No comments about Young Architects_4: Material Process (Young Architects).

No comments about Architect Registration Exam in a Flash: Rapid Review of Key Topics.

1 comments about Landscape Architecture Theory: An Evolving Body of Thought.

1. Very informative in depth book on the core principals of sensible landscaping in the global and local environments. Application theory of sustainable landscaping and the importance of recognizing our changing landscape explained with social responsibility.

3 comments about Grow Your Own House: Simone Velez and Bamboo Architecture.

1. This book has some great pictures of structures built with bamboo. However, if you are looking for instructional books on how to build with bamboo, this isn't the first book I would buy.



2. A deceiving, gimmicky title that doesn't measure up to the book's contents.
   
   Lots of color pictures of absolutely huge bamboo community structures (NOT houses!) that basically all look the same. There's hardly any variety - just huge bamboo roofs suspended on bamboo stilts designed by the book's author.
   
   I bought the book because it mentions "House" in the title but it hardly has any "houses" in it... maybe photo's of 3 bamboo houses in total.
   
   The book is written in German text with an English translation printed alongside... so half of each text page is taken up with the German text.
   
   The book shows a few pictures of bamboo joints made by filling the ends with concrete and embedded bolts secured to metal joints. It doesn't tell you where to buy those joints because they are custom made.
   
   That was the most useful information found in the book from my perspective.
   
   So... I'm still looking for a book about bamboo houses!



3. There are many fantastic images of bamboo design and architecture, which is being taken to the next level by Velez and others. With population growth and environmental crises what they are, bamboo may emerge as a key building material worldwide. Velez's mushroom dome for the Hannover Expo 2000 was a gorgeous massive structure in bamboo that established bamboo use in large-scale architectural projects.

   However magnificent it is, the pavilion-as-statement suffers from its own pagoda poetry. The main block to widespread adoption of bamboo is its low-tech image, in both the developing and developed worlds. This low-tech, low-status image is why Colombians continue to build inferior concrete buildings, even after such structures are decimated by earthquakes (while leaving the bamboo buildings standing). The pagoda image reinforces associations with the past and low-tech traditional construction.

   To move bamboo forward as a workaday modern building material, it needs to be used in a more ordinary International Style residential or office high-rise that successfully embodies the myth of hi-tech modernity. Wrapped in a glass and metal skin, this bamboo wolf-in-sheep's clothing would bare its fangs when asking Buckminster Fuller's (and Velez's) key question: "Gentlemen, what do your buildings weigh?." Unfortunately, "modernism" is a filthy word for Velez. Mexico's Luis Barragan created a new architecture by successfully fusing colloquial Mexican style with International Style - it will be interesting to see if Velez or one of his students can do something similar for high-tech bamboo construction.

   The book is surprisingly thin on detailed treatment of Velez's own work. Would like to have seen more on the Luis Salazar residence, because its smaller scale and middle-class prestige make it more relevant to implementing the bamboo manifesto than the showy ZERI pavilion.

   Whole double-page spreads are dedicated to suggestive connections between the bamboo forms and the work of other architects. But the book is relatively thin on diagrams on the types of bamboo joints, integration of bamboo with CAD, data on load bearing (compared with reinforced concrete for example) and other information outlining more precisely how to bring bamboo into the arsenal of modern construction.

   That said, it is the best recent book to state the bamboo mainfesto of strength, versatility and modular nature of bamboo. If you have any interest in environmentally sound design, this is THE coffeetable book to have, but

   ...why wasn't it printed on bamboo paper?

No comments about Invitation to Vernacular Architecture: A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes (Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture).

No comments about What Designers Know.

No comments about The World of Madelon Vriesendorp.

No comments about Crisp: Twelve Steps to Self-Improvement: A Crisp Assessment Profile (Crisp Fifty-Minute Books).

2 comments about Structure and Architecture, Second Edition.

1. This book describes the different types of structural elements in buildings (steel, wood, reinforced concrete) and how they are constructed for maximum efficiency. A lot of the book deals with spans and how the efficiency of materials must accomodate different spans and weights. The concepts were very well written and easy to understand (the appendices were a little bit more complex) with lots of examples. I would recommend this for anyone who would like to try framing a structure or who is interested in more than just the picture books of architecture and would actually like to know what's inside the walls and how those objects are functioning.



2. Now in an updated and expanded second edition, Angus MacDonald's Structure & Architecture showcases the relationship between architecture and structural engineering using both historical and contemporary examples. This new edition is enhanced with an expanded and re-written chapter dealing with structural criticism and the relationship between structure and architectural style; as well as a new section on the relationships between architects, builders and engineers, and the influence which these relationships have on architectural styles and forms. Structure & Architecture is an invaluable and highly recommended addition to any personal, professional, or academic architectural studies collection.

No comments about Performative Architecture: Beyond Instrumentality.