CROSSOVER

Description

Product Description In this long-awaited follow-up to the enormously popular informal, designer, writer, and engineer Cecil Balmond invites readers into his creative process as he documents his most innovative projects in art, architecture, and bridge design.Hailed by friend and frequent collaborator Rem Koolhaas as having “almost single-handedly shifted the ground in engineering – and enabled architecture to be imagined differently,” Cecil Balmond has achieved special status as a pioneer in cross-disciplinary thinking. Balmond?s instinctual understanding and manipulation of forces has paved the way for generations of designers to break free from traditional systems of organization and embrace the non-linear. Crossover establishes and galvanizes these radical ideas in the emergence of new forms and contemporary aesthetics.This crucial new book outlines more than a dozen international projects and five theoretical chapters that embody the notion of Crossover which Balmond describes as the movement between Metaphor and Substance through Pattern. Navigating between the ideal and the pragmatic, Balmond creates balance between the poetic and the essential. Crossover presents Balmond?s thoughts and musings and charts his conceptual journey from the original fleeting idea to finished product. Photographs, drawings, and plans for each project accompany never seen before journal notes, sketches, and in-depth commentary. The book includes the Weave Bridge at the University of Pennsylvania; the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions at London?s Kensington Gardens; ArcelorMittal Orbit at the site of the London 2012 Olympics; and the world renowned CCTV tower in Beijing. Review Crossover by Cecil Balmond blends maths, engineering, art and architecture and adds a dash of mythology. The result is an interdisciplinary masterpiece. –New Scientist, 10th December 2013Balmond manages to surprise and delight the reader. –Blueprint (Main) March 2014 From the Inside Flap In this long-awaited follow-up to the enormously popular informal, designer, writer, and engineer Cecil Balmond invites readers into his creative process as he documents his most innovative projects in art, architecture, and bridge design. About the Author Cecil Balmond is a Sri-Lankan born designer and engineer of world renown. He was deputy chairman of Ove Arup and Partners Ltd. He is the head of Balmond Studio, a design and research practice based in London. Balmond is the author of informal, Element, and Number 9, all published by Prestel. He has received many awards, including the Banister Fletcher Prize, the Gengo Masui Prize, and the RIBA Charles Jencks Award for Theory in Practice. He has taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and the Yale School of Architecture and currently holds the Cret Char at PennDesign as Professor of Architecture.