5 comments about Site Engineering for Landscape Architects.

1. I paid a significant percent less than retail for the item, and the transaction was smooth. I received the package within a week of ordering.



2. Good quality, no way to track order didn't even know it was sent , just showed up



3. Abysmal instructions...
   This book seems to assume the reader is already a trained landscape architects reviewing for the LARE exam.
   This textbook manages to take rather simple theories and turn them into Quantum physics by the virtue of jargon, verbose explanations, dismal graphics, - and get this: They are No answers to the exercises in this book.
   The authors are undoubtedly very knowledgeable regarding Site engineering, but either clueless or indifferent to techniques of effective instruction.



4. I bought this book to help me better understand how to do grading, evaluate contours, etc. All well and good. I begin doing the problems at the end of a chapter, and there is no answer key anywhere in the book. Can't find any reference to answers anywhere.
   
   I would have rated the book higher but for this little issue.



5. I am a first-year BLA student, and this text is required for an introductory course in site grading and drainage. This book is very difficult for me to read and understand. Descriptions of calculations are very poorly presented in paragraph narrative, which is mind-numbing to read and comprehend. If the calculations were presented in a step-by-step format, like a math text, they would be dramatically more clear and understandable. I agree with a previous reviewer, as well, that the layout is dysfunctional because the text and corresponding graphics are not on facing pages. This problem is particularly annoying, considering that landscape architecture is a design profession that emphasizes legibility in graphics and presentation material. I would welcome anyone's recommendations for a text that explains this subject in a more helpful way.

5 comments about Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History.

1. This is a good, detailed book, supported with plenty of images. Good coffee table book.



2. This book has so much information about the history of landscape design. If you want to trigger ideas this is where you should turn. It goes through several civilizations. It sparked me to more developed thinking.



3. The book is text driven, so provides a great deal of information about landscaping themes and styles. I purchased this book for a university class I am taking, and it has proven to be a valuable resource.



4. This book is long and overly verbose, but an excellent resource. As a text in a landscape architecture history class it was a strong foundation.



5. Excellent excellent text- very thorough, good pictures. Even if you're not in a class, good reading!

5 comments about Landscape Graphics.

1. This is a great book, I love it. So much that I gave my original to a young friend who just got into architecture school and immediately ran and bought a replacement for myself :)
   
   It gives really clear directions and examples of how to render all sorts of terrain, veggetation and pavement in plan and section. Great for anyone just learning about illustrating their designs in those formats. Also great for artists.



2. Great book- in the first edition you'll find lots of dead space due to poor editing. This actually works well for writing your own notes and ideas in the book. Selling process was fantastic. Very happy.



3. I was required to utilize this book in my college study at Colorado State University. I was also fortunate to have Grant as my Professor leading me through his publication. As a professional Landscape Designer, and now LA, I can honestly say that I have attained all of my positions in Landscape Architectural firms based on these fundamental design standards and my graphic abilities. Personally, the book had it's uses as a teaching tool as well as it's inspirational uses now 15+ years later. Some people have stated that it is too basic and "dated". I may be old school when it comes to hand graphics and illustration, but I see the plan, section elevations, and perspective views represented in this book as nothing short of fundamental. Grant ingrained in his students to "be loose" (yes, Grant too was a student of Mike Lin and pulls material from him in this book as well) and that the quick thumbnail sketches that can be done on the spot are an essential means of communication. For early conceptualization, charettes and Design Development I have found these graphic standards essential. From there, I can incorporate this quick visualization into finished and approved architectural illustrations or whatever means of CAD, SketchUP, and/or Adobe CS program rounds it out to my firm and clients requirements.
   
   At the end of the day, this has always been an important and treasured addition to my collection right next to other books by Lin, Leggit, Doyle, and Wang.



4. I purchased this book as required per my Landscape Architecture graphics class at Ohio State University and 5 years out of college and I see refer to this book when I need help with my graphics or to use a new technique. Landscape Graphics gives you a step by step process on how to create trees, perspectives, ect; in addition to pages of graphic samples of people, ground covers, trees, shrubs, plan views, sections, lettering, and vehicles.
   I would highly recommend this book to anyone who sketches, or creates graphics in the architectural/landscape architectural field.



5. Product was in excellent condition delivered on time very good seller. If needed I will defiantly purchase from him again

5 comments about Google SketchUp for Site Design: A Guide to Modeling Site Plans, Terrain and Architecture.

1. I have to admit, I have little patience for 3d work as I'm an illustrator that makes "2D" paintings. However, I have seen the uses of SketchUp by other artists, and wanted to give this a shot. In fact, it encouraged me to build a desktop just for the purpose of dabbling in 3D.
   
   I found other books and immediately was turned off by the tech speak, even the "for Dummies" was a little hard to grasp. Along with the videos out there covering SketchUp with this book I started understanding how to create little environments with this neat App by Google.
   
   You may have my problem and be a bit impatient with the tech speak, and terms, but just go over the chapters in order as requested in the book. It also gives you links to extras and goodies too. The author is pretty thorough and despite some technical jargon, he's still rather simple and to the point. There are a great number of illustrations in the book to help you through it.
   
   Learning 3D work is a bit of a daunting task for me, but this book has come in handy since I love how people were able to use the tools to help create 2D works with 3D programs. Slowly but surely I'll be able to build and even try other 3D programs. I know, I'm making it sound harder than it actually is, but if you have no patience with most 3D apps you can understand why I belabored over trying this and getting a book to actually understand all of it. I definitely am thankful the author knows how to make it interesting!



2. The author's qualifications as both a practicing architect and an expert Sketchup user make this an outstanding tutorial, with a wealth of practical advice on both the craft of site planning and the ins and outs of Sketchup. The exercises themselves are real-world examples that touch on all the relevant features of the applicatiion. The presentation as a Kindle book makes it possible to keep the book open on a separate screen while working through the exercises.



3. Google sketchup rocks! This book is probably the best one I've used. I just learned how to use sketchup for urban planning concept display. The book is easy to understand and it provides excellent tutorials, workflow methodologies, and places to download free Ruby scripts to enhance your Google Sketchup. I'm currently using the Pro version (not the free version) and am very pleased that I can design rich 3-D graphics and animations for the public to view.
   
   I highly recommend this book if you are in the site plan, architectural, and planning profession. This book is good for anyone else who wants to learn Google Sketchup!
   
   Tim Hennig
   Green Bay, WI



4. This book certainly provided an excellent approach to both basic and complex Sketchup modeling. While I had used Sketchup before in school, it was on a limited and unorganized basis. For my current work, Google Sketchup for Site Design helped me to understand how to be much more efficient and effective with a greater understanding of Sketchup's tools and organization. Plus, the online downloads that go along with the book tutorials were very helpful for checking my models as I worked through the exercises. No matter your current proficiency with Sketchup, this book will be very helpful and should be included as part of your library.



5. The tutorials are worthless, unless you are already a sketchup expert, in which case you don't need the book! I gave up on the first tutorial after a few steps because I had to look up how to perform most of the actions using the sketchup online documentation. So what's the point of the book? Some nice models? I can get those for free on the web.

1 comments about Across This Land: A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada (Creating the North American Landscape).

1. If one wants to comprehend the geography of North America, John C. Hudson's book ACROSS THIS LAND is a good stating point. Hudson breaks North America (the United States and Canada) down into twenty-seven sub-regions. The book is a comprehesive geography in that it explores the scope of the field, from physical geography to the realms of culture, economics, and history. To understand the contemporary landscape and the forces that shaped it, one must look into the past. Hudson's analysis is well-written and engaging. I use this book, which is written for a general audience, as a text for my course in Geography of North America at Dickinson State University.

5 comments about Stonescaping Idea Book (Taunton's Idea Book Series).

1. The book is FILLED with great pictures and ideas. We have duplicated several of the projects displayed and love the outcome.



2. This was a gift for a family member who bought a house in a desert area. Although many of their neighbors had a lawn, water is very expensive, and they wanted to try something else. They're very happy with the book, and intend to implement some of the ideas.
   
   As always, Taunton press has turned out a very helpful 'idea book'.



3. I got this book for my husband, who enjoys landscapping with stone. He really enjoys it, and got a lot of ideas from it.



4. This is a book I refer to over and over again, not only for tips I may have missed on stonescaping, but just for the sheer pleasure of looking at the gorgeous photos that appear throughout.
   Anna Marie Fritz, author of Funny Feline Fotos & other books on Amazon



5. I needed ideas for myself as well as my job as a landscape designer. This book is super.

5 comments about Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture: Contemporary Techniques and Tools for Digital Representation in Site Design.

1. Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture gives you a good understanding of how to use a variety of programs in conjunction with each other. It gives good examples of what program to use for specific graphic presentations and does so in a very clear and concise way. Many of the techniques discussed can easily be applied to disciplines other than Landscape Architecture and I would highly recommend the book to anyone involved in creating digital graphic presentations for any of the design professions. I teach a course a course called "Integrated Computer Graphics" and I plan on using it for my main text. Well done!



2. Traditionally, landscape representation has been done with graphite pencil, watercolor, and other drawing implements. This book shows how this process can be made much more efficient by utilizing both vector-based and raster-based illustration software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, 3DStudioMax, Rhino, and Google SketchUp. It provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to use these software in conjunction with CAD to create visually compelling illustrations.
   
   Topics covered include (software used in parentheses): Tiling Aerial Photographs (Photoshop), Creating Entourage (Photoshop), Linework (Illustrator), Creating Textures (Photoshop), Perspective Illustration (Sketchup, 3DStudioMax, Photoshop), Camera Match 3D Object to Site Photo (3DStudioMax), and Atmospheric Perspective (3DStudioMax, Maya).
   
   Every step of a process is clearly explained and accompanied by very high quality illustrations. Whether you're a student or a landscape architect, Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture will serve as a very helpful how-to guide on creating beautifully rendered illustration of your plans.



3. I gave this book to my roommate who is a Landscape Architect and she had nothing but great things to say about it. Its very useful and she was already familiar with it as it is an industry standard.



4. This is a great book for the right person, but let's be clear on what it does: It helps you take the .PDF files you export from your CAD program and import them into Photoshop or Illustrator to render them for presentation. It also walks you through using Sketch-up and 3D Max to create perspective or 3-D style renderings.
   
   This is not for the average design-build contractor who wants to add a little spice to his or her drawings, because all of the techniques outlined assume you want to spend a decent amount of time tinkering with the plans. If you need some drag n drop or fast click color, I'd suggest using Dynascape with the color module or one of the other CAD-based programs that do that for you fairly simply. It's definitely not a book for homeowners.
   
   Instead, this is for architects or designers who have enough budget in their project to allow for spending 4-8 hours or more creating colored digital renderings for presentation. This book assumes you're working with a CAD program and have the adobe suite of products, including Photoshop and illustrator. If you have both a CAD program and Photoshop at least, then this book will take you through the basic Photoshop activities you need to do to render your project for presentation without using those stinky chartpak markers.
   
   If you are already proficient at Photoshop, this book won't teach you much that is new. The section on Sketch-up and 3D Max are small and fairly basic. But if you have gotten Photoshop and just aren't quite sure how to get started using it for this kind of rendering, then this will walk you through it perfectly.
   
   The question you'll want to ask yourself is: "Do I want to learn ALL about Photoshop, or only how to render landscape plans in Photoshop?" If the answer to that is the second, then this book is exactly what you need. It does a great job of showing exactly how to do that. But if you want to learn Photoshop properly, then the techniques in this book aren't so specialized that a non-specific but thorough book on Photoshop wouldn't cover it. The strength of this book is that it is SO specific in showing exactly this one kind of rendering work and how to do every element of it.
   
   This is a textbook format book and as such is hard to sit down and read for a stretch. Many books nowadays that are instructive take a more casual tone and don't bother stating things that should be obvious like textbooks often start out by doing. But the benefit of this textbook style of writing is that the authors are very thorough and take you through every action step by step. They have provided tons of screenshots and pictures of exactly what the menus look like and what your rendered drawings should look like at each stage. It's a very thorough book and if this is the kind of help you need, you won't regret buying this book.



5. Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture: Contemporary Techniques and Tools for Digital Representation in Site Design provides architecture and landscape workers with principles of analog representation and how they cross over to digital techniques. From comparisons between analog and digital rendering to computing basics, using hand-drawn linework and perspective drawings, and more, this packs in over 500 color drawings and photos to illustrate proven techniques for architecture and computer collections alike.

4 comments about The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture: Fifth Edition (Dictionary, Penguin).

1. The product was in great condition and came directly to my house in a matter of days.



2. This book is quite useful throughout your entire career. You can look up words in it like a dictionary or read it like a book just to widen your vocabulary on architecture. By using the exact vocabulary, your speech and writings will sound more professional and convey the message precisely.



3. I would have liked it to be more objective and less judgemental in places. It's possible to do so and still convey the message that a design or an artist was over rated or not very good. But, this is only the case in some instances. I love rounded corners and the design and soft texture of the cover. A few more line illustrations and contextural outlines would also be nice. A good reference to have if you enjoy art and architecture or if you travel.



4. From Aalto to Ziggurat, the bounty of information provided in this well illustrated and value priced volume will keep you informed for a very long time. A great general reference of architecture and landscaping for both the student and the home owner alike.

No comments about Site Analysis: A Contextual Approach to Sustainable Land Planning and Site Design.

5 comments about The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to the Present Day (Third Edition, Expanded and Updated).

1. My professor introduced this book to us when I took a History of Landscape Architecture course in University of Southern California in Los Angeles. It was only available in hard cover at that time and was very expensive ($98.00). I did not buy the hard cover version and waited many years later and bought the soft cover version at a great price. It has many powerful images to illustrate the gardens and architecture in many different cultures. It'll show you how brilliant human beings can be.
   
   What is a "Landscape of Man"?
   
   "To qualify as a `landscape of man,' an environment must be deliberately shaped at a specific time." "Art is a continuous process..." Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe and his wife Susan wrote, "All design therefore derives from impressions of the past, conscious or subconscious, and in the modern collective landscape, from historic gardens and parks and silhouettes which were created for totally different social reasons..."
   
   "The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to the Present Day" includes 28 sections and they are separated into two parts, Part One is "From Prehistory to the end of the Seventeenth Century." It covers landscape from pre-history to 1700 AD and includes 17 sections covering Origins, the Central Civilization (Western Asia to the Muslim Conquest, Islam in Western Asia, the Western Expansion of Islam: Spain, the Eastern Expansion of Islam: Mughul India), the Eastern Civilization (Ancient India, China, Japan, Pre-Columbian America) and the Western Civilization (Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages in Europe, Italy: the Renaissance, France: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Spain, Germany, England, the Netherlands: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries). The text for each section follows a standard format of Environment, Social History, Philosophy, Expression, Architecture and Landscape. Case studies have striking black-and-white photos, paintings and plans and a brief description.
   
   Part Two of the book is "The Evolution of Modern Landscape." It covers landscape from 1700 AD to present and includes 11 sections covering the Eighteenth Century (Western Classicism, the Chinese School, the English School), the Nineteenth Century (the European Mainland, the British Isles, the United States of America), and the Twentieth Century (Europe, The Americas, the Western Hemisphere: the New World, the Eastern Hemisphere: the Old World), and Worlds Trends in Landscape Design. The text follows a standard format of Environment, History, Social, Economics, Philosophy and Expression for each Century and then a standard format of the Home, Landscape, Comments and case studies for each section.
   
   "The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to the Present Day" has 408 pages, 746 illustrations and 6 maps. It is a great book for architects, landscape architects and urban planners!
   
   Gang Chen, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Author of "LEED GA Exam Guide," "Architectural Practice Simplified," "Planting Design Illustrated," and other books on various LEED exams, architecture, and landscape architecture



2. The book is great, easy to understand and great images.



3. Beautiful gardens and parks don't simply settle themselves on sites. They are planned, developed and planted by caring human beings. Those of us who are amateur gardeners and landscapers are influenced by the great public gardens and parks of the world. And the public gardens and parks didn't just appear out of thin air. All of what we find beautiful was influenced by something older or from somewhere else. And this wonderful book takes us back in time and on the highways and byways to times and places where man first came upon natural scenes and imagined the possibility of recreating at least the impression of what his eye beheld.
   
   This beautiful volume with its fine black and white photographs and drawings makes everything seem simple. It takes us down two main roads, the formal and informal. What could be more basic? Yet over half a century or more of shaping the land around half a dozen houses and reading dozens of books, some very useful and beautiful, I do not recall seeing an explanation of how these two main roads came to be trod. But in The Landscape of Man, it is all here from the beginning, from the time when farmers gathered on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates gazed upon the fields spreading before them and other such early independent beginnings.
   
   We are the descendants of those who sought beauty and consolation in gardens large and small in the great civilizations of the past. Each of these, over great time frames, came to influence and cross pollinate with one another. And the Jellicoes trace all of these rivulets and streams from their headwaters down to the well established gardens of the world to which we are heirs. The writing is simple and direct, the photos illuminate their points, and their site drawings are clear and useful.
   
   This is a book for gardeners to enjoy over the winter so that they may dream about how they might shape their little spaces and understand a little more of the shoulders on which we all stand as we place our first trees and shrubs in the bare ground before us. It is a great book, and I recommend it not just for professionals but for those whose gardens lie far in the future. It is the best book I have ever come across in explaining the history and possibilities of landscaping.
   
   I have owned my copy for years. Hundreds of sentences are highlighted and notes fill the margins. I should have reviewed this fine work many years ago.



4. This book as a classic. It is not only for those who want to study our changing perceptions of our landscape and our moves to define it over the past few millennia, but also to architects who build 'buildings'. This tome takes us through man's history, and outlines our aesthetic evolution with our landscape as a changing canvas that represent our different social conditions. A must-have if you are a student, an architect, or just a person who wants to see how we became what we are!



5. The original edition, hardcover with beautiful dust jacket, was printed in 1975 in England. It is one of my favorite all-time photo books, since in includes shots of Borobudur, the Ziggurat, the Red Fort in Delhi, Angkor Wat, Ctesiphon in Iraq - lots of photos hard to find even on the net. History all the way to the opera house in Sydney. A most fascinating book. Large: 9 1/4 x 11 3/4, 383 pages, a sound minimal text with each plate numbered and easily referenced - to me this is one of the great books. Everyone who has travelled, or who wants to travel, will enjoy this tremendously. (Many of the areas shown are difficult and often dangerous to visit, now.) Try it. You'll like it.