No comments about Estudios sobre cultura tectonica/ Studies in Tectonic Culture: Poeticas de la construccion en la arquitectura de los siglos XIX y XX/ The Poetics of Construction ... Century (Arquitectura/ Architecture).

No comments about Construction Ecology: Nature as a Basis for Green Buildings.

No comments about Moulding, Assembling, Designing: Ceramics in Architecture.

No comments about ACCESSIBLE HOUSING: QUALITY, DISABILITY, AND DESIGN.

1 comments about Architectural Model as Machine: A new view of models from antiquity to the present day.

1. Somewhat academic approach to the role of architectural models in Western civilization, from the ancient Greeks up to the end of the 20th Century.
   
   I found this in the architectural library at a nearby university (my daughter had a junior high school class project on building a scale model of a Gothic cathedral, and I first thought this book might be a handbook on building scale models, but not so). Still, it looked to be an interesting read (for those used to reading works by academics, at least).
   
   Most readers of this book will be students of architecture, but for this non-architect I found the exploration of what an architect was and how they were trained over the past 5000 years an interesting mirror of how Western culture has changed over the centuries. (I'm speaking here as a social scientist more used to reading history than works in the humanities).
   
   The first and fourth chapters are well-done surveys, though the second chapter seemed light in analytical depth in places. The third chapter provides formal framing of his argument between the first and second halves of the book, too academic for many readers but mercifully brief.
   
   The payoff to the too-academic structure of the book comes in the last (fifth) chapter, as the author attempts to deconstruct the work of a handful of architects from the 20th Century, focusing on the role of drawings versus physical models of specific projects in their body of work. I found the approach persuasive for all of the architects examined except for the last, Andrew Libeskind (spelling?), but at least some illumination came of it.
   
   A read of a day and a half for a casual reader outside the field. I'd be interested to hear what specialists in the field would have to say about the book. For instance, is this book based on refereed articles in the field? And how does it related to other scholarly work in the field of architectural studies?

No comments about Natural Building: A Guide to Materials and Techniques.

No comments about Architect's Handbook of Formulas, Tables, and Mathematical Calculations.

2 comments about Double-Skin Facades: Integrated Planning (Architecture).

1. This book gives you the fundamentals about every aspects around double skin facades. If you are interested in double skin , you have to read this, I did.



2. This is an engineering book for highly paid construction professionals. Not for idly paging through, despite its attractive, even stylish, execution (although my copy's hard cover was printed upside down). Only commercial architecture, only buildings in Germany.

1 comments about Hot Dirt, Cool Straw: Nature Friendly Houses For 21st (Twenty-First) Century Living.

1. A current topic, "green" architecture has a broad, reasonable definition in this book. One often thinks of green house books as full of solar and straw bale houses of middling design (whatever the sensitivity of the construction). The book categorizes several ways buildings can be green, and shows a variety of houses with designs as (or more) innovative as their green techniques. The photographs are well done, and of (for the most part) really good-looking houses. I think the "Lakeside Residence," "Howard House," and "Low Compound" are especially memorable. A good book for those interested in current, contemporary architecture as well as green architecture.

No comments about Managing the Brief for Better Design.