'The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture'

Design of The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture, (450 x 310mm hardback) 812 pages.

The volume contains extensive text and 5,500 colour illustrations and 2,000 line drawings. It features 1,052 buildings chosen from 75 countries including the Kuala Lumpar Airport by Kisho Kurokaw (1998) and Jae Cha’s timber and polycarbonate church in Bolivia (2000).

This design project represents the largest and most complex undertaking by the researcher to date. The design strategy was to provide a simple repeatable grid and a series of data bars to contain the unusually large amount of images and information contained on each page. The latter included a cross referencing to other buildings designed by each architect, the size of each building and its cost in US dollars. The volume is zoned in terms of continents and opens with a world data section illustrating the global economic and demographic context of architectural practice. An overview of the demographic, economic and environmental factors that have shaped our built environment was also included together with projections in these areas.

The final selection of architectural ‘projects’ was made late in the design process so the researcher evolved and managed a system of putting each of the ‘projects’ together with pages drawn from different files. These were designed, prepared for pre-press and digitally proofed in such a way as to facilitate the late inclusion of entries. The volume was assembled in page form at the very end of the process, a logistical challenge to the editors and the graphic designer.

The volume was launched in a number of venues in April 2004 including the RIBA Pavilion, Interbuild, NEC, Birmingham, UK and through Hyperlink http://www.phaidon.com.

The volume has been cited frequently including Julie Snow New Voices in Architecture, p. 14.