2 comments about Phylogenesis foa's ark: foreign office architects.

1. The Best: The proyect, the inteligent calisification, the graphics, the perspectives, the images of the proyects (amazing), the view and of course, the architecture.
   
   The Worst: The size of the plans inside the book, and the information on it about planimetric and detail construction.
   
   Conlucion: Buy it... is really good book



2. Very good book with an interesting structure/classification system for their projects. Projects are well described in text and graphics, and the essays that are inserted between 'sections' add an interesting perspective towards architecture and artistic/cultural theory in contemporary practice from several authors viewpoints, not just the firms. This is FOA's S,M,L,XL (with less bulk) with all projects (to date) presented and explained in detail.

5 comments about The Ultimate Book of Home Plans.

1. My mother-in-law sent me this book, along with several others that were published by the same company. I was really excited and have really enjoyed the books. There are a lot of great ideas and the plans are easy to read. The only complaint that I have is that since they have the same publisher, the three books share many of the same house plans. I would suggest getting one of them that has the most plans, and then if you want more ideas, to get a book from a different publisher.



2. We are going to hire an architect and contractor to build a home and bought 3 megabooks of plans from Amazon to get some ideas. This was the worst of the lot though by no means as awful as "the house you build" book. My wife and I just didn't like many of the plans. The organization isn't really too useful as the plans are grouped by style, not size (nobody who is building a 3000sf home wants to parse through 1500sf cottages). The color photos are nice and I gave the book 2 stars because there are helpful hints for construction and design interspersed throughout. Check my other reviews for the home books we recommend.



3. The problem I have not got enough bucks.



4. We couldn't agree on the type of house we wanted so we spent hours inspecting the hundreds of house plans in this book, mentally taking ideas from one and adding them to others. Having color pictures of the finished product makes it easy to identify those you like. In the end we were able to compromise; I gave up the two-story idea for the more practicle one-story, and we've created a wing for privacy. Rather than buy individual plans we'll take our cut & paste ideas to an architech (someday). If nothing else, browsing through the book initiated a lot of conversation about our lifestyle what's important to us as individuals. Great fun.



5. When I bought this book I just thought it was one of those magazine style things printed on cheap paper.Wrong! This book is huge! Colour photos and colour illustrations throughout.Floor plans of all types,almost.Not many homeplans here to suit the lower budgets.
   
   Overall,this book is the best.Great quality,good value and its huge.There are a lot of homes here so you will find something you like.Its worth the money.

No comments about Modern Shoestring: Contemporary Architecture on a Budget.

3 comments about Stone House: A Guide to Self-Building With Slipforms.

1. The illustrations inside the book leaves much to be desired. The book is a "Self Guide" to construction; this makes it mandatory to have exceptional pictures, illustrations, and drawings! Sadly, to say notwithstanding, the book-cover the interior is disappointing.



2. Tomm Stanley has written an excellent book that is both instructional and entertaining. He has the experience and forethought to prove that he isn't some hippie with unproven thoughts/ideas, but he also writes in a very warm and personable way that keeps his book from being a dry, tasteless "how to" construction book. He is frank with his mistakes, offers proven and tested solutions openly, and explains things scientifically enough to satisfy this reviewer (I'm an engineer).
   
   My only slight complaint is that many of the photos are terrible quality and you must go to the book's website to view the higher quality versions. This isn't too bad, but I worry that someday the website will move/discontinue and I'll be left with a book poorly illustrated.



3. It's easy to build it yourself with slipforms - especially if you also have in hand Tomm Stanley's Stone House, covering slipforming methods, sources for materials, stonelaying techniques, and more. Tomm Stanley and his partner know their stuff: he built his own home from slipforms and his construction photos can even be seen on-line in color - most included with this book, in black and white.

5 comments about J.l.C. Field Guide to Residential Construction, Vol. 1: A Manual of Best Practice.

1. Good resource on a large variety of subjects. It will not let you just go build, but gives the basics you need to know. If you are hiring a contractor it will help you know what they are doing. If you are a contractor, it provides a reference. Well worth the time and money.



2. The book was well worth the money and the TIME IT TOOK TO GET IT.It has got to be one of the best referance books for construction out there.



3. It's a good thing they used a heavy grade of paper with some kind of vinyl cloth cover (the thing feels waterproof). I use this book so often that I would have worn it out if it was constructed otherwise.



4. I ordered this in hopes it was Volume I but knowing it was a gamble. Indeed, I was shipped volume II which deals with Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC, etc. The ISBN which Amazon lists is correct for this volume, so Volume II is what you should expect in spite of a previous reviewers experience.
   
   The book itself, though sealed in plastic was damaged. The book is spiral bound to open flat with tabbed sections. Each tab was creased and folded back into the book. One tab was unbound and loose in the book.
   
   Content wise, I gave the book three stars. The individual chapters are necessarily short and somewhat superficial. There are numerous, helpful tables with pertinent data. But for detailed best practices I found "Wiring a House" by Rex Cauldwell and "Plumbing a House" by Peter Hemp (both from Tautons For Pros by Pros) or "Best Practices Guide to Residential Construction" by Steven Bliss (who used to be on JLC's staff) to be far superior. They have both theory and practical examples that include those really tough situations we encounter in real houses, not the simple, perfectly square, etc. fantasy situations popular on HGTV and introductory guides. The JLC Guide chapter with design information for kitchen and bath has some useful ideas, but again, I'd go with a more detailed guide. "Kitchen Idea Book" by Joanne Bouknight was especially useful in the kitchen remodel I just completed.
   
   All in all, it's an okay guide that made me wanting more detail and back searching Amazon.



5. I took into consideration what all the reviews said about this being volume two instead of volume one. Well, I needed volume two so I ordered it and got VOLUME ONE instead! I guess I can't win for losing. I gave three stars because even though there is some confusion on the volumes, Amazon still processed the order very quickly and I receied it in about three days.

4 comments about Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

1. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, an essay in architecture, takes readers on a historical tour of the third U.S. president's cherished home near Charlottesville, Virginia, through well-written text and gorgeous, full-color photography. The book includes floor plans and photographs of Jefferson's original architectual elevations, as well as drawings of the finished building that we are most familiar with today. It describes Jefferson as art collector and plantation life on Monticello's farms, and it explores the four seasons in Monticello's gardens. Published in 2002 by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.



2. This work successfully links the many unique qualities of Thomas Jefferson's personality to the unique qualities of the home that he designed and spent most of his life building and rebuilding. All of the intriguing features of this home are covered.
   Anyone interested in this remarkable man and his home who is unable to visit Monticello in person should strongly consider this work.



3. This is a highly informative, well documented book covering all aspects of the design and building of Thomas Jefferson's home, plus insights into why things were done the way they were done, through Jefferson's own notes, sketches and correspondence. Plus,the photographs are exquisite.



4. One of the clichés about Monticello is that few houses do so good a job revealing the personality of its builder. But clichés get to be such generally because there's truth to them, and that's definitely the case here. If Thomas Jefferson was one of the most interesting figures in American history (and I think that's unquestionably true), then Monticello may well be one of America's most interesting houses. And for this colorful book produced by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, we are guided through the house and grounds by people who know their stuff.

   Specifically, the chapters of this title are written by Monticello's director of restoration, the curator, the director of gardens and grounds, and other experts associated with the Foundation. Large, colorful photos are accompanied by informed commentary and all the requisite history, as well as documentation of the decades of restoration work it has taken to get the house and grounds to its current condition. A book doesn't make up for a visit in person -- if anything, I wished for more photos of the interior, especially of the book room and "cabinet." But for a general overview of the house, grounds, and collection, and an insight into the man himself, this book is hard to beat. I recommend it as a souvenir, as well as a nice companion to a Jefferson biography.

3 comments about Scandinavian Modern.

1. Purchased this book as a Christmas gift for a mid-century modern furniture dealer. He was thrilled with the contents and thought it would be great resource for his research library.



2. The photos had a detailed description of the pieces in the room and the designers. Good for training your eye in Scandinavian Modern design. Loved the open feel of many of the rooms & appreciation of natural surfaces. Very much what I remembered about travling through Finland. Like the Shakers & Japanese, the outside influences the Scandinavian style. Highly recommend this book.



3. This is very good book about Scandinavian living. It has photographs from the homes of famous Scandinavian designers like Aarnio and Kjaerholm, to name few. I personally love this book because it has information about designers and manufacturers.

5 comments about The Art of Systems Architecting, Second Edition.

1. If you have questions as a practitioner of systems architecting about your overall architecting approach then I would highly recommend this text. I would also recommend this as a reference book for a systems architecting class at the advanced graduate level. It does provide a balanced view of the discipline for journeymen. The view is presented in multiple dimensions such as builder-architected, manufacturing systems, systems science, and social systems domains. The chapter on models and modeling is very useful to the beginning architect but is somewhat high level. The architecture frameworks chapter is outdated and is shallow. The integrated modeling methodologies (Hatley-Pirbhai, Q2FD) discussion is very brief, but has references for further reading. The section on the systems architecting profession causes the reader to think deeply about the profession.
   
   If you are looking for a system architecting self-help cookbook, this isn't it. Although the appendix lists architecting heuristics, I doubt that those 12 pages alone would be worth the cost. The book will disappoint software-only system architects since much of it is clearly focused on software/hardware co-development and manufacturing systems development.
   
   System architecting is still in its infancy, and this book provides a critical element to that profession's maturation. It identifies some of the domain's critical attributes, but fully understanding this text requires some system architecting background to apply what is being presented.



2. A much better alternative: "Process for system architecture and requirements engineering."
   
   Buy this book only if you have some money left.



3. I waited for a chance to use this book before writing a review. For the past two years, I use it only when I need words to describe to the lay person "What" System Architecting is. But for practical system architecting technique, this book won't get it for you.



4. This book is probably the most abstract one on my Software Architecture bookshelf right now. Each page in this book takes twice as long to read as a page from any of my other, more technical architecture books. Another book might say "Use UML, everyone else does"; while this book says "Given a particular model set and language, it will be easy to describe some types of systems and awkward to describe others [...]".

   Time spent reading this book is a good investment in my opinion, but only if you read it at a moderate pace and reflect. The listing and discussion of heuristics is especially valuable. For example, "The greatest leverage in architecting is at the interfaces" is a good heuristic and the book has an appendix full of them. Not only that, this book offers good discussions of what each heuristic means and why it applies.




5. Review: This is a great overview of the subject of systems architecture. It is already highly regarded in the systems engineering community. It is rich in useful detail. It gives a comprehensive historical view of the discipline. I found a large number of specific insights about the nature of architecture as opposed to engineering. The collection of over 180 heuristics is an interesting framework for the text. I can highly recommend it as a study to both novices and seasoned professionals. The guest chapters on political process and systems architecting (Brenda Forman), and The Professionalization of Systems Architecting (Elliot Axelbrand) are both valuable additions to the immense vocabulary of the authors.
   If I have one quibble it is that the book correctly insists on quantification of performance attributes as the only proper basis for architecture, certification, and engineering. But it so often denies the measurability of so called `soft' values - and remarkably includes things like `safety', and `environmental impact' in that category. I fear that setting too high a standard for quantification leaves us with mere ambiguous words. This of course is a widespread problem. I disagree, and will take up the discussion with the authors and the community - as I already have done. In addition I find a complete lack of examples, or discussion, about how `multiple performance and cost attributes' can be used by the architectural level to understand the architectural problem. There are far too many non-quantified models, and far too little insight as to how a systems architect would deal with the quantified attribute requirements of a system. Maybe in the 3rd Edition?
   Tom@Gilb.com, August 24 2002.

3 comments about Treehouses of the World 2008 Wall Calendar.

1. This beautifully done wall calendar captures the romance of treehouses in large, colorful photographs. The little hidden houses are located all over the world and each has a story. Utterly charming.



2. I bought this for a gift. I didn't realize it would be so large when opened. It takes up almost half the side of the refridgerator. Even so, it is very interesting to see and learn about the history and different types of architectures used in building each structure. I wish I had gotten one for myself.



3. I like that this is unique - not like every other calendar. Also, the pages are large enough to easily write events.

2 comments about Tropical Interiors.

1. Wonderful book on contemporary tropical design. Just looking at the pictures transports me to another place! I've even incorporated some of the simple design ideas into my own home. From the simple & serene to the eclectic, you won't be disappointed.



2. In short, this book has exceptional photos and displays wonderful furniture and design of natural materials. It's amazing to see how these materials can be formed into such beautiful and practical pieces of furniture. It's functional art!