Project brief: White Architects is Sweden’s leading architectural firm and this book covers a unique area of their extensive production. White has designed a series of Naturum (information centers for the special study of local natural features) for the Swedish National Environmental Protection Agency. The book documents White’s approach to nature, analyzes its implementation and considers how successful the results have been in practice.

Approach: The book is published with two different covers, both divided in two: green on top, white on the bottom. The division is 50/50, underlining the strict balance between man-made architecture and nature. Cover one, adapted for the commercial market, has the full name printed on the cover. White is printed on green paper (symbolically placing the firm out in nature), Green is printed on white. Cover two has no visible title—the cover is totally blank. Instead the white and green papers convey the name of the book. To underline the light footprint of these buildings, the contents pages show the sites without any visible structures. The same pictures are then repeated later in the book, in direct connection with the actual reportages but this time showing the completed buildings, making clear how carefully these structures have been fitted into the landscapes. The division between white and green runs all through the book, from cover to final page. The top half tells the story of each project. The bottom half adds a second layer of information in the form of drawings, models, plans and sections.

Effectiveness: The book presents an overall view of the firm’s activities over the past few years within a specialist field, which is seen abroad as somewhat exotic. Underlying the represented projects is the deep affection felt by the Nordic peoples for their natural settings. The book places the Nordic countries, Sweden in particular, in a European perspective, revealing significant differences and similarities.

Who uses that color of green? And then prints four-color on it? So perfect and unexpected. The balance of 50/50 works so well with the colors and type design. The paper stock really enhances the quality.