No comments about Computers in the Architectural Office.

1 comments about Lighting by Design.

1. As a practicing professional lighting designer, was deeply disappointed in this book. Its name implies that it teaches some skills in design, however, it would be possible to summarize the useful material on a single page crib sheet or a 20 page manual. In terms of insight, principle or method, this book does not reach beyond some basic calculations and given that these are largely handled by computer (although obviously an understanding of first principles is essential in any profession) in the real world.
   
   Totally lacking in practical techniques (wallwashing, accenting, framing, cove details, indirect lighting, etc) or technologies (lamp sources, dimming systems, optical systems), one wonders who this book is aimed at. For the technical engineer, the presentation of material is too basic, to spread out and so forth. For a real-world lighting designer, it contains few insights. For an architect, this book says just one thing: "stay out of lighting".
   
   Cuttle provides a single new idea, his own calculation of measuring the Flow of Light as he calls it, a concept which is essentially redundant to any lighting professional or student versed in the concept of modeling (the principle, not rendering) in light.
   
   I cannot see who this book is suitable for, and do not feel that there is anything that it can contribute to those for whom the material would be useful. Students need more sophistication, engineers more efficiency, etc.

5 comments about Shelter.

1. I saw this book at my brother's house and immediately knew I had to buy it for my husband. It is a high quality reprint of an older book and has that "60's" feel. Much excellent info and lots of great pictures. Very eclectic. We got it specifically for the info on Geodesic Dome houses but there's plenty more for shelter freaks.



2. I bought this book when I was fourteen years old and it blew my tiny little mind! Now that I've lived a bunch of years in the design field, and I take it off the shelf, tattered from three decades of intense study, it still blows my (now even tinier) mind. Mr. Kahn has done us all a great service with this book that goes beyond architecture to higher values and has a spirit that leads by example. Sure it's got some crazy hippy parts, do with that what you will. But a deep devotion to what you make and why; it's all here. I'm thankful for this inspiring work.



3. Throughout the 1960s and `70s, hundreds of unwashed, longhaired youth from around the world descended on the open foothills around Placitas, New Mexico, and established multiple communal hippie settlements. These youth had read of the Placitas scene in national magazines and counterculture books, or heard about it from other hippies; they were idealistic types from all around the world, and they came to the area to try to raise their own food, escape The Man, indulge in free love and mind-altering drugs, and live communally in tents, geodesic domes, adobe shacks, and experimental homes they built themselves out of plastic and scrap metal.
   This book, "Shelter" documents their bizarre housing experiments in wild detail. It also documents curvaceous mud homes in Africa, riverside huts in Yugoslavia, thatched huts in Ireland, homes in busses, homes in caves, dome homes, homes made of car parts, homes carved into mountainsides, homes made of hay, tipis, barns, gypsy tents, and more.
   If there's a strange kind of housing, you'll probably find it in here, and you'll probably be inspired by it.
   "Building this house was more of like feeling where you went as you started working with it, you know, the material and just playing it from there," said one Placitas hippie interviewed in this book. "...It's like three dimensional sculpturing, you know, we just got into building a house out here that's like jewelry. ...OK, let me put it this way, the inspiration like as we move along through it, like I found it in [Stanley Kubrick's film] 2001, where the dude had finally split out of the satellite and was heading towards Jupiter, just as he was coming in, what they had done was they had used different types of film, infrared for one, and just taken a plane and flown over Grand Canyon at a high speed, low, what is created you know, is in some respects synonymous to what the house is, you know, and certainly our cell structure in our body is synonymous with that...."
   As you can probably tell, this is not "Better Homes and Gardens" or even "MTV Cribs." It's "Shelter," and it's a trip.



4. I studied architecture in Australia and dragged my feet through the course. That is until a mate suggested I check out this book.
   It liberated me.
   
   Here was a bunch of common folk who met one of the most basic needs of all humanity - shelter.
   
   So much of what we encounter in our 'western' enlightened age is alien and regulated. The materials that we commonly use in buildings & infrastruture is devoid of any life or connection with the earth. They are not in or close to their natural state. And even if they are, there is so much regulation and stipulation on how we are to use them.
   
   But this book gives you hope, a chance to dream. It shows buildings as art forms, useful & practical but completely expressive of the owners they serve. They are not bound by regulations and conventions. This is craftsmanship not industrialisation. They are made from from natural unrefined materials which in essence connects us to the earth, which we all belong to. From dust we came, to dust we will all return. The beauty of nature is your own home.
   
   This book is filled with ideas and ways in which people have often 'escaped' from the life draining cities to a more peacuful and harmonious way of life. It's superb photo's, hand illustrations and even the way the book is laid out are a freedom in itself. This is one book you will not regret owning and will always find pleasure returning again and again to.



5. Now I don't know if I want to live in a tree, a yurt, or on a converted vehicle. This makes my 'normal' house seem quite ordinary. Drat!

No comments about Structural Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Historical Buildings VII (Advances in Architecture).

No comments about Architecture Development Made Simple.

No comments about Repairing and Extending Finishes: Part II: Resilient flooring (Building Renovation and Restoration Series).

No comments about Small Living Spaces.

No comments about Simplified Building Design for Wind and Earthquake Forces (Parker/Ambrose Series of Simplified Design Guides).

No comments about Remedial Treatment of Buildings.

No comments about Implementing Architecture: Exposing the Paradigm Surrounding the Implements and the Implementation of Architecture.