5 comments about Building Construction Illustrated.

1. This book explains most everything about the stucture of a building. From the foundation to the roof. It also touches on basic mechanical and electricial systems. Plus, the book reviews site location and layout. The isometric drawings provide a high level of clarity. This book is a good refrence on home building, as well as explaining commercial construction fundamentals. I would highly recommend this book for anyone in the Contruction Industry. Construction students would also benifit from owning this book. I have my Degree in Building Construction. Man, do I wish I had this book when I was taking classes. It would have cleared up most of my questions. Buy it, you'll be glad you have it.



2. All of Francis D. K. Ching's books are valuable to architecture students. For drafting on the board or CAD, I refer to this, and other Dr. Ching books often. Other Dr. Ching Books I highly recommend are, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order; An Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture.



3. I bought this book for college and it saved me half the money. Shipping was also very fast and im very happy with my purchase.



4. Excellent book recommended by my professor @ school.
   Covers just about everything structural!
   Exlent details , will be a reference for me forever.



5. I am so, so impressed with this book. Extremely well drawn pictures ooze out of each page. Measurements are given for nearly every architectural feature, except keyholes (approx. 24H) Metric and US measurements are provided. This is a real time saver for 3D artists concentrating on architectural modelling and rendering. This is definitely one of my favourite books. Also covered are construction considerations - materials, sunlight and heat, earthquakes, wind, weight loading, etc. Makes for a fascinating read and visually stimulating one.

4 comments about Landscaping with Stone (Home Landscaping).

1. Pick this up if you are always at Menards, Home depot, or you just like to play with rocks, on a friday night. It did occur to me after I read this, that my friends may think that I am wierd, because I read a book about rocks and how to place rocks, all on a...you guessed it...FRIDAY NIGHT! LOL! I am not cool!



2. What beautiful and innovative designs this book has. My husband and I wanted to landscape much of our property with stone. We actually did more than planned because we were so impressed by much of the ideas in this book. A concern of ours was the price. Much of the simpler projects you find you can do yourself (such as the small retaining wall around the garden), which saved on additional labor costs. We were guided which stones to use, and stones that could be found around the property. For the work that was a bit more extensive we called in a professional and showed him from the book what we wanted. He was very much impressed with this book himself.



3. Beautiful book, well put together, LOTS of pictures. I especially liked the way the author covered different styles of stonework. I'm not a fan of very formal design and he included examples of more informal, earthy landscaping.



4. I love the full color pictures - it gave me all sorts of ideas. I just wished there were a few more pages on "How to do it" I'd recommend this book though for the price - it was awesome.

5 comments about Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build.

1. ...if you plan to build a treehouse yourself. If not this one, than any other from same author.
   It's that simple.



2. This is the latest installment in a long string of wonderful books from David and Jeanie Stiles. Inside you won't find glossy, double page spreads of extravagant treehouses ... this is not a coffee table book. Rather, it is a how-to book, and the best one available for those that want to build their own whimsical play structure. Inside you will find excellent line drawings and readable explanations of intelligent, creative, and well though-out designs.
   
   David starts with the basics: tools. From there you follow a complete and logical progression to completed treehouse. In between you'll get solid building advice. David has built his designs. He knows how to make life easier for you by using common materials and minimizing cuts. The building advice is spot on throughout.
   
   The huge, huge, huge problem with this book is the 20 or so options David gives you for connecting lumber to tree. They are almost all bad. Never girdle a growing limb with rope or cable. Never use nails. This leaves you with only lag bolting. To be sure, there are other ways. But the only safe and tree-friendly way presented in this book (and any of his other works) is to use lags.
   
   This is the by far the best book to give to a young builder and is probably a treasure to any 8 or 9 year old lucky enough to have a copy. It will get their mind working. The crazy schemes they come up with will amaze you.
   
   The ideas inside this book are great. Fun, imaginative, unique. If you know a young boy (or girl) with a tree, get him this book. And when it comes time to actually build their creation, call an arborist and he'll set you straight about properly attaching it to a tree.



3. Tree house building is complex.
   This book will help you decide.
   Ideas are informative; but skills are needed.



4. I built the Treeless Treehouse on page 81. During the project, I found the instructions lacking, and sometimes incorrect. Dimensions critical to building were many times left out. There might have been a bright side to this, as I now know my trigonometry, which was critical to getting lengths right. I also found that the recommended decking was heavy and hard to work with. They recommended 2X6 in order to reduce the number of floor joists. A bad trade-off in my opinion, as these are heavier and harder to work with than a 1X6. They recommended installing the railing posts inside the deck as opposed to the outside. A bad recommendation in my opinion, as it necessitated cutting patterns out of 2X6 which is hard to do. In fact, they recommend using a jig saw for this. I used a skill saw and a hand saw. I don't think a jig saw would cut it. I recommend looking elsewhere for a do-it-yourself book.



5. Help me out greatly. I am below novice in construction knowledge. The book explained, diagramed, and visualized lots of great methods and ideas for building treehouses. I find myself going back to it again and again for efficient methods of accomplishing the task at hand.

5 comments about Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture.

1. No, this isn't a book about an Italian guy with a big head, although Filippo Brunelleschi certainly had a massive ego. Brunelleschi's Dome is about the city of Florence generally during one of the greatest periods of genius and creativity in human history. It is also, specifically, about the life of Filippo Brunelleschi, a classic genius of the Italian Renaissance, and his magnificent dome which dominates the skyline of Florence to this day. Like so many of his contemporaries, Brunelleschi had a high level of expertise in a variety of fields. He was an artist, an engineer, a craftsman, a philologist, and an overall solver of impossible problems. He was also a bit of a whack-job whose failures were nearly as spectacular as his successes.
   
   With this book, Ross King has penned an engrossing popular biography of Brunelleschi, as well as a history of the construction of his famous dome. While the book goes into some detail regarding the engineering behind the construction of the dome, the prose is never heavy and is written so that the layman, such as myself, never gets bored or lost.
   
   My wife and I visited Italy in 2000 and climbing to the top of the Duomo was one of the high points (literally!) of the trip. I wish I had read this book beforehand! I therefore highly recommend it to anyone who is planning a visit to Florence. It will give you that much more appreciation for the amount of work--and genius--that went into the construction of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.



2. King's book is historical, but it reads like a novel as it weaves Italian history in with the fascinating account of Brunelleschi's rise from nowhere to become one of the greatest architects and engineers in history. Having toured the Florence Duomo and wondered "How did they build that with no heavy equipment," it is amazing to find out how they really did. This book is reasonably short; well written; and very informative. Highly recommended.



3. No need to get long winded here. It's simply a must read before exploring the dome. Read it in one evening and couldn't put it down. Added immeasurably to the experience.



4. I picked this book up solely because I'm going to Florence in just under two months and I am trying to read as many fiction and non-fiction books that take place in Italy before I go!
   
   Brunelleschi's Dome describes in detail the building of the Duomo. Not just the building of it, but from idea to conception, everything about it. The author provides you with great back story on the main campomaestro, Filippo, his life before the Duomo and during the Duomo as well as on Florence itself and what was happening in the city and the country during the time the Duomo was built.
   
   My only complaint is that as a lay person, a lot of the engineering and architectural talk was a little bit over my head. I'm a very visual person so reading descriptions of how machines were built to carry heavy marble and how each machine worked, etc at times was difficult to follow and really picture.
   
   I did come away with a complete appreciation of the magnitude of a project like this - how much materials were needed, how many people it took and the new techniques that were created just to build this magnificent building. I look forward to learning more when I arrive in Florence!
   
   Definitely worth the read if you're visiting Florence soon, or if you are incredibly interested in building, architecture and engineering.



5. This slim volume contains a lot of detailed information - both on the construction of the dome, and on the politics and rivalries behind the scenes. It is well presented and makes for an absorbing read.
   The drawings of the unique hoisting equipment developed by Brunelleschi showed that he was as much an engineer as an architect.
   I'll be visiting the dome this fall and now have a wealth of information to make my tour more meaningfull.

4 comments about Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn.

1. I like the idea of growing more of our own produce in our yard, but I was somewhat disappointed in the quality of this book. Not disappointed in the condition mind you - it just wasn't what I was looking for.



2. I received this book for my birthday this weekend, and sat down and read it that afternoon. As a permaculture student and an artist, this book fit my approach just perfectly. There are many books that deal in nitty gritty details of why and how to grow your own food and reduce your consumption, etc., but I've long been frustrated at the few texts and individuals devoted to the PR necessary to communicate with those not already fanatical about the ideas of permaculture and home gardening. This book is a start. I would have liked to read about more of the planning and ideas behind the presentation of the gardens to the respective neighborhoods. I'm interested in ways of bridging the gap between those who are "green" and those who remain mainstream in their ideas about the environment. This book offers some examples of injecting new ideas into the mainstream manicured lawn set.



3. Fritz Haeg himself issues a kind of disclaimer at the end of his preface to look up Rosalind Creasy's The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping if what you're looking for is a definitive how-to guide to creating an organic garden. I felt it necessary to counter the previous review with this point. I'm sure there are a few other resources for those already interested in permaculture (I can think of H.C. Flores' Food Not Lawns) and I do agree that "the end result [is] art and social commentary" (Edible Estates is infinitely more than just "fine" because of it). Making ecological use of otherwise superficial ground is not a new idea, but it is far too simplistic to look at this as a book on sustainable gardening. Edible Estates was not created to preach but rather present documentation of the development of an artist's project. From impulse to open end, Fritz Haeg offers a political poetics. There are beautifully written essays by some excellent contributors and reports from different zones across America by people who have independently made their own edible estates. Like Agnes Denes' Wheatfield, grown and harvested on a Manhattan landfill in 1982, the gardens Haeg facilitates become small "confrontations", thresholds between the public and private. I also appreciate this work's attempt to undo a dominating aesthetic that has long developed from notions of wealth and excess. Edible Estates is a convergence of subversions. It questions the systems of containment and measurement that can be found in your very own produce aisle. It additionally is an argument for pluralism. It is an examination and celebration of the reverse side of the house and garden cross-stitch. It is a work for which I have the utmost reverence.



4. Honestly it was a bit of a let down for me. Nearly the first half of the book is dedicated to why lawns are bad and reads a bit like an attempt to convert the reader from front lawns to gardens. Since I already hate mowing my lawn, don't use chemicals or water it and have more ornamental front garden than lawn, it was preaching to the converted. To my thinking, people who use chemicals and yard services and water their lawns excessively aren't likely to become front yard organic vegetable gardeners. I was expecting more of a documentary on how the project yards were created and what resulted from them than what the author provided - more substance about the projects themselves. The publisher's description of the book presented a a nice idea but the end result was art and social commentary - which is fine although not terribly useful to me. I was also expecting a few more large pictures. The things that I did really like about the book were the design plans for the project gardens, addtional gardeners' reports and the tables in the back with planting dates for crops organized by USDA Hardiness Zone. I think that this would be a good book for people who have considered getting rid of their lawn but haven't for fear of public opinion as it does show a lot of public support, but they'll need to go to other resources to be successful in the garden.

5 comments about An Affair with a House.

1. I have always loved older homes. Every room in this book tells a story. This book is a great tool in preparing you for lifes journey in restoring an older house. When you decide to make you your house a home, and your dreams a reality. The author reminders the readers that it takes time to accomplish your goals. The pictures are just amazing. I will treasure this book for years to come.



2. I've read reviews of this book that told how people were appalled at the materialistic aspects of this book. We live fairly simply, but like to look at a home put together beautifully, because it is filled with belongings that they personally chose and collected, and more importantly--hobbies and interests that they treasure . I was impressed that they loved their home.
   
   These people enjoy "living". They garden, travel, raise chickens, cook, entertain, and love their dogs. They are interesting because they pursue learning about life. I guess I've always thought that wealthy living was portrayed in a boring way. You can enjoy your home and really live life and learning in whatever size home you have.



3. Thirty years ago Bunny Williams fell in love with a run down 18th century farmhouse that was being used as a rental by college students. (That should indicate to you just how run down it had become.) She has done so much to restore the house and grounds to their glory days. The landscaping projects alone have taken decades to reach their potential. As Bunny's father pointed out, that had she not been a young woman when she bought the house, the project would have outlived her. Instead, she had the time and talent to bring this house into her vision of what a gracious old home should be.
   
   A renown decorator of others' homes, when Bunny was working on her own dream house, no corners were cut and no expense spared. This book describes how she envisioned the hedges, the entrance foyer, the living room, the kitchen, the patio - and then what she did to bring that vision to reality. There is an amazing sequence as she describes what she felt would be the ideal color of the entrance hall - a delicate peach that she had once seen in the table linen of a restaurant in Tuscany - and what she did to reproduce that color.
   
   The attention to detail that Bunny paid to every aspect of her home over thirty years has resulted in a place that is a true reflection of the owner's passions. The spaces devoted to her beloved dogs; the collections she has gathered through the years; the way she found the perfect place to work in an old wing chair that belonged to her late father.
   
   Bunny also loves to entertain. She shows us her dining areas; how she settled on certain tables; her collections of tableware and linens; and the storage areas. But she doesn't stop there - she shares her favorite methods of flower arranging, and gives us some lovely recipes. It's just another nice touch in this jewel of a book.
   
   "An Affair with a House" isn't a decorating book, per se. It's one woman's story about how she reclaimed a neglected house and brought it back to life. This a beautiful book to spend an afternoon looking through and, if you like the traditional styles, you can find plenty of inspiration from Bunny Williams' own story.
   
   Highly recommended!!!



4. Many design books only use words to describe the pictures. While reading these types of books, I find myself only paying attention to the pictures. However, "An Affair with a House" captures Williams's personal story while still vividly displaying her passion for design. If only we could all feel the connection for our houses as she has for her's.



5. This is an interesting book in a lot of ways. On the one hand the architecture and grounds of BW's Connecticut digs are quite beautiful (with the exception of the atrocious pool house that's a Greek temple made outta logs . . . .). On the other hand, the stuff that's crammed into her rooms makes for suffocating interiors. Too many dog pillows (yea, we know she loves her mutts, but please!). The looks presented herein are not edited, not clean - it's rather grandmotherly. The exception to this is the barn that from what I understand having read the book, was really more or less her husband's take on the situation and it's quite wonderful. Perhaps it's not fair to compare a low ceilinged Connecticut Federal house to a loft-like barn space but seeing as how the two are put in the same book, I guess it's open season. But this is a much better book than her latest called Point of View or as I call it, Pointless View.

4 comments about Houses: Inside and Out.

1. Ms. Gomez's style is timeless, classic. I enjoyed reading this book (in addition to the beautiful photos.) In my mind, she captures in words a great sense of how a house should "feel" in addition to how it "looks". I also appreciated her articulation of the necessary relationship between all of the parts that make up a home (the rooms, porch, landscaping, pool, etc.)



2. 'Houses Inside and Out' is an excellent companion book to 'Rooms' also by Mariette Himes Gomez. I was a Gomez fan prior to her first book, 'Rooms', which I think is one of the most useful interior design books available.
   
   'Houses inside and Out' features Gomez's understanding of a house being more than its interior. The book chronicles the harmony found in thoughtful design from the ground up. I like the photographs for their visual detail and because they showcase good design in collaboration with good architecture in environments suiting the homes. They also showcase Gomez's artful arrangement of shapes and forms in the volumes of the homes she designs within.
   
   I reviewed 'Rooms' when it first came out and was followed by a review alluding to my being in the publisher's camp. Not the case, but as a fan of Gomez, I still sticky-note my issues of 'Architectural Digest' whenever a Gomez interior is featured.
   
   Gomez's second book is a good read like her first. I'll refer to 'Houses Inside and Out' (as I do with 'Rooms') for useful inspiration and when the company of a good interior design books beckons me. Gomez's writing style is refreshingly open and steeped in designer wisdom. I enjoy absorbing her thoughtful approaches to color choices, furniture groupings, scale and texture and placement of art and accessories. 'Houses Inside and Out' is a delightful complement to my collection of interior design, architecture and landscape design books.



3. Beautiful photography of gorgeous interiors & useful, informative text on decorating, illustrating how interiors can be gorgeous, functional and practical at the same time. Also looks at starting out buying and decorating your first home. Not terribly oversized like some recent decorating books - compact & neat looking. All color & good quality glossy paper used. The cover is seductive because it makes you feel as if you're being invited into that house! And the cover is just the beginning - the rest of the book is just as tempting!



4. While the tailored, architecture-friendly interiors by Ms Himes Gomez are not objectionable, they are not particularly inspirational either. It is the houses themselves that are the attraction of this book; all are wonderful works by architects in practice today. Rather than a decorating book to showcase the author's work, it would have been more successful if it had emphasized the architecture and shown the decorator's approach to completing the vision. But recommended for all who appreciate fine residential architecture.

5 comments about The Architecture of Happiness (Vintage).

1. de Botton always writes dense thought provoking reviews often on things we know about but don't ruminate about. So it was with his Proust book. Of course since Lehrer has told us that Proust was a neuroscientist Proust is now more widely mentioned, though probably not read. One would need to take to his bed.... The architecture of happiness in a like manner encourages one to think about how design works on us and throughout time has influenced us. It encourages us to ruminate about the things we make and see. I have given a copy to a young girl who wants to go into architecture as I believe it will widen her horizon. I highly encourage reading of this short tome and studying the pictures for any who can sit in a comfortable chair.



2. Considering the significance of architecture, the author remarks that beautiful houses falter as guarantors of happiness and can also be accused of failing to improve the characters of those who live in them and proceeds by explaining why this is so. Karl Friedrich Schinkel for example stated that to turn something useful, practical, and functional into something beautiful is the architect's duty. Architecture should thus be the decoration of construction as distinguished from mere building. The architects of the Modernist movement, like all their predecessors, wanted their houses to speak and express emotions. Indeed buildings speak. They speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past.
   Interestingly enough what we search for in a work of architecture is not so far from what we search for in a friend because the objects we describe as beautiful art versions of the people we love. The buildings we admire are those which extol values we think are worthwhile: through their materials, shapes and colours they express qualities such as friendliness, kindness, subtlety, strength and intelligence. As Stendhal wrote, "Beauty is the promise of happiness."
   We are vulnerable to what the spaces we inhabit are saying. In a drab hotel room our optimism and sense of purpose are liable to drain away. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need a home in the physical sense: to compensate for vulnerability, we need a refuge.
   We may feel joy at the architectural perfection we see before us and at the same time melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. And sadness is conducive to receptivity: our downhearted moments provide architecture and art with their best openings because it is at such times that our hunger for their ideal qualities is at its height.
   Such thoughts and many other are contained in this study of architecture and make for a valuable and interesting read.



3. I learnt a lot from this book, usually Alain de Botton's books are not very easy to read but this one is so simple and pictures help a lot. I have seen so many Roman and ancient Greek buildings, I only appreciate how good they look. Now I know more about the styles and relationship with the human pyschology. Really great book for architecture-illiterate.



4. I suppose all art attempts to bring essence into form and architecture is no exception. De Botton digs right in and starts analyzing the ingredients that bring space to life, and poetically decodes the language of form and attempts to explain how it resonates and entices the observer and for what reasons different people are drawn to different architectural forms based on their own lacking qualities. It sounds pretty heady and it is. The author opens the book with the most poignant description of the unfailingly loyal character of a house which brought shivers to me as I recounted my love affairs with all the houses I grew up in. His writing style instantly drew me in- with his clever pepperings of metaphor and other literary communicative techniques. By the end of the book, however, as the subject material became a little more obtuse, his writing style seemed to become more pompous and strayed from effective communication into the realm of word-smithing bravado. You know, kind of like those inexperienced jazz musicians who run off into incomprehensibly difficult solos - more intent on displaying superlative technique and ego fattening talent than eliciting a gentle stirring of the soul. It became somewhat annoying, but I am going to re-read some of it and see if a 2nd reading bears this out. In any case, the mental journey he provides for any architecture freak like me is truly thrilling albeit somewhat laborious! -



5. The Architecture of Happiness is about beauty, in our physical surroundings and in our lives. The elegant style of writing, spare, essential and learned, takes us on a sublime tour of art as architecture and architecture as art, gently prodding us to take stock of all manner of aesthetic detail in our man-made environments, from follies and foibles, to superb examples of man's strivings to create lasting, transformng public and private spaces, as well as to ponder the historical/artistic links, which lead us from "then," to now, and beyond. This lovely book reminds us, advises us, to take a moment and "see" what is right before our eyes.

5 comments about Architecture: Form, Space, & Order.

1. This is an invaluable reference for architecture students and professionals alike. Ching's illustrations are amazing and the depth of information presented is incredible. I highly recommend this book.



2. it was realy interesting and the cd which i got was quit good i realy exited 100



3. Its very informative, but feels very tedious to read. Very very good illustrations which aid in learning to draft and understand spacial concepts.



4. I read this book in Chinese when I started to learn architecture many yaers ago, and I bought the English version later when I came to the US. I love it, it is one of the best architectural books that you can have.



5. The book came in good shape. It just took a long time for it to arrive (2 weeks).

No comments about Chinoiseries.