No comments about Landscape Gardening and Rural Architecture.

No comments about Soil Design Protocols for Landscape Architects and Contractors.

No comments about Management of Turfgrass Diseases.

3 comments about Design First: Design-based Planning for Communities.

1. 
   I really hard to read this book, and also it very hard to get some technique to design a real community. even though it has a n.....ice cover.



2. Although I work regularly in the design of cities, I found this work wordy and largely unreadable. If there are kernals of wisdom about the design of cities in it, they are well-hidden. The text goes on and on for many pages of small type without giving meaningful hints about how to design a good city. Perhaps the book would have been helpful if the authors had distilled it to perhaps 20% of its present length and illustrated any kernals of wisdom they have with good images. Due to its present form, I couldn't make myself read it through.



3. Whether a practitioner, architecture or urban design student or simply interested in the field of urban planning, you will enjoy and learn from "Design First." No rambling tome to weigh down your office papers or backpack, "Design First" is a practical and usable guide to understanding and learning from current examples of Smart Growth. The book is well organized, and begins with a concise historical overview of urban planning that provides the back-story to the practice of contemporary urban design. Following a strong discussion of urban planning theory and practice, Walters and Brown move into an investigation of five case study projects conducted in North and South Carolina. The animated text accompanies a healthy portion of design drawings, diagrams and photographs. The 53 color plates provide dynamic examples of large area plans, street sections, renderings and perspectives. "Design First" is a true designer's tool, to be worn at the edges and referenced often.

2 comments about Terrace Design (Designfocus).

1. When i first looked at this book I was attracted by the front cover photograph which looks like the corner of an untra modern house and a terrace overlooking a cliff and ocean. Pretty, but not really applicable to the desert scene where I live.
   
   Looking inside I realized that their definition of terrace is really something like a transitional area, not enclosed in the house, but closely associated with and connecting the house to the outside.
   
   Then I realized that this is an concept about my house that I had been thinking about for some time. A place to sit, talk, relax a bit in the cool of the evening. Kind of like what we used to do on grandmothers porch.
   
   The houses here are broken down into three general categories:
   
   Urban, some of which are more like the little garden areas in back of houses/restaurants in city centers like New York or London.
   
   Countryside, where some striking scenes are shown even with flat farm or desert landscapes. We think of terraces being on the side of a hill with an expansive view. But here are some very interesting ones that are not.
   
   Finally there are Seaside Terraces, where indeed there are some dramatic pictures.
   
   The book certainly gave me some ideas about what I'm going to do in my front yard.



2. A true mark of elegant luxury in today's upscale homes that afford a view is the creation of a terrace that opens the living space out into the exterior of the dwelling and thereby creating a direct contact with nature and/or the urban community. Enhanced with more than 140 spectacular photographs of diverse terrace designs ranging from those with or without a roofed enclosure, some with gardens, others with a solarium, Terrace Design offers a visually impressive selection of terraces for homes set in rural, seaside, and urban locations. Wither for simple browsing or for providing concrete ideas for emulation, Terrace Design is a welcome and highly recommended addition to any professional, academic, or community library Architectural Studies reference collection.

No comments about Urban Design: Green Dimensions, Second Edition.

No comments about How Green Is Your Garden.

No comments about Performance and Appropriation: Profane Rituals in Gardens and Landscapes (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium Series in the History of Landscape Architecture).

No comments about Architectural Foliage: Shape, Form and Texture of Foliage Plants in Garden Design.

No comments about Parks: Green Spaces in European Cities.