Cool Hunting

Tough terrain doesn't make construction easy, but Ruth Slavid's upcoming book "Extreme Architecture: Building For Challenging Environments" proves that it's not only feasible, but the outcome is completely worth the effort.

A journey through the elements, the book covers the major environmental factors—hot, cold, high, wet and space—categorized into five chapters and led by a brief summary explaining the difficulties of each climate.

The range of impressive architectural feats includes a tropical summer home, a Swiss chairlift station, a floating sauna, a lunar hotel, African school buildings and an underground global seed vault, to name a few. With the photographs just as inspiring as their subjects, the book makes not only for a great reference point but also as an objet d'art.

Each structure is explained over a multiple-page layout, providing details on the complications of its location and a small rendering of the building. In addition, Slavid supplies the annual rainfall, average temperatures and the altitude for each of the case studies—just the jumping off point for the challenges faced by each of the architects.

Available in August, "Extreme Architecture" can be purchased from Laurence King Publishing and Chronicle Books.

See more images after the jump