world’s leading urban design and architectural thinkers, explores the potential of climate change-related multi-use infrastructures that address the fundamental human requirements to protect, to provide and to participate. The stimulus for the infrastructures derives from postulated scenarios and processes gleaned from science fiction...

A visionary yet practical guide to building a more sustainable future, by one of the most important voices in environmentally aware designAre there practical solutions to the many global challenges—climate change, poverty, insufficient healthcare—that threaten our way of life? Author John Thackara has spent a lifetime roving the globe in search of design that serves human needs. In this clear-eyed but ultimately optimistic book, he argues that, in our eagerness to ...

Laurie Penman has written an indispensable guide for both the absolute beginner and the experienced clock enthusiast. The Clock Repairer’s Handbook provides information on how to repair and maintain a clock’s delicate mechanics and teaches the basics of clock repairing through detailed, easy-to-follow instructions and more than three hundred instructive diagrams and illustrations. Advice and directions for cleaning clock movements, pivoting and mounting, fixing train faults and ge...

Strawberries in January, fresh tomatoes year-round and New Zealand lamb at all times -- these well-travelled foods have a carbon footprint the size of an SUV. But there is a burgeoning local food movement taking place in Canadian cities, farms and shops that is changing both the way we eat and the way we think about food.Locavore describes how foodies,100-milers, urbanites, farmers, gardeners and chefs across Canada are creating a new local food order that has the potentia...

After the fierce warnings and grim predictions of The Weather Makers and An Inconvenient Truth, acclaimed journalist and national bestselling author Chris Turner finds hope in the search for a sustainable future.Point of no return: The chilling phrase has become the ubiquitous mantra of ecological doomsayers, a troubling headline above stories of melting permafrost and receding ice caps, visions of catastrophe and fears of a problem with no solution. Daring to ste...

Imagine perspective without pain-no T-squares, complicated equations or mechanical terms-just simple instructions and hands-on exercises to teach you how to create a sense of depth in your drawings and paintings. Now go a step further-imagine having fun with perspective. With this book, you will. Here Phil Metzger give you clear-cut guidelines in everyday terms-with a lot of friendliness and a little humor tossed in along the way. As an experienced artist, he understands how you work, and ...