Bjarne Mastenbroek Dig It! Building Bound To The Ground Book

The Bjarne Mastenbroek 'Dig It! Building Bound To The Ground' volume offers a comprehensive visual survey of earth-bound architecture across nearly 1,400 pages. Designed by Mevis & Van Deursen, it features over 500 analytical drawings from SeARCH alongside photo essays by Iwan Baan, documenting structures that integrate into their surroundings rather than dominating them. The content spans a wide geographic and historical range, covering rock-hewn African churches, Chinese cliff villages, overgrown Parisian housing, and a villa embedded in the cliffs of Capri. Its hardcover format and substantial page count make it a weighty reference compendium on the history and culture of site-specific building.

A visual exploration of earth-bound architecture, this nearly 1,400-page global survey, designed by Mevis & Van Deursen, delves into the relationship architecture has, had, and will have with its surroundings, seeing buildings as landscapes that fit into their site without dominating or disturbing it. Accompanied by more than 500 analytical drawings from SeARCH and photo essays by Iwan Baan, the compendium digs deep into the history of building culture, analysing everything from African churches chiselled from rock and Chinese villages dug into terrains, to Parisian housing vibrantly overgrown and a villa built into the cliffs of Capri. The result is a remarkable volume that reveals humanity’s connection to the earth.