Ryan Raymund

Marking the ten-year anniversary of Fernando Romero's Laboratory of Architecture, this publication celebrates the work of the young Mexican architect. After working at the offices of Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam from 1997 to 2000, Romero started his own practice, the Laboratory of Architecture (LAR). The firm has produced a vast collection of designs and buildings ranging from the orthogonal to the fluid and organic. With offices in Mexico City and Los Angeles, the firm has consistently lived up to its name, demonstrating a willingness to experiment with new materials and methods while serving a diverse international clientele. LAR has worked to create luxury apartments and low-cost housing projects, museums and banks, schools and bridges. Presenting a selection of projects combining master planning, cultural exchange and socio-political research, LAR/Fernando Romero: Simplexity provides an overview of the architect's visions, designs and buildings.

Gritty Brits presents the work of six emerging architectural practices--all based in London, and all building within the complex setting of the British capital. Featuring the work of Adjaye/Associates, Caruso St John Architects, FAT [Fashion Architecture Taste], Níall McLaughlin Architects, muf and Sergison Bates architects, this succinct and vibrant study investigates five projects from each practice in photographs, drawings and plans. Through thorough documentation, we see how each project has been developed to strategically address the realities--and opportunities--of the contemporary city, often divining possibilities for construction and habitation on peripheral, residual, overlooked or simply unfashionable sites. This is not tourist London. This is London as experienced by its residents in their daily lives, a London that is evolving and clashing, ugly as well as beautiful. Beginning with a series of maps and photographs that contextualize all of the featured projects, Gritty Brits includes essays by Raymund Ryan and Ian Sinclair that capture the look and feel of contemporary London at a time of tremendous economic and social change. In addition to providing a fascinating view of contemporary London architecture, this volume serves as an unconventional guide to one of the world's greatest cities, off the beaten path.

The most complete monograph dedicated to the work of Michael Maltzan and his Los Angeles-based architecture practice, this book presents 16 of Maltzan's most recent projects with full-color photographs, drawings and plans. Maltzan is an architect who deals with the realities of urban landscape through the manipulation of ground, circulation and perception. Among his best-known projects is MoMA QNS, Maltzan's reworking of a former factory into a temporary accommodation for the Museum of Modern Art, which opened in Queens, New York, in June 2002. Projects currently in design or under construction include several innovative residences in California, the Fresno Metropolitan Museum and Kidspace Children's Museum, Pasadena, which was selected for the 2002 Venice Biennale International Exhibition of Architecture. Maltzan is quickly gaining increasing international recognition for his work, with projects in China, Canada and Milan.