Bookshelf

Type in Motion 2
Written and designed by
Matt Woolman
Thames and Hudson, 176 pp., $45.00
Type in Motion 2 offers a look at the work of a diverse group of artists, designers, and university students. Parading through its pages are still images of cell-phone animations, short-film title sequences, interactive databases, and music videos. Each image is accompanied by a brief caption that describes the interactive context in which these pieces first appeared. Occasionally the layout emphasizes certain aspects of the original work, such as color gradations in Digital Kitchen’s animation for the Experience Music Project, but the original effects are often lost in the translation to print. A third installment would benefit from a companion DVD.

Belltown Paradise: Making Their Own Plans
Edited by Brett Bloom and Ava Bromberg
Designed by Department of Graphic Sciences
White Walls Inc., 128 pp., $14.00
If you want to revive your neighborhood with greenery and community space, Belltown Paradise is a good resource. Through a series of case studies, it documents the grassroots efforts of architects, landscape architects, developers, artists, anarchists, and farmers working to improve their neighborhoods. The book is divided into two parts: the first half focuses on the transformation of Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood; and the second on projects under way worldwide, including Portland’s city repair project and Chicago’s compost shelter and city farm initiatives. Many of the book’s contributors come from the front lines to tell tales of gratifying achievements and occasional letdowns.

The Mythic City: Photographs of New York by Samuel H. Gottscho, 1925-1940
By Donald Albrecht
Designed by Pure + Applied
Princeton Architectural Press,
224 pp., $40.00
Architectural photographer Gottscho may make you nostalgic for New York’s golden age, the 1920s and ’30s. His photos capture the soaring height of Rockefeller Center, the dizzying action of Times Square, and the delicate pride of the Chrysler Building. The Mythic City—a companion publication to the exhibit running at the Museum of the City of New York through February—is the first contemporary assemblage of Gottscho’s work. In addition, the author reveals the photographer’s techniques for adding virility to his subjects and techniques for photographing the city at night.

Tropical Architecture
By Wolfgang Lauber
Designed by Liquid, Ulrike Schmidt,
and Andrea Mogwitz
Prestel, 203 pp., $75.00
How should architects design and build in tropical climates, where populations are expected to grow by three billion over the next 15 years? Architect Lauber surveys the architectural history of the tropics in an effort to find an answer. He explores examples of carefully sited vernacular architecture that maximizes air circulation, sunlight, and wind; he contrasts them with examples of contemporary structures that disregard such factors. The author concludes with student-developed sustainable building technologies and an assessment of urban plans in several tropical megacities, including Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro.

Design Denied: The Dynamics of Withholding
Good Design and Its Ethical Implications
Edited by Michael LaCoste
Designed by Alisa Wolfson
Archeworks, 115 pp., $24.95
This student manifesto begins with an exclamation: “We have been asleep for too long!” It demands a reconsideration of design’s social and ethical roles. Dense with anxious energy and fresh perspective, the book bluntly asks a gutsy question: Why are companies withholding good design? A survey conducted by students at Archeworks, Chicago’s alternative design school, singles out government institutions and businesses that the editors found guilty of supporting poor design. Among those blacklisted are compact-disc manufacturers because as one respondent sees it, “Plastic CD cases are hard to open and break easily, and it is too hard to get the liner notes out.”

Green Roofs: Ecological Design and Construction
By Earth Pledge; preface by Leslie Hoffman;
foreword by William McDonough
Designed by Heather Sommerfield
Schiffer Publishing, 160 pp., $39.95
In this beautiful and well-researched book, Earth Pledge calls on all citizens to restore the balance between human and natural systems by promoting the installation of green roofs. Through case studies of 40 buildings and seven municipalities, it outlines the positive impact green roofs have on cities. Examples range from a three-inch-deep sedum roof in Madrid to an installation supporting the growth of fir, pine, and aspen trees atop a Salt Lake City church. The breadth and ingenuity of examples will both impress and inspire.