5 comments about In Detail: Single Family Houses (In Detail (englisch)).

1. Very informative and gives a clear precise description of varying types on renovation and adaptive reuse.



2. This book is part of a deliriously excellent series of Birkhauser's In
   Detail collection, a series of books emphasizing and celebrating the importance of architectural details and the susbsequent spatial magic that emerges from the vigilant attention to design craft. Feast on the International wisdom; it's like architectural health food.



3. The book was exactly as I expected, high quality, detailed explanations in the Caliber of detail magazine. I will defiantly be purchasing the other books in this series.



4. I found the essays on simple construction to be variable in quality...The chapters on wood and steel either suffered in translation or were student composition exercises to begin with. The projects illustrated, however, are of uniformly high quality, and are documented with Detail's typical precision. For an American architect, many of the projects using wood construction will be eye openers. The stone and clay construction projects are wonderful for daydreaming about a different building culture in this country. Well worth it for the photos and drawings.



5. The book describes simple and neat residential building design in detail , shape, and material. The book should be applicable to architects or designers who aspire to work in modernism or minimalism on housing and who desire to improve the residential detil design to be more insighfully clean and blight. As well, the analysis from the publication could be developed to function in other architecture types.

2 comments about People Places: Design Guidlines for Urban Open Space, 2nd Edition.

1. The book is excellent, but the extra $15 I paid to view the book online before it arrived was not worth the money. (only chapter titles and brief excerpts came up, or nothing at all would come up... disappointing)



2. I read this book as part of a research project I was doing about the design of college campuses. I found it to be extremely helpful in my project and I plan on refering to it in the future; I am pursuing a Master's of Landscape Architecture. What I liked about this book is two-fold:

   1. Each chapter is a self-contained guide to designing a plaza, park, campus, or playground with people in mind. This important to me becuase I try to focus my designs around the people who will be using them. Each chapter gives useful design tips and helps about the given topic.

   2. This book was academic while remaining readable. The authors refer to studies relevent to the topic at hand, but do not become bogged down in theoretical nonsense.

   I recommend buying it to anyone who would like a well-organized general design reference book. I would not recommend it to anyone who needs in depth information on any specific topic covered in the book. Check it out from the library if that is your intent.

2 comments about Living on An Acre: A Practical Guide to the Self-Reliant Life.

1. This book is great if you just retired and want to start a small hobbie farm and you have lots of money to spend, because that is what the Government wants you to do in this book. I think they really need to retitle this book because it is not fitting! It offers nothing of value if you really want to make a go at trying to live on a small scale farm and be self-suffient. They keep pointing you to buy this or spend money here to do that. But if your really trying to live off a small scale piece of land I would recommend Joel Salatin "You Can Farm."
   
   Good luck to you if you are going to try and do this!



2. This book offers very little useful information on rural living other than references for where to get real information. It gives a superficial overview of the many ways you can make a few dollars off of your cottage or hobby farm, but not enough details on any subject to be helpful.
   
   This book was obviously not intended for people wanting information about living on a small, rural homestead. Instead, it seems designed for bored yuppie housewives who want "something rural" on their bookshelf or who are looking for a few hobby ideas and little more.
   
   A better place to start for a Practical Guide to the Self Reliant Life would be : "How to Survive Without a Salary: Learning How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle," by Charles Long.

1 comments about Architecture, Animal, Human : The Asymmetrical Condition.

1. "It is somewhat easier to theorize life as a technology..., than to theorize technology as alive..." -Ingraham
   
   This book is a beautiful work of architectural theory which seeks to open the discipline up to some uncomfortable yet necessary questions that surround its recent interest in animation, in all it forms and senses. I can promise that it will do the same for the reader. I would recommend it without reservation.
   
   Catherine Ingraham's book Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition, is about "the question of life in architecture". The book focuses on several thick historical and contemporary moments where these two terms become so intimately bound up in one another that they seem able, in a way, to exchange material. Familiar categorical boundaries between human and animal, technology and biology, organism and milieu, are opened up to possibilities that seem to demand something beyond a metaphorical relationship, and begin to at least suggest, if not reveal, a way into a more directly operative or affective exchange that would push beyond the symbolic, toward a radical integration of the two terms.
   
   Tracing a lineage from Bernini to modern day genetic engineering and tissue grafting, Ingraham uses several issues that have been central to recent architectural debates, including humanism, modernism, architectural representation, digital tools and architectures, and computational and biological theories, as a scaffolding for her interests.
   Here however, Ingraham's asymmetry demands that we reinvestigate these issues which are once again laid bare as the raw and problematic, but incredibly pregnant thematics that they are.
   
   The asymmetry of the book's title is clear in Ingraham's definitions of architecture and life. In the book, Ingraham defines architecture as "the exact artistic and technical discipline for which human biological and psychological life are a necessary precondition...", and moreover a practice that, "must always be, at some level, indifferent to the life within it." Life is defined as "that which privileges itself above all else, and seeks continuously to expand its field of expression." The distance between a life which privileges itself, and an architecture which must remain indifferent to that life constitutes the asymmetry of the book's title.
   
   To trace the breadth and depth of this book would be a book in and of itself, so here I will only reveal one nugget that seems to me incredibly provocative and novel, and which permeates the book in many ways. It is a problem that Ingraham refers to as a "mimetic crisis" that develops as "architecture begins to mistake itself as an organism and life for a technology." I won't say any more except to say that the book is full of this kind of clear, precise statement of what is in truth a hugely complex and difficult terrain. Ingraham succeeds at developing these moments of clarity without sacrificing the complexity from which they emerge.

2 comments about A Theory of Architecture.

1. A Theory of Architecture is not a cook book. It does not tell architects how to compose a building in several easy steps. Rather, it gives architects permission to do what we would automatically do if we had not been taught the style rules and the world view of the `Modern Movement' and its successors. A Theory of Architecture reveals the scientific food value of most tried and true building recipes while demonstrating that contemporary junk food is exactly that.
   
   Why should the architect, who is more often a creator and a builder than a reader, plough through pages of analogies that link our perception of spaces and surfaces with the laws of nature in mathematics and physics? Simply because the laws come alive for us in the author's straightforward and active prose. They remind us that when we design a building, we do far more than please a client or satisfy demands of use and economy. They remind us that we shape order in our world. We can base that order on an ideological whim. Or we can base it on patterns and forms found in nature and in the majority of architecture throughout history.
   
   A Theory of Architecture is a book we can read again and again. Then we can put it down and forget about it. The lessons we glean from it will have taken form in the designs we make. We discover that our buildings have levels of scale, meaningful ornament, proportions which the human eye notices inherently. We notice that both patterns and forms comprise the language which our spaces and their boundaries speak. We realize we have learned to design in consonance with our own nature. What a breakthrough! What a book!
   
   Dr. Ir. Jaap Dawson,
   Architect and Assistant Professor of Architectural Design,
   Technische Universiteit Delft



2. What an amazing book! I highly recommend it to any architect, designer or student thereof. It is a powerful, direct look at the principles behind psychologically pleasing design - grounded in math and science. Salingaros presents easy to digest information; rules that help an architect create his/her own "language" to humanize design, and interesting concepts that everyone can enjoy.
   
   I picked it up about a few months ago, and it has dramatically changed the way I see "good architecture". Following the patterns of Christopher Alexander and others, Salingaros offers us an accessible and applicable examination of how architects construct basic psychological needs into the built environment. He has created easy to understand guides to build a socially responsible, aesthetic and long-lasting architecture.
   
   A Theory of Architecture is a different view of sustainable design that will lead a new breed of architects into a dynamic renewal of human-centric architecture. Undoubtedly the most powerful book I've read since McDonough's Cradle to Cradle. Salingaros is a visionary, and I can't wait to read more of his work!

4 comments about Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character.

1. It was on time and efficient. Wasn't overly parckaged, thank you for considering the environment!



2. You can still buy this book from the American Planning Association (www.planning.org) for about $60, even though Amazon, and other book stores, have it listed as "out of print."



3. The bible on proper planning. I wish more planners would read it. I am an average citizen who wanted to learn more about smarter land use plans and this book really has great ideas. It is expensive, but well worth the price. Shows how poor our current clear-cutting practices are compared to the beauty of an open space subdivision design. Buy this-you will really learn a lot!



4. This is a great book, the best ever written, I am sure, on the very important topic of helping maintain, and sometimes create livable communities in rural areas. The only handicap for owning the book is the rather huge price, $ 86.00, and not discounted by Amazon. We would like to have all our county planning commission members have a copy of the book, but can't afford to do so.

No comments about Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity (Architext Series).

No comments about Urban Spaces No. 5 (Urban Spaces).

4 comments about Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston.

1. If one lives and Boston and was curious about what the city looked like 100, 200, 300, or 400 years ago this is the book for you. I discovered that somewhere between 1837 and 1851 the street I lived in was filled and went from being underwater to land.
   An incredibly well-researched history of how people altered the landscape of Boston.



2. Disclaimer: I was very fortunate to take the Harvard University class tought by the author, which uses this book as the class text.
   
   This book is a spectacular work of research and writing. The author truly shows her passion for the subject.
   The text presents a unique view of Boston history, with stunning detail and even intrigue. The historical and original maps are without equal, and the photographs and illustrations are superb selections.
   Pardon the cliché, but truly I found myself unable to put this book down!
   
   Her recent book Walking Tours of Boston's Made Land is also a must-have for anyone who wants to get close-up and personal with Boston history.



3. This is a wonderful book about how Boston changed in the last 200+ years. It is very readable, but I especially enjoyed the pictures and maps. It is an excellent book for anyone interested in the subject.



4. Seasholes must have combed every archive and walked every inch of Boston to produce this monumental book. Not only is it exhaustive, but it is entertaining as well. Although this is a handsome book it is not a cooffe table enterprise. This is a book you will want to take with you as you walk the streets of Boston. This book is destined to become dog eared and underlined. It is simply a must for anyone interested in the history of this great city.

No comments about Future City: Experiment and Utopia in Architecture.