No comments about ARE Sample Exams: Nonstructural Divisions.

No comments about Mechanical Engineering: FE Exam Preparation (Fe Exam Preparation).

No comments about Understanding Architectural Drawings: A Guide for Non-Architects.

No comments about Teaching Bauhaus.

1 comments about AA Projects Review 03/04.

1. An excellent resource if you're just looking to flip through some projects, get some ideas moving, mix them up with others and come up with something new. The quality of the actual publication varies - the reproductions can look like bad photocopies here and there - but the intellectual stimulation from just looking over these things is more than worthwhile. Even if a project is lacking something - material innovation, conceptual rigor, historical originality or breadth or reference - that lack itself kicks off thought processes, and within twenty minutes you're flying high with new ideas to sketch, write, draft, think about. So that may not sound great, but this is like caffeine in book form, and I highly recommend it. If this works for you, the Cornell Dept of Arch also has a huge fat book called *Works* that's worth a gander. Ideas ideas ideas, and before you know it you're sketching.

2 comments about Archispeak: An Illustrated Guide to Architectural Design Terms.

1. This book is very well presented and clear; very useful for students of architecture in their early years of study. It covers a comprehensive range of words used frequently in the discourse of architecture.



2. a better read than you'd expect. a great source of information and terminology. I give it my 2 thumbs up!

3 comments about Electrical and Computer Engineering: Sample Exam (Pe Exam Preparation).

1. ... I hear the book has mistakes, and I hate how each problem builds on the previous one... Will the exam do that? If you miss one, you miss them all? I don't think that is fair...



2. I took and passed the PE in 2006. Along with many other books, I used this one to prepare mainly for the afternoon session on Electronics, Communications, and Controls. A few of the problems were marginally helpful, but as the previous reviewer mentioned, there are mistakes. To help others with this test, I created my own sample test for the morning session. It available for free (no catches), with solutions, at my site (klkaiser).



3. A good practice book for the exam. I would say the problems in this book are a little bit harder than in the real exam, which is good to practice. However, this book still has many errors. A second edition is definitely needed.

No comments about The Synagogues and Churches of Ancient Palestine (Michael Glazier Books).

3 comments about Post-Tensioned Concrete Floors.

1. Post-tensioned concrete floor design is not taught in my graduate school. I bought the book because I have a project that I may need to design a post-tensioned floor system. The book measurements are mosly in metric units and the authors mostly referred to BT Codes NOT ACI. Though well written, I found it not very practical to my application.
   Joseph, Los Angeles



2. 100



3. 100

5 comments about Design by Competition: Making Design Competition Work (Environment and Behavior).

1. Worth to read for all architects, developer as well as environmental psychologists



2. The best book I've read on design competitions. In fact, the best book I've read about architecture. A must read for anyone interested in the field



3. I've wondered about the trophy architecture I've seen in my city and elsewhere. As did Tom Wolfe in From Bauhaus to our house, Design by Competition goes beyond the publicity to tell the true story: The emperor's wearing no clothes. Nasar packs the book with facts and anecdotes about flaws in competition designs through history, and the disastrous results of a Peter Eisenman competition winning design. If you liked Wolfe's book, you'll love this one.



4. A compelling and comprehensive book about the problems with design competition architecture and signature architecture. It analyzes competition successes and failures through history; and provides a detailed analysis of Peter Eisenman's competition winning design for the Wexner Center, a full blown disaster that the critics loved. He shows that the emperor is wearing no clothers. It is a must read for any citizen concerned about their built environment and for anyone involved in a design competition--sponsors, jurors, competitors, and concerned citizens.



5. Have you ever seen a building that won a design competition and wondered what planet the people who designed it and chose it came from? Jack Nasar's latest book, Design by Competition, brings the same clarity of thought and sound aesthetic sense shown in his earlier work, The Evaluative Image of the City, to another fundamental aspect of urban design: design competitions. Here he again relies on solid social and behavioral surveys, and a deep commitment to community, to dispell the elitist values of architects who place the pursuit of the grand architectural "statement" above sound function, responsible economics, social relevance, and even beauty. He strips bare the hollow ideology of avant-garde architecture pawned off in competitions on a public it disdains, showing it to be out-of-step with the values of those it claims to lead. It also calls into question the underlying educational and professional atmospheres that reward such work. Written in a tone reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's From Bauhaus to Our House, William H. Whyte's The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, and Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Nasar holds up a mirror to the conduct of design competitions and finds a distorted image in reflection. In response, he offers many common sense suggestions for improvement. While the book reads in places like a journal article written for the professional social scientist, it's a must read for all with professional or lay interests in architecture, city planning, urban design, and landscape architecture.