No comments about Emotional Landscapes.

2 comments about Housing As If People Mattered: Site Design Guidelines for the Planning of Medium-Density Family Housing (California Series in Urban Development).

1. It seems that a great number of architecture books of this type exist solely to promote the author's personal design philosophy. This book, however, is full of design guidelines based on feedback from residents of both public and private high-density housing. Many (if not most) of the guidelines could be applied to almost any housing type (from low-income public housing to high-end private developments.) At the very least, the book gets designers thinking about how people use and perceive the buildings in which they live.



2. This book is both a call for better designed medium density housing and a source book on how to achieve that end. The great thing about this book is that it provides simple design and layout advice for housing projects based on detailed research and post occupancy evaluations. This book sets out what works in housing design. I think every planner or designer should have this book close at hand.

4 comments about Architecture Shapes.

1. This a wonderful book with great photographs. The shapes are presented simply in black and white across from the color photograph. This helps children first learn the shape and then find the shape in the architecture. My one less star is because the depicted oval is really an ellipse. This happens often in children's books for some reason. An ellipse always has two axes of reflection; an oval has one or more. So, an egg-shape is an oval, but not an ellipse.



2. As an architect, I enjoy giving these books as gifts because they are different from your run of the mill children's books. I like how they use building pieces to teach about basic shapes and colors. It is not a book that highlights popular or historic architecture - its more about the components.



3. The book shows basic shapes through line drawings and on the facing page different architectural elements of that shape, mainly photos of windows. My twins are 13 months old and they choose this book as one of their favorites. The photographs are crisp and reality based (no cartoons), the typeface is large and clear, and the shapes are bold and basic. The twins like it read to them as well as flipping the pages themselves. We may soon need another copy as it is getting a lot of use. I would recommend this book to any small child, beginning reader, or even a little older.



4. The book shows basic shapes through line drawings and on the facing page different architectural elements of that shape, mainly photos of windows. My twins are 13 months old and they choose this book as one of their favorites. The photographs are crisp and reality based (no cartoons), the typeface is large and clear, and the shapes are bold and basic. The twins like it read to them as well as flipping the pages themselves. We may soon need another copy as it is getting a lot of use. I would recommend this book to any small child, beginning reader, or even a little older.

2 comments about ArchiLab's Earth Buildings: Radical Experiments in the Architecture of the Land.

1. ArchiLab (notice "Lab") is all about architectural experimentation. Same thing for all its other books. If you are into this field this book is perfect for you
   Recommended for students to go beyond everyday possibilities



2. When I first received this book, I was very excited about it, as the book itself is nicely crafted with lots of full-color renderings. But as I read through it, I found myself often neck deep in lofty theoretical idealsism, longing for a real built project to examine.

   The book consists of a series of introductory articles that examine a variety of concepts with varying degrees of pertinence to ecological design (what I had thought the book was about from the title and publisher's review). This is followed by a selection of _short_ articles on individual architects and firms, as well as examples of their work. While there are a few projects that have actually been built, the majority were unbuilt or purely analytical works.

   My main gripes with this book are non-trivial: the material presented does not seem entirely suited to the book's title -- some projects had nothing to do with the Earth, and a few had nothing to do with buildings. While the content was at times thought-provoking, it remained too much in the theoretical arena for me, disregarding the practical application of the ideas presented. More importantly, the projects were all presented with just a smattering of information -- the text was too brief to be fully informative, and the pictures were often vague, obscure, or just too small to convey real meaning.

   If you're in college and need something to stimulate your conceptual brain, this book may be for you. But if you're like me and trying to find information to support or inspire real-world applications, look elsewhere.

No comments about Deterritorialisations ... Revisioning: Landscapes and Politics.

No comments about Shadows of Power: An Allegory of Prudence in Land-Use Planning (Rtpi Library Series).

No comments about Rivertown: Rethinking Urban Rivers (Urban and Industrial Environments).

1 comments about Talking Cities: The Micropolitics of Urban Space / Die Mikropolitik des urbanen Raums.

1. Written in German and English, the book is a glossy exhibition of urban architecture throughout the world. Not all the photos are of beautiful, sparkling buildings. One shows some kids riding mountain bikes over an old rubbish dump in a European city.
   
   Other photos are of Desert Cities in Egypt. Commissioned by Sadat, these are high rises of flats. Each some 10 stories or so. The extreme population pressures along the Nile has given rise, of necessity, to some very bleak images. The snapshots of the cities show concrete buildings surrounded by desert sands, with very little vegetation to relieve the stark monotony.
   
   Some of the so-called "Risky Buildings" of Britain are shown. Some architects claim unappreciated merits to these buildings, to try to ensure their preservation. The photos of the buildings may lead some readers to agree. But some buildings do seem deserving of take down.

No comments about Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighbourhoods.

1 comments about Positive Impact Forestry: A Sustainable Approach To Managing Woodlands.

1. McEvoy (Sen. Jeffords only wrote the foreward) presents an excellent introduction to the topic of sustainable forestry management. There are numerous external references for other sources on specific topics and sample contracts for woodlands owners. McEvoy's very easy and enjoyable writing style make the read quick and interesting. I am ordering his other book on the more technical side of contracting, taxes and estate planning.