2 comments about Gazebos & Other Outdoor Structures.

1. This book served its purpose well, which was to give us some ideas on what types of gazebos are available, and what setting may be the best for our property. We have 12 acres on a stream, as well as a pond, and are trying to decide if we want to place the gazebo overlooking the stream, by the pond, or closer to the house.



2. The book is full of great ideas and designs for gazebos and other outdoor structures suitable for the back yard and the cottage. For the novice carpenter it details lumber lists, tools required, definitions, and building techniques combining colour and graphics and photos to get the information across.

No comments about Essential House Plan Collection: 1500 Best Selling Home Plans.

No comments about Trade Fair Design Annual 2007/2008: Messedesign Jahrbuch (Trade Fair Design Annual: International).

No comments about Hotel Spaces.

No comments about Contemporary Seaside Houses (Evergreen Series).

1 comments about Modern American Houses: 50 Years of Design in Architectural Record.

1. The Architectural Record is the New York Times of architectural world. It is the journal of record with the best editors, writers and photographers. Starting in 1956, the Architectural Record began dedicating one issue a year to new houses. "Modern American Houses" is a fifty year compilation of the best and most important houses featured in the magazine.
   
   Some of the featured homes are stunning and are examples of the best in American architecture. Most of the homes featured are not especially remarkable and a few homes border on the grotesque. The value of this book is historical. The writers and editors at Architectural Record are opinion shapers and this book is a good reference to what they thought was cool and exciting in the past fifty years. At twenty dollars, this coffe table style book is a good value.

4 comments about Green Building Materials: A Guide to Product Selection and Specification.

1. I love this book. If you are interested in Green Building, I would highly recommend purchasing it. Also, when I found this book on Amazon, I did a lot of searching on the web to see if there was a lower price. There absolutely wasn't. Everywhere I found this book, they were charging $100+ for it. BUY IT FROM AMAZON!! Good Luck and Good Reading!



2. This text was quite basic for what I needed. Although it had a green material selection, no costings of materials were available. Definately not a recommended text for a thesis research.



3. Green materials are definitely an important aspect of green building; however, I think we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking green materials *are* green building. We need to think more holistically - for example, asphalt roofing may not be "green," but it will last 40 years and save me significant money over a sterotypically "green" recycled-tile or slate roof. I can use this money towards green-ing other features of my home. Most of us need to spend our money wisely, so we need to pick and choose green features for homes as best we can. I highly recommend the book "Green Remodeling" as a companion guide to this book that will offer much needed practical remodeling advice and whole-systems thinking.



4. This is an absolute MUST-HAVE addition to the libraries of every firm and organization that deals with designing, constructing, maintaining, or restoring commercial and public buildings. It should be required reading in every architectural school. It also offers much value to residential builders, even though they seldom use the sophisticated specification systems of the commercial building trade.

   For some three decades, articles and books on environmentally-sound architecture have focused on the design side. And most have focused on residential construction. Spiegel & Meadow's new book breaks new ground in two respects, by dealing with the product/material side of (primarily) commercial buildings.

   The specification aspect of green construction -- in which the appropriate materials and products are prescribed -- has been largely unaddressed. This is partly because the commercial building industry, in general, has culturally been behind the curve in terms of concern for the environment, but also because even the most conscientious firms have serious difficulty finding and obtaining green building products.

   There are two reasons for this difficulty of specifying green materials: 1) Few architects receive any meaningful level of training regarding specification in their schooling, preferring to focus on the more glamorous process of design; and, 2) Neither the commercially-available master guide specifications (such as SpecLink and MasterSpec) nor the product catalogs (such as First Source, SpecData, and Sweets) have figured out how to provide a useful and accurate means of helping specifiers compare the greeness of one item over another.

   While Green Building Materials can't solve the industry's lack of useful tools, it provides designers with the first comprehensive education on the specification process as it relates to green building.

   New tools are finally entering the market, such as the LEED system (from the U.S. Green Building Council) for measuring the greeness of a building, which will soon be incorporated into the Construction Specification Institute's new PerSpective software for performance specifying.

   Used in combination with this book, architects and building owners are finally beginning to get what they need to create buildings that are healthy for both their occupants and the world's environment.

   The authors have a level of intimacy with their subject that oozes out of each page. Readers come away with the distinct impression that this book is a product of both passion and deep expertise, and is obviously not some publisher's attempt to quickly plug a serious gap in the literature.

   A rapidly-growing number of public and private owners are requiring a level of greeness to all of their new buildings. Green Building Matierals is the tool the owners need in order to get what they want. It's also what designers and builders need to respond successfully to such demands.

3 comments about The English Manor House: From the Archives of Country Life.

1. You have to hand it to the Brits, they really know how to build a house. These archieval photos from Country Life are wonderful, they are crisp and the houses profiled vary from style to style. It's a fantastic book to have you are looking for ideas in home design, either exterior of interior, these are some of the best archieval images I have seen on this subject. If you have any interest in Country homes in the English tradition, then I believe you will be pleased with this purchase.



2. A beautiful coffee table book with lots of photographs of manor houses and their interiors. A bit dissapointing that all the photographs were in black & white and of the interiors most were just of the entrance hall. Note that the book in on English Manor Houses and not Stately Homes.



3. "From the archives of Country Life" almost says it all. Jeremy Musson does a wonderful job of applying fresh commentary to these outstanding photographs of some of England's most beautiful manor architecture. This book and others "from the archives..." are required reading and study for anyone wanting to understand the development of the romantic picturesque archtiectural essays of late 19th and early 20th centuries in the UK and US.

No comments about 2006 International Building Code: Code & Commentary, Volume 1 (International Building Code Commentary).

2 comments about Classic Design Styles: Period Living for Today's Interiors.

1. Lady Spencer-Churchill has written some very good English decorating books. The photographs are beautiful and the text is always well written. I purchased this book as a gift to give to a friend. I rated it with four stars as I found the book seems to feature mostly yellow or gold colored rooms, which I found a bit repetitive.



2. What a pleasure! Lady Henrietta's books are always a wonderful combination of how-to and design history. Unlike many decorating books, this is a pleasure to read, even if you're not planning on specific changes. Also, while the photographs are all of splendorous homes of the wealthy, the author consistently gives tips for those of us with a significantly tighter budget. I recommend this to anyone interested in design history (beautiful photos!), and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who lives in a "classic" home, regardless of your level of know-how.