1 comments about Interior Design Visual Presentation: A Guide to Graphics, Models & Presentation Techniques.

1. Awesome book. Great for all interior design students. Great for your library. Makes learning how to do models, etc., much easier than trying to learn from your instructor's brief instructions.

5 comments about Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

1. This book creates its own space in a way only a few can do. Its images are (almost all) just right - including the right size. They aren't large but they invite intense observation and they look terrific.



2. This subject matter and the photos are interesting, but as a book it is lacking. The book is what I would call 'pretentious', in that there is alot of space wasted in the pages to make it look more 'arty'. Waste of paper is waht I call it. The photos are also too small for the available paper space. All in all, good intentions, but the publisher seems to have ruined it. Not recommended.



3. For people who are interested in photo art Simons Book ist a must have. Her intelligently chosen situations - the hidden and unfamiliar - remind me in their cool and calm way of being photographed the work of Edward Hopper. Simon absolutely knows how to catch the right moment and the right light. You get a view deeply below the surface of our modern civilisation.
   Beside of this, the book is of great heavy quality, it's worth its price.
   Well done, Taryn!



4. It's really amazing all the work and effort that was put into creating these images. I saw her show at The Whitney like the other reviewer, and i really enjoyed her work so i bought the book on amazon (I'm not trying to plug amazon, but it was a lot cheaper here than other places i looked) The photographs absolutely stand on their own, but the captions are extremely important to the images. The book is simple, as are the images, but it is definately unique and unfamiliar.



5. Having seen the small exhibition at the Whitney Museum devoted to this body of work (It's currently on view there until early June.), I strongly believe that this book confirms what many people - myself included - have thought of fellow Brunonian Taryn Simon's work ever since she made her spectacular debut with "The Innocents" a few years ago. "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar" demonstrates that she has become one of our most important documentary photographers, stretching her artistic terrain to encompass much more than the fine environmental portraiture that she demonstrated so well in "The Innocents". Stylistically, Simon is indeed all over the map, but she still has made memorable color images which pay homage to work from the likes of Lewis Baltz, Richard Mishrach, Walker Evans and Richard Avedon to name but a few (I might add too that like most of these photographers, Simon works primarily with a large format camera, using availiable light only to photograph her subjects.). If there is a serious artistic criticism to be made of her latest body of work, then it's probably one related to her sequencing of images (It's a point that I've remembered vividly well from an intermediate photography course I had taken years before, which was taught by distinguished photographer Harold Jones, the founding director of both New York City's Light Gallery and the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography.) - though this may be more the fault of her editors than of Ms. Simon herself. If you're unfamiliar with Simon's memorable imagery, then "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar" is a superb place to begin your artistic journey.

5 comments about Prefabulous: The House of Your Dreams Delivered Fresh from the Factory.

1. Lots of good pictures, but VERY LITTLE indepth and/or technical info about processes and products. Not for someone interested in really learning much about factory fabrication, except "look what we can do".



2. Fairly good. But thought maybe it would have had something included about the Dome houses also.



3. This is a terrific book that I use in my daily business as a REALTOR who is specializing in affordable, green, prefab solutions for my clients.Prefabulous: The House of Your Dreams Delivered Fresh from the Factory



4. This book doesn't go into every little detail of the prefab process, but it does provide a good starting point for anyone interested in this type of building. The pictures are beautiful and many company names are listed, which, after a quick search on the Internet, can be found online and contacted.



5. Prefabulous is a great review of what can be done with system built homes. Lots of possibilities and ideas are shown in the book. Well done and impressive.
   
   Jerry Rouleau
   Industry Housing Consultant.

1 comments about Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner.

1. This book is beautiful, it has lots of pictures and drawings I had never seen before. I have been waiting for a really great Lautner book to be published because all the others show 'pretty' pictures, but I have never been able to get a true sense of the buildings (I am an architect). i was hoping this book would have the pretty pictures and more overall drawings. This book is a great complement to the 'pretty picture books' as it has images that are not regularly seen in the other Lautner books..... I just feel this book doesn't truly satisfy my need for information and clarification on these buildings.

1 comments about Detail in Contemporary Landscape Architecture.

1. Detailing is difficult for young design professionals. College education does not cover enough detail design, the only ways to learn how to develop details are: 1) learn through working experience in design offices; 2) teach yourself by reading good books.
   
   "Detail in Contemporary Landscape Architecture" can alleviate this problem. It is a book on design details, not construction details. It has color interior photos and sections and plans drawn to scale. It can help young design professionals to understand design details by comparing photos to drawings. It is also a good collection of details of 40 well-know projects, which can inspire you to develop your own design details.
   
   If you want to really learn more about construction details, you can simply find a good set of construction drawings and reading it word-by-word from beginning to end, and try to understand it. You may need to read the set several times and seek answers from more experienced colleagues to completely understand it.
   
   "Detail in Contemporary Landscape Architecture" has 192 pages. It is a useful resource for design details.

5 comments about Hotel Design, Planning, and Development, New Edition.

1. I was assigned to teach at the Master Degree class on "Facility Management" subject focusing on Hotel Facility. I have gone through several books regarding hotel design. I think this book is the best of all. Any designer who reads this book back to back will certainly understand the whole concept. It is not only about how to design the hotel as an architecture piece, but the reader will also understand the hospitality business. This book also covers the design and management issues of related topics such as "Restaurant", "Entertainment Venue" in the hotel. It is the 'must have' for all architects who want to design a hotel efficiently. It can also be a good book for anyone who is in the hospitality business and currently in charge of renovating or upgrading the hotel space; or the hotel's representative who need to communicate with architects or interior designer. This book can be the great tool to evaluate the result of the hotel construction project or even to 'correct' it. The tables and formulas for space calculation in this book are easy enough for anyone to understand. This book can be of great use to all building design professionals. It can also be a valuable one for any people who is interested in hotel business.



2. The work of hotel design and planning is different from other architectural works; it requires an indepth understanding of hotel business. Therefore, the hotel architecture became one of the toughest job for architects. (Another job is the hospital architecture.)
   
   However, this book proposed design guidelines for a hotel fit to the business pattern. First, it explains various types of hotel properties. Second, it shows not only design guidelines for facilities but also planning approach methods for location selecting and size determination. Finally, if you read this book, you can consider efficient management system of the property from the early phase of design.
   
   Among numerous books on hotel architecture, I think this book is the most outstanding resource.



3. I am an Interior Design student and found this book very helpful in completing a hospitality design. It provides a breakdown of the areas of the hotel, the different types of hotels, and the type of customers that use them. It really helped me in laying out the floor plan. There are also some awesome color pictures of fabulous hotels in the world. I highly recommend for anyone interested in hospitality design.



4. This a book that be should always be close to you if you work in the hotel development industry.



5. I found this in the Rizzoli bookstore and had to slit the shrinkwrap to see what the book was like. Then sat down in a soft chair to browse through it but after a half hour decided it made more sense to just buy it and read it at home. Not disappointed. The book covers everything in great detail - lots of text - with pictures of hotels from the Chilean Andes to London and Paris and New York. A "must have" for people interested in travel and hotels and architecture.

No comments about The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World.

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.

4 comments about Hariri and Hariri Houses.

1. This book is a woonderfull piece of art. lots of photos and explanation. highlly recomended for those who like contemporary art as well as a good point of view for the city life/



2. Excellent collection of stunning photos by incredible team! I can look at these photos for hours and still find something to admire!



3. Somewhat of a coffee table type book - not much technical stuff...nonetheless the pictures of the great homes are worth the price of this publication. Nicely photographed material that provides much design inspiration.



4. To word it simply, the houses designed by the Hariri sisters are the most dramatic small buildings I have ever seen. Here you will not find gigantic homes built to use size to impress. The Spartan House, built in the Hague, Netherlands was required to have a house footprint no bigger than 26 by 33 feet. Yet even in that small a space their house standa out.
   
   More than just the exterior design, Hariri houses have an integrated feeling that the rooms flow from one to another following the function that is needed with a minimal disruption to the esthetic sense.
   
   Their houses are modern, some even ultra modern, combining the look of steel and glass with the natural look of wood and rock. All appear to be designed to have an absolutely minimal amount of maintenance and a lifetime that will be close to forever.
   
   Some of the houses shown here are just design studies, the Digital House, where the walls are made of LCD's. Others have been built literally around the world.
   
   When you are getting ready to do your new beach house in Miami, here would be a good place to start looking.

1 comments about Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West (Culture Trails).

1. Many art historians have written about the great modern earthworks of the American West and Southwest, but this is the first travel book to do so. What sets this book apart from others of its kind is the quality of the writing and the personality of the author, Erin Hogan. Hogan, an avowed urbanista from Chicago, writes with real comedic flair about the road trip she took in her trusty VW Jetta to visit the legendary Spiral Jetty, Lightning Field, Double Negative, Rodencrater, and Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation in Marfa (almost all of them funded by the Dia Foundation). Writing in a picaresque mode, along the way she encounters some pretty hairy and scary characters straight out of the old Wild West, but gone wrong, terribly wron. While her discussions of the formidable works of Judd, Smithson et al are excellent and accessible for general readers, the account of her accidental discovery of a folk-art site known as Hole 'n' the Rock is absolutely transcendent, right up there on a par with Perelman, Benchley, Woody Allen. A fabulous read. I hope we'll be seeing more from this talented writer--and soon.