A locally-written, but internationally published textbook on the construction of tall buildings has recently won a “Most Promising New Textbook Award” from the TAA — the Textbook and Academic Authors Association (based in the US). The book is written by Victoria University of Wellington Senior Lecturer in Construction Guy Marriage and liberally illustrated by both Guy Marriage and Lauren Hayes.

Tall: The Design and Construction of High-Rise Architecture, has been lauded as an approachable book. The judging panel at TAA noted:

"It's rare that a book which contains this much technical information is delivered in such an accessible and engaging manner. Tall: The design and construction of high-rise architecture is an important book that brilliantly weaves drawings and text to inform readers about the complexities of contemporary skyscraper design."

Marriage started the book as a guide for his students in construction at Victoria University, but the book has gone on to have a much wider appeal than that. Described in a recent review in Architecture NZ as “an essential guide to building tall and most importantly, to doing so successfully,” reviewer Maria Mingallon (herself an engineer) notes that the book is “both accurate in the use of technical terms and yet extremely easy to read and understand.” As Mingallon notes, the book is not aimed just at a New Zealand audience but is aimed squarely at the international market and the growing community of budding architects and engineers around the world who need access to a good-quality, simple to understand guide to designing and building tall buildings.

“It is the only book in the world that really sets out in plain simple English what goes where in a multi-storey building — and not only what, but where, why and how,” says the author Guy Marriage. “I worked with a brilliant young illustrator Lauren Hayes, as well as the highly experienced industry leader John Sutherland ONZM, an architect with nearly 70 years of industry experience and one of the founders of Jasmax. He’s such a font of knowledge.”

Sutherland contributes a highly valued couple of chapters to the book, as do two young and upcoming PhD grads at Victoria: Nabil Allaf and Ged Finch. Together with another 14 chapters penned by Guy Marriage, the sum output of these authors and the great illustrations of Lauren Hayes is that the book will be highly useful to every architecture and engineering student in the world and to a great many architects as well. Modestly priced at only $71 RRP it is selling extremely fast at present at VicBooks and Unity Books, as well as online at your usual online bookstore.

For more information, please contact author Guy Marriage at [email protected] or visit the website www.tallconstruction.org