Too Much explores the nature of the sacred in an increasingly profane world.⁠ ⁠ This fantastic publication, subtitled 'Magazine of Romantic Geography', has made us wait quite a long time for a new issue, but now it's here! It investigates the ways in which people and environment, built and natural, shape and reshape each other.⁠ ⁠ The Sacred issue meets the Yuta shaman of the Okinawan islands; ventures to the beguinages of medieval Europe to learn how women have related to the divine in ways that ensure their own earthly survival and independence; visits mosques in contemporary Japan; elaborates festivals for ancestor worship in China; and travels to the slopes of Osore-zan and hear the cries of crows and the bereaved.⁠ ⁠ Beautiful and insightful as always, the magazine from Japan enriches us with different perspectives and stories we haven't read before, catapulting us out of our eternal algorithmic bubble. ⁠ Buy

What does the word “nature” mean to you? It may conjure up images of lush, rolling fields, rushing rivers or impenetrable woods. You’re probably not picturing many people or buildings, and it’s likely that the colour green features prominently.  The third issue of Hinterlands magazine takes as its starting point a similar thought exercise. The introductory note from editors Hanna Döring, Freia Kuper and Maike Suhr invites the reader to visualise a meadow - and immediately bursts this idyllic, imaginary bubble to point out that “nature” as we often think of it is a fiction. More

Nicolas Floc'h's photographs seem to come from another world. Unearthly rock formations and scattered tiny star-like dots in infinite darkness. But these images are not from outer space. Rather, they have been taken from the surface of our planet Earth, and yet they are completely inaccessible to humans.⁠ ⁠ These alien-looking landscapes are from the bottom of the ocean, so deep that there is no light and no human can get there. To take the pictures, Nicolas Floc'h strapped his self-developed wide-angle camera system to the front of the Ariane robot and used the Ariane's headlights to illuminate the landscapes. Eleven dives between -700 and -1800 metres explore the ocean and our planet at the edge of the visible.⁠ Buy

Is this city being built up or torn down? Is it even the same city? The same streets? ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Transformation processes are the focus of Georg Aerni’s new photographs. The Swiss photographer and artist shows plastic greenhouses that have annexed whole swathes of land for agricultural mass production, residential houses that have been built overnight on the city outskirts without construction machines and literally noiselessly. He points his lens at olive trees that have grown over centuries into figures full of character, at creepers that conquer leftover spaces between high-rises and motorways, and at mighty rock faces that are being gnawed by erosion.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ With the merging of art and documentation that is typical of Aerni’s work, Georg Aerni—Silent Transition makes the signs of change the object of a contemplative observation and at the same time asks challenging questions: about our handling of natural resources, about the social backgrounds to cities growing out of control, about the regenerative force of nature. ⁠⁠ Buy

In architecture, the ground is usually used only as a passive foundation. This book explores the possibilities of buildings that merge with the ground, the earth and the landscape.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The evolution of architecture is also an evolution away from nature. The 1960s was the key moment when buildings were at their most clinical. Since then, more and more architects are trying to reconnect with nature. They work with the landscape and the special features of the site. But of course, this is not an invention of the modern age, it is what architecture has been for millennia. And so this book embarks on a journey around the world and through the history of architecture in search of examples of buildings and building methods that are not only in harmony with the landscape, but also make use of its special characteristics. In this way, these buildings are almost an extension of the earth's crust. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ One of the many fantastic examples are the churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia (seen in the first picture), which are not built upwards but downwards, literally carved out of the ground. You could call them a kind of negative architecture. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Many of these historical examples were previously undocumented, so this book also serves as a kind of archive with first architectural drawings of these buildings, categorising them and making connections between methods and aesthetics.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Buy

Already the ruling class of the Victorian era was well aware of the priceless potential of the narrow strip where the land ends and merges into the sea. To ensure the safety and guarantee the jaunty leisure time of the working class, architect Eugenius Birch was the first one to construct a screw-pile system in which iron supports were driven deep into the seabed. Although most of these piers are no longer in use the unwavering fascination for the waterfronts remains. Setting sail into the deep blue unknown and infinite horizons Pleasure Garden's latest issue is the perfect supplement for all the landlubbers out there who decided to go with Balconia for this year's summer holiday. Get ready for a cool breeze, the taste of salt in your mouth and a highly seductive lazy leisure time with captivating stories swirling around the seaside. Buy

Eighteen international writers respond to the open-ended period of social distancing, closures, and illness caused by Covid-19. Meditating on notions of distance and closeness, sameness and alterity, extinguishing and kindling, Tools for Extinction considers how a common pause might give rise to new modes of domesticity and shift experiences of time. What gestures and actions are we willing to perform to make ourselves, and each other, feel at ease – or at work? What tools and objects are useful, or unprecedentedly useless, to us in the process? And as our species’ trademark proclivity for projecting ourselves into the future is disrupted, might we come to see the buildings, animals, and plants around us in a new light? The anthology takes its name from Steven Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, a 1960s counterculture compendium of product reviews, essays, and articles on the themes of self-sufficiency, ecology, and alternative education. By giving “access to tools”, a new social order and a more sustainable Earth was imagined. Buy

The postcards in this wonderful book will make you dream.⁠ Taken mainly from the 1960's - 1980's, they come from the good old times. The times when there was no Covid-19. The times when we could fly around the world without having a bad conscience because global warming was not a thing yet - well maybe it was but nobody listened. The times when we could fry ourselves dark brown in the sun, because skin cancer was unheard of - well, maybe not in the 80's anymore, but that is not the point. The point is that this beautiful collection of postcards, the ones where someone by hand painted the sky a little bluer, will make you feel nostalgic and light. Beach promenades, hotels, gardens and fountains, cityscapes by night and Alpine roads in a 70's colour scheme bring to you a worry-free, joyful holiday mood. Because this virus maybe can take our holidays but it cannot take our dreams...⁠ Buy

When Swiss-Dutch landscape architect Anouk Vogel got invited to take part of the Architecture Monogram series she decided to do this – yet, not without her alter ego. Vogel is used to hear both sides of the story, when she starts to think about new projects – sometimes solely within her head, sometimes as soft whisper, while one adopts the analytical tasks, the other one stays intuitive. How this on-going dialogue ‘sounds’ like can be seen and ‘listened to’ in this thoughtfully composed artist book. Thereby her inner Q&A never stands alone. Architectural designs, photographs, and material collections accompany her thoughts and probably represents best, what both sides of her brain hemispheres certainly can agree on: “I wish design could be simply the possibility of something.” - “Rather than an end product?” - “Yes”. Buy

Being one of the most important figures to shape landscape architecture, the work of Roberto Burle Marx has featured across a variety of formats and outlets. With the exception of his writings which largely remained inaccessible, until today. This book fills the gap by offering the translated lectures of the architect on such topics like the Concepts in Landscape Composition, Gardens and Ecology, and the Problem of Garden lightening, Landscapes of Brazil, and, a tribute essay to plants. Also includes a series of green landscape photos by Brazilian photographer Leonardo Finotti, showing the merging sceneries between natural landscapes and human-made beton constructions. Buy