3 comments about Cabin in the Woods.

1. Many thanks for stocking Cabin In The Woods. Amazon has it together as buyers can find books and music CDs to match or dreams. Author Ralph Kylloe has done it again for us dreaming of a rustic cabin hide away in the woods. The photos in the book are great as you get to see how others designed and furnished their cabin hide aways. The key to Kylloe's books is that he foucuses on the rustic wonders of living in a cabin. He's also an expert in natural furniture that goes so well in these rustic cabin settings. Keep up the good work Amazon. Your the greatest.



2. Wow! I loved this book. The pictures are the best yet in a Kylloe book. The architecture captured therein is amazing! I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the evolution of rustic architecture and the speed with which it is developing, just by perusing Ralph Kylloe's books over the last several years.
   
   First, a note about the dimensions of the book itself. It is only about half the size of previous Kylloe works. His books are usually the size of coffee table tomes, but this one is much more manageably small, and I have found myself pulling it out and looking at it much more.
   
   My favorite cabin in this book is the Copper Cabin. I have seen this cabin featured in two magazine articles and was impressed the first time I saw it reviewed. But the photography used in Cabin in the Woods to highlight this cabin is breathtaking. It is a small cabin, and in my favorite picture, Kylloe shows it overlooking a Montana mountain range. This particular effect highlighted the beauty of the design while also setting it perfectly within the Yellowstone Club in Montana where the cabin is located.
   
   Great book, Mr. Kylloe! I hope there are still more ideas in your head yearning to be published!!!



3. Will someone please beat this man with a stick and take away his yellow filter and indian blankets. All the outdoor photo's are very nice and clear. All the interior shots would leave one to believe every cabin or rustic home is lit by yellow lamps, and has a colorfull blanket draped in every room. Enough already. I have all his books and do enjoy the homes and cabins, but am sick of his constant use of yellow filters. Like having to much cleavage showing, no one wants to tell that person. Someone please tell this man his yellow cleavage is showing. Without the filter his book deserves a 5.

5 comments about The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design.

1. I'm studying furniture design and this book will be extremely helpful for me. It gives tons and tons of measurements throughout the human life span. All kinds of positions, arrangements, etc. There is section on every age, even infants and elderly. It's also just an interesting thing to read, regardless of being an awesome reference book. I loved reading about how different abilities/capacities develop at certain ages. This way you can know when humans are able to do what. This can help better understand human's needs, in a physical and spatial sense.
   
   Great book, just get it.



2. I found a handful of pages out of this book useful for space planning. Not worth fifty bucks unless you are designing equipment and products.



3. There's minimal reading in this book, which is nice since it's good for reference. The reading that it does have is very simple with bulleted paragraphs full of information that you can't get from looking at the diagrams.
   Great diagrams for industrial design students (I got this for one of my classes), gives you the measurements, reach, sight and motion range, pretty much any numeric info you need to know for the 1 percentile, 99 percentile, and 50 percentile man/woman.
   Also has nice chart of child development w/descriptions of what the ave. child can do at each age, as well as diagrams for the elderly (and in wheelchair). This book is essential if you are going for product design or interior design.



4. This was purchased to be a reference book for human sizes and I am very happy with it.



5. This book arrived in good condition from the sender and before time. The book inself is very interesting and will serve its purpose.

2 comments about Green BIM: Successful Sustainable Design with Building Information Modeling.

1. The best book for anyone wants to integrate BIM and Sustainability in their work practice, mainly designers.
   Good for both students and professionals. a step by step procedure to achieve Green Design using BIM technology, with real life examples, procedures, calculations, etc...
   The main program discussed is Autodesks's Revit, wish they used more than one application.



2. This is a groundbreaking exploration of what you can do TODAY with BIM to make your buildings sustainable. Its got a lot of pictures and graphics that neatly explain the concepts. You can tell from reading the first few chapters that these guys really know what they are talking about.

5 comments about A Master Course in Feng-Shui.

1. You should have bought an interior design book instead. Feng-shui is a very serious subject matter, where I can confidently say that 99% of the so-called Feng Shui partitioners ("Masters", lol) don't even know what they are talking about. Do you seriously think, an arbitrary re-arrangement of furnitures, without further support theories on why and how it would help or otherwise, will improve your life and your living space? A good feng shui master/book should be able to accurately predict the PAST as well as the FUTURE, based on the calculations. Test those books that you may have otherwise bought to see if they do the above. Eva Wong's book, while incomplete in some aspect, is among the best non-chinese feng-shui books, and I've read a lot of them and verified the effectiveness against real life incidences. Maybe watching HGTV a better idea if real Feng-Shui sounds complicated for you, at least the experts there do provide visible and eye-pleasing results.



2. There are not many good books on classical feng shui in the market. This is one of them. This book is very detailed and informative. Feng Shui is a very sophisticated art and many books out there either over-simplify the subject or the just do not have a clue. However it can get a little dry sometimes but if you are serious enthusiast, this is a minor problem. Eva Wong should write more books.



3. Finally, someone has decided pull the veil off of feng shui and make its "secrets" available to all of us. This book is an invaluable tool to architects, designers, and other building professionals who wish to incorporate the principles of feng shui into their new construction or remodel projects.
   
   After two books that promised much and delivered little (leaving me very frustrated), I can't say it enough:
   
   Thank you Eva!



4. It is an excellent book. At least for a person like me, who doesn't have any experience or knowledge about this topic. Great book...



5. This book is probably suitable for Xuan Kong Flying Stars Feng Shui fans. The materials covered are significant and vastly different from the other titles e.g. abridged books. It devotes two sections to structures and land forms and explores in depth, the facing of buildings and proper usage of a compass or geomancer luopan to set up flying star charts before touching on flying stars topics proper. Therefore it is a serious book for true Fengshui fans or students who wish to gain more knowledge and information of authentic Feng Shui.
   
   However readers who have an immediate-advanced knowledge of the Chinese metaphysical systems will probably have a better time understanding some of the concepts e.g. conditional interactions (see He-Tu combinations).
   
   Furthermore, using a 'cook-book' format, there are little details regarding the theories (recipes) and their formulation. It is more suitable for practical and results oriented readers. As the book is not a treatise, rather a textbook, concepts are favored over critical reasoning regarding formulas and their derivations.
   
   There are however, important assertions made by Ms Eva Wong regarding certain tricky and controversial topics. For example, for apartments, she stated facing may vary according to units and proceeds to provide clear illustrations. The topic on houses with competing facings was covered. These are topics shunned by other 'popular' books.

2 comments about Microstation V8 for Autocad Users.

1. The book seems to have a lot of information, but it does not always make it clear what it is talking about. It could use more text driven images.



2. I have worked on both Microstation and Autocad since 1981. However,for the last 7 years I have been involed with Autocad only and this book supplied answers to questions that I had and brought me up to speed on the use of Microstation V8.

5 comments about Traditional Mexican Style Exteriors.

1. I am a landscape designer in central Florida, and I am always looking for inspiration for specialty projects. The photos in this book are outstanding! The text is well-written and interesting!



2. If you are building a Spanish home and we are, then this book will provide you with a wealth of ideas about what to do beyond the 'box of the casa.' Filled with brilliant photographs of terraces, swimming pools, fountains, outdoor rooms, columns, entrances, furnishings, use of paint, etc. you will refer to this book over and over again as you design and continue to decorate your dream home.



3. The photography is excellent and the ideas abound. It is a book that's fun to thumb through and colorful. I enjoyed it! It's sister publication is just as good.



4. I have bought more than a Dozen Mexican Design Books already. And none can compare to the Traditional Mexican Style Exteriors and its Companion Book Mexican Style Interiors by Donna McMenamin.
   
   It is a wonderful book! You will not need any other book if you are planning on redecorationg your house. But, even if you will not decorate your house, this Book(s) are a worthy read. The Pictures are wonderful. Giving detail to what is really Mexican.



5. Every time I re-do a room or make a home decor purchase these days, I'm looking for things to make my house look more Mexican. This book, and its companion volume "Traditional Mexican Style Interiors" are wonderful reference books for anyone looking to copy that style.
   
   If you're just a fan of Mexican style, or have been to Mexico and want to have a way to go back without leaving your easy chair, this book is fun to read and magnificent to look at. Although it emphasizes exteriors (facades, architecture, etc.) there are photos of gardens, courtyards, and plenty of other spaces that you could create on your own property, even on a very modest budget, and without knocking the house down and starting over.

1 comments about Visio 2003 for Dummies.

1. As an IT techie, I found this book really amazing for people who aren't professional in this field. As a matter of fact it lists everything you want to know, step by step in order to get to the result you want. More advanced features are explained to take your drawings to the next level but a more dedicated book might be needed to get a more professional result. But for a start it's a great book.

5 comments about Red-Tile Style.

1. This book is great....if you're interested in this style in California.
   
   The authors almost completely glitz over the architectural contributions of buildings in Texas and Florida. For example, did they know that there is an air force base (Randolf) in Texas built in the red tile style? Apparently not.
   
   California has a lot to offer, but this book ignores the rich and abundant examples TX & FL have ...so 2 stars.



2. Gellner's book captures all the charm of the 1920-1930 Spanish style homes in California. There are hundreds of pictures of this type of home--lots of mansions as well as small bungalows suitable for people of very modest means. Lots of ideas for anyone building a home or doing remodeling. I was especially struck by one "Marina District home ...(which) gives the illusion of depth and complexity despite its constricted urban site". Wish I could find an architect like that one.



3. This book gives a GREAT history on these "spanish style homes"...as soon as the book arrived, i went thru it just studying the photos ans reading the subtitles - (i was imediately educated on the style). Then i went and started reading it from the beginning. WOAH!!!! It did a great job at explaining the history and the developement of what we just generally refer to "spanish style."
   It is truley an informative book. Especially if you really like the mission/spanish look.
   we are working on our new home, and it will be great to not only decorate it how we like, but also KNOW the background and reason to why we decorate it how we do.



4. In researching a Spanish Colonial retirement home for Florida, I've reviewed numerous similar books. As noted in the other reviews most books deal with the top-of-the-line mansions and hotels in this style. This book has a chapter just on examples of modest houses in this style. It has another chapter on small scale courtyard apartment projects. It has tons of the details you might want to employ to give your home the "authentic" feel. Of all the books I read, this is the one I BOUGHT!!



5. There are books out there that cover the spanish revival style, but, most tend to focus on the larger than life homes of people who can afford magnificent, large estates. Finally, a book that not only showcases the large estates out there, but, more importantly for me, the "smaller" more realistically sized homes that I could see myself living in. If you love this style of architecture as I do, buy this book, you will not be disappointed!

1 comments about 150 Best House Ideas.

1. I bought this book as a present for a friend who renovates homes, but I had to buy another as I didn't want to give it away.
   The photography in this book is simply amazing, and the designs are stunning. Most of the houses are contemporary in design, and the fitouts are superb. The architects names are also included if you want to contact them, a very nice touch indeed.
   
   There is something for every person interested in design in this book.

1 comments about Element.

1. I really enjoyed Balmond's previous book, "Informal", so I bought this one right away.
   But instead of a inspired engineer sharing his knowledge about complex design, here you can find drawings on photographs of beautiful landscapes (searching for patterns) and his "poetic" thoughts on nature.
   I have to say that this book is beautiful and well designed, but is not challenging intellectually like I hoped. If you're interested in architecture, stick to "Informal", way better than this one.