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Special Offer: Concrete Elegance Series 4-Pack

Buy the first four books in the series for just £22 (Save £12).The Concrete Elegance series aims to renew an interest in the potential of concrete in all its many forms and expressions, and to inspire the architect and engineer to learn more about the ways in which concrete can be used to achieve elegant and innovative designs.

Concrete Elegance One

Concrete Elegance One focuses on precast concrete, uses of concrete in art and sculpture, textured and decorative concrete, and high performance concrete. The book features recent architectural projects which express a renewed interest in concrete's plastic and aesthetic qualities. These projects include a spiral staircase in the Tuborg 15 building in Copenhagen and the concrete arch of the Seonyu Footbridge in Seoul, two projects which demonstrate how ready mixed concrete and the right selection of formwork and placement techniques can produce award winning architecture at affordable prices.

Concrete Elegance Two

The projects discussed in this book are varied and provide an exploration into concrete's versatility. The book contains a summary of state of the art developments in casting smooth, double-storey high, board marked panels without compaction exemplified by the City and County Museum in Lincoln. The book also includes an explanation of precast sandwich panel construction used extensively for housing developments in Helsinki and for the stunning SID Building office development in Arhus, Denmark.

Concrete Elegance Three

Concrete Elegance Three explores the various colours and surface consistencies of concrete. It discusses the quality and variety of colour emerging in concrete architecture using examples, such as the black concrete of the Utrecht Library, the grass-imprinted precast panels of the A16 Toll Booths in France, the pink glass reinforced concrete (GRC) panels of Villaverde in Madrid and the plain grey concrete in the Bacon Street House. The landscape, hardscape, parkland and playground projects and domestic artefacts reviewed in this edition help to broaden the readers understanding of concrete's potential and universal appeal.

Concrete Elegance Four

The themes and subjects explored in Concrete Elegance Four include: developments in sustainable concrete, concrete offices and energy efficiency, loft inspired ideas concrete for small works and interiors, plasticity and form, landscape architecture, and modern concrete homes. The book also explains how concrete can be designed to reduce embodied CO2 by using replacement cements and incorporating hemp, and discusses how long-term energy demand in buildings can be reduced by utilising thermal mass.

The possibilities for innovative, decorative and durable concrete finishes continue to inspire and challenge preconceptions. This is demonstrated throughout the book in examples such as the marble-smooth polythene-lined finish of the Kander House in London, the oyster shells cast into the cladding panels for the Museum Pavilion in St Albans, the black concrete inlaid with gold leaf in David Undery's latest sculpture, and the quality of the standard ply finishes to the ribbed slab soffit of The Cass Sculpture Foundation in Sussex and the flat soffits of The Playgolf building in Harrow. Other projects featured in the book include: The Heelis Building in Swindon, The Adnams Warehouse in Suffolk, Brighton Central Library, The Jones House in Antrim, Barcelona Botanic Gardens, and The Michaelides Apartment in London.