2 comments about Land Developer's Checklists and Forms.

1. Although this book gives good examples and PDF downloadable forms I found it somewhat lacking. An explanation of pertinent forms would be beneficial. If you're looking for good examples this book gives you that, but expect to consult an attorney and other industry specialists for your real-world application.



2. Very good format. The organization and format will help to build confidence for new developers. The author breaks down potentially complex issues into manageable chunks of information. The step by step format provides a great resource for real estate professionals thinking to undertake into land development.

3 comments about The Barefoot Architect.

1. This is the first English translation of The Barefoot Architect (TBA), which was originally written in Spanish in Mexico in 1982. Obviously written with a Third-World audience in mind, TBA nevertheless has a multitude of useful ideas that could be incorporated into North American buildings. At first glance this handbook's 697 pages are intimidating, but fear not - this tome is extremely user-friendly, as it employs only simple drawings and brief text to convey a wealth of handy ideas for laymen/owner builders and professional contractors alike. The only exception to that last statement is that TBA has a rather skimpy index.
   
   TBA starts off with a thoughtful design overview which shows how to situate your house, say, to take advantage of the prevailing winds, solar orientation, terrain, and vegetation on your building site. Subsequent chapters cover considerations and methods for building in deserts, jungles, and temperate zones. Granted, not many Norte Americanos will want to build their homes with bamboo, thatch or handmade adobe bricks, but there are plenty of examples of materials and construction techniques that I wouldn't hesitate to use where I live in Northwest Wyoming.
   
   The use of modern insulating, siding, and roofing materials that would be familiar and available to Americans is little discussed. Remember that the primary audience for this handbook resides not in North America/First World, but in the southern hemisphere, where most citizens don't have our economic wherewithal. I would not use a lot of TBA's suggestions in the building of my primary residence, but for outbuildings, walls, gardens, get-away cabins, etc., I would use this book in a heartbeat for my construction bible. Thoreau would have loved it. Perhaps in a post-peak oil world, TBA will become a must-have resource for those of us who have to live more simply and take advantage of the building materials close at hand. Most discussions in TBA readily stimulate one to think of practical uses for the natural resources that surround us all.



2. After my wife and I had finished writing The Straw Bale House and were beginning work in Mexico on a number of projects, we came across this book during our travels. We loved it so much we set out trying to find out where we could get more copies. The search took us to a bookstore in Mexico City where we bought several cases to bring back to the States. They were so popular with friends that we gave away/sold all of them in almost no time at all. It's just a marvelous little book with simple but very clear illustrations. Quite truthfully I'm totally amazed that Lloyd Khan the publisher came across this book and decided to print it in English. But then again, that's what makes Lloyd the entertaining publisher that he is.



3. I'm in the process of re-building the kitchen, bathroom, foundation and an addition to our home. Picking up this book to peruse made my imagination wander and provided tremendous insight into not only how to go about these significant changes but also provided new ways based upon sensible and older techniques. There are so many ideas, drawings and explanations that even if you thought you had everything at hand and knew just what you were going to do, this could very much make your work better. I very much recommend this thick and interesting book.

2 comments about Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture.

1. The Hand-Sculpted House: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage (The Real Goods Solar Living Book)
   This is a great book..artistic and creative as well as practical. Lots of hands on information



2. This Gernot Mink's book is a great purchase. Its a practical technician book, with all needed information about buinding with loan, clavey soil, prefabricated panels, etc.. I think it is designed to builders and architects, but it is very easy to understand and can be read by everyone.

3 comments about Carpentry & Construction.

1. The project I'm working on right now in the hundred year old house I bought is refinishing some hardwood floors. So first I turned to the index to see what they said about doing that task. It was there. The description was rather short, but exactly what I needed to know.
   
   I then turned to how to install a toilet, yup, it was there too. So was wiring, framing walls, building a stair way, roofing, venting gas appliances, and there's a section on solar heating systems. In short, I couldn't find anything about building a house that wasn't covered (except for finding the money to cover the cost). If you're going to build a house, or have one built, I can't recommend any book higher than this one.



2. This book is a great overview of construction - it covers building stages ranging from the foundation to framing to roof details to types of siding available. Some electrical basics discussed, tips and tricks to keep in mind -- overall a good, lucid, well-thought out book that can get you started with construction.



3. From tools to termites, this book is an excellent reference tool for the construction novice (the person who is a neophyte to the trade, yet yearns to build their own home). This is a fine jumping-off point to more trade-specific references. It has given me the confidence to build my own house, even though I can't swing a hammer without hitting my thumb. Detailed drawings and illustrations complement a text that works from the "ground floor" up (forgive the pun) to the finishing touches aimed at the asthetic level.

1 comments about Detail in Process: Detail in Process (AsBuilt).

1. This is the second book in the new AsBuilt series. Its like the In Detail series with beautifully presented images and drawings, but because all the projects (many different building types) are built in North America, most of the drawings have units of measurement and terminology currently used in the USA, and include materials available for construction in the United States. There are also more kinds of drawings, models and renderings than the typical formats usually found in books about details, which gives the series a dynamic, contemporary quality. Highly recommended.

4 comments about Cabins and Camps.

1. I enjoyed this book but found it a little too rustic; kind of over-the-top for the average rustic aficionado. The same styles were repeated over and over with little variation.



2. Beautiful coffee table book. The pictures are large and there are many of them. The focus of the book was on the Adirondack style mostly and birch Adirondack style furniture.



3. This book is a banquet for the eyes. The reader feasts upon the visuals and is drawn into the rooms, the homes, and one can almost smell the wood.
   
   The author knows his subject and shares it well. I keep my copy on the coffee table in the living room as a wonderful accent to the room.
   
   It reads well and I am intrigued as to who the owners might be of the wonderful houses, homes, structures. Privacy is very important, but that is my only "complaint" with the book. I would like to know who the owners are. It would seem more personal.
   
   The book is wonderful.



4. This is by far the best cabin/camp book I own! Pages and pages of gorgous camps and cabins with wonderful decorating. I own many rustic decorating books and this is tops!! All Ralph Kylloes books are great but this one is the best! The pictures of inside all the beautiful camps and cabins is a true feast for the eye! I look at this book at least once a week and never tire of the homes and always put the book down with more ideas on how to make my home more rustic and adirondack/camp like. I can't imagine if you are a person that is into camp decorating that you would ever be disatisfied-it is truely the best of its kind!!

3 comments about Prefab Prototypes: Site-Specific Design for Offsite Construction.

1. The craft of this book is as enhancing as many other that have won awards over the past decades. I personally have been trained to view things at the tectonic level and the technical pages coordinate wonderfully with the graphic pages. The Andersons have a very nice way of depicting there key elements within each project.
   
   If you're looking for some precedents of Pre-Fabrication projects that literally are site specific, modular, green and even custom this is a perfect book and you will be very happy with your investment. From the choice of colors to how they label the diagrams makes understanding the project very nice.
   
   Good job and thanks



2. This book goes above and beyond the typical prefab picture book. The images are not only compelling but are informative in a way that brings clarity to someone who wants to have a better understanding of how prefabrication actually works. The Andreson's passion for design, experimentation, and progress is truly inspiring. As a young professional it is good to see a smaller firm doing interesting work. The book is very detailed, and provides clear diagrams of connections and materials. You can see very easily how it all comes together. The one thing I would have liked to know more about is (on a project by project basis) how exactly the prefabrication process takes place. It is not clear how the architect and prefabricators interact as far as collaborating on a set of documents that gets the building or project built. Perhaps that is thier proprietary secret, or perhaps it is too boring for a handsome architecture book. You can only put so much information in one book, and this one is filled to the brim.



3. This book is gorgeous. Excellently written with amazing axonometric drawings of provocative projects. In a word, the drawings are luscious. It's no wonder these guys are winning competitions left and right.

3 comments about Off The Grid Homes: Case Studies for Sunstainable Living.

1. Has very little for which I was looking. A lot of white space per page around pretty photos of architectually interesting structures that are off-grid. A lot of paper material for few words and little useful information. If you want information to help you know what it takes to go off-grid, this isn't it; it's just coffee table cosmetics.



2. This book was really fun to read. The pictures were beautiful and the surrounding of most of the homes were incredible. Some times the floor plans were a bit confusing and one of them had no definitions for the numbers that represented the rooms. It definately inspired me to do more with less and to consider green building as my next project. I was a bit dissapointed in the definitions of some of the energy saving apparatuses. I wish that the book would have gone into more detail on the excerpts of geothermal, solar hot water, PV arrays, and wind turbines. At best these were teasers and left me wanting much more explaination. I will say it gave me a world of great ideas. I would be very interested in a book on totally off the grid, fully functional with flushing toilets etc incorporating all aspects of rain water collection, grey water heating and collection, optimal design to do this and more, plus sub 1200 square feet homes that offer options on what can be afforded. In depth explainations on all the buzz words like living machines what it entails (cost,size,optimal location, size vs. amount processed per hr or day or what? better diagrams with flow directions and larger in format etc. This should give the author another book to write that I for sure will purchase. I am well over 13!



3. Nature is efficient. To become sustainable, we need to relearn the art of efficiency. The six "off the grid" homes featured in this book include two that are over 4,000 sq'. Did the author consider how much energy it took to build these things? The smallest house is about 1,600 sq' and it is the only one of the six that is actually off the grid. Four of the others are on intertie connections and one is featured because it uses geothermal. A more honest title would be "How to Generate Some of the Energy Required by Your Oversized House". This book demonstrates that sustainability depends not so much on changes in technology but changes in the way we think. Two books which I found helpful in changing my understanding of shelter are the classic "Owner Built Home" by Ken Kern and "The Hand-Sculpted House" by Evans, Smith and Smiley.

5 comments about Built By Hand.

1. I've been looking for a book on private structures, not public buildings or houses by famous architects but living places of everyday people. I couldn't imagine anything this amazing. Dwelling from all over the world. Places you would never see unless you traveled to the far reaches of our earth. I am thrilled to have found this book.



2. superlative book; pictures are top; as I've not enough money to travel in so many places and anyway I'dont want anymore take planes and contribute to pollution that will may kill us; I'm happy to travel with this book and the wonderfullest Dwellings from Paul Oivier. together with too HomeWork from Loyd Kahn, You get the best to study dwellings all over the world and maybe going back to more simplicity and built healthy powerful and sacred places as all dwellings should be !



3. For a number of years, Yoshio and Eiko Komatsu have been travelling the world taking high quality photographs of traditionally built homes. At first view, many of the photographs while though pleasant are not especially remarkable. However, what makes these many photos special is that they are combined together to tell a story about houses are traditionally built around the world.
   
   The photographs are gathered together in short chapters dealing with building techniques. For example, the first three chapters are entitled, "Hand Coiling or Coursing Wet Earth", "Earthen Blocks", and "Compacted Earth". Along with a cursory explanations of the building technique are numerous color pictures from around the world illustrating the different techniques.
   
   What makes this such a great book is the sheer number of interesting photographs of vernacular architecture. In a sense, this book is a momument to the creativity and artistic talent of the world's people. These photos stimulate the imagination.
   
   Finally, keep in mind this is a photo collection and not an academic text on vernacular architecture. This is not a book on how to build by hand but a creative homage to what people can make with locally available materials and ancient know how. Highly recommended.



4. As books go this one makes it to my top ten. People are always using the word venacular out of context, this book puts it right back. The pictures in this book speak a thousand words. Use whats local, works with materials found around you. I live on an Island on the West coast, lots of rain. There are so many people on this Island building 'green houses' with straw bales. There are so many people who are going to have mouldy homes!!! Venacular learn the word. Live in a home made of the materials around you! Buy this book, and learn.



5. Owning quite a few Vernacular Building type books, I would say that this rates up there with the best of them. I will not say it is the best though, the reason being is that all of these types of books have their own unique photos that you won't find any where else.
   
   This is a very well produced, easy to read book. It is broken up into 18 sections, with lots of full colour photos from around the world. Each photo also comes with a short explanation.
   
   With 469 pages of beautiful photographs not only showing the architecture, but also the people living in these dwellings, this book is a must have for your Vernacular Library.
   
   Hmmm... I'm looking at the book right now and see that the glue has not done it's job and the binding is falling apart!!! Beware!

3 comments about Glass Construction Manual (Construction Manuals (englisch)).

1. This is a complete compendium of engineering information for the most typical use of glass--as a window. Everything needed to analyze a building's energy budget--at least for the German climate--is presented and well explained, as is daylighting. Atria and double leaf facades are discussed at the end to summarize the principles. There is also a comprehensive section on the mechanical properties of glass: resistance to wind loads, how to attach it, etc.
   Only downside is the quality of the translation (I assume), which results in an occasional unusual sentence: "As no energy can be lost from the total system, the balance of the incident energy must be able to be resolved mathematically."
   Nothing that impairs understanding though.



2. This is one of the better books that I have seen on the topic of curtain wall design. It is full of very accurate amd well explained techincal information as well labeled details. The project section is a comprehensive study of some of the most complex curtain walls built. This section is full of detail drawings and color images of the built details. This is a MUST HAVE book for anyone working on complex wall systems, or anyone interested in the state of the art in curtain wall design.



3. This is one of the better books that I have seen on the topic of curtain wall design. It is full of very accurate amd well explained techincal information as well labeled details. The project section is a comprehensive study of some of the most complex curtain walls built. This section is full of detail drawings and color images of the built details. This is a MUST HAVE book for anyone working on complex wall systems, or anyone interested in the state of the art in curtain wall design.