Product Description

Part manual, part manifesto, part monograph: a comprehensive look at the methods and techniques of Spuybroek's hugely inventive architecture.

In the avant-garde of digital architects, Rotterdam-based Lars Spuybroek and his studio NOX are among the few who have completed built projects. Before the advent of large-scale processing power, digital modeling, and computer-aided manufacturing, NOX's structures would have been unbuildable. Today, the work is taken seriously on an international scale as the possibilities for construction and spatial innovation attain new levels of feasibility.

Written and compiled largely by the architect, the book reveals the inspirations, insights, and techniques that allow him to conceive—and build—such experimental work. There is a complete documentation of NOX's oeuvre, including built and unbuilt work—some twenty-three projects in total; essays by leading critics Manual De Landa, Detlef Mertins, Andrew Benjamin, Brian Massumi, and Arjen Mulder; and explanatory texts by Spuybroek that link the projects together.

Many of the illustrations in the book have been specially created, making accessible for the first time the complex strategies employed by Spuybroek. This in turn will make the publication an invaluable resource for both students and practicing designers. Over 800 illustrations, 400 in color.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #906465 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

From Booklist
Perhaps humans are not meant to operate in the "dry grid" of cubic spaces. A leading Dutch theorist and architect, Lars Spuybroek (principal of NOX) pushes form and substance in astoundingly improbable, winding, curving, globular directions. Jazzed by neurology and philosophy, and influenced by ever-more intricate computer modeling, Spuybroek asks whether building movement ought to more comfortably reflect body movement. "A curve is an intelligent, better-informed straight line," he writes. In Spuybroek's realm the operative idea is no longer that form follows function; it's a unified system where typology precedes topology. His projects thus lead to "soft" offices and sinuous biomorphs. Best known on these shores for envisioning a complex of twisting, porous towers on the World Trade Center site, Spuybroek is commanding increasing attention. This huge compendium of his work and ideas is sometimes dense, but in a challenging, eye-opening way as it navigates the implications of the intellectual dichotomies and design complexities in NOX's^B vision and projects. Visually dazzling, this book will appeal to architects, design and architecture students, artists, and futuristic dreamers. Steve Paul
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Lars Spuybroek established his studio in Rotterdam in the early 1990s. He has taught and lectured at numerous universities around the world, including Columbia University and the University of Kassel in Germany, where he is currently head of digital design.

Customer Reviews

Controversial but very good
The work of Lars Spuybroek has been and still is found to be very controversial within the architectural discourse. Especially the buidlings he designs seem to evoke a lot of discussion and are often tagged as 'silly, formless chunks of mass'.
Please don't let yourself be distracted by the somewhat awkward designs, but learn a lot from his methods! They are very interessting and can help you in your morhphogenetic process.

A very inspiring book
Not much of a writer, but i've been using this book for awhile now, and it has been source of inspiration for few of my school projects. These guys are truly innovative.

good for students
this is the best book i have ever saw. i'm a student for architecture and it helped me with my studies. i showed the book to my college prophesors and they agree with me, that is a fantastic book that all should see it and learn from it. their are wonerfull ideas in it.