Using the Building Regulations : Part C : Site Preparation & resistance to contaminants & moisture

Using the Building Regulations: Part C: 

Site Preparation & resistance to contaminants & moisture

Butterworth-Heinemann | June 21, 2007 |  | 232 pages | PDF | 4 Mb

As the Building Regulations and Approved Documents have become more and more complex, they have become increasingly unfriendly for a professional user. Compliance is only possible by understanding a wide range of supporting documentation. Alternative approaches are implied, but not described or analysed.

This book examines Approved Document C on Site Preparation and takes the user through all the key stages of preparation, compliance, inspection and enforcement. It offers practical advice on using not just the traditional routes to compliance but also on the alternative approaches suggested but not explained in the Approved Documents. The advantages and disadvantages of each form of compliance are analysed in depth.

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Transient Airflow in Building Drainage Systems

Transient Airflow in Building Drainage Systems

John Swaffield, 

2010 |  | 362 pages | PDF | 8,8 MB

Giving you the first comprehensive presentation of the ground breaking research undertaken at Heriot Watt University, with Research Council and industrial funding, this book brings a new perspective to the design of building drainage and vent systems. It provides the building services community with clear and verifiable design methods that will be robust enough to meet challenges such as climate change and water conservation; population migration to the mega cities of the developing world, and the consequent pressures of user concentration; the rise of the prestige building and the introduction of new appliances and control strategies. These all combine to make traditional codified design guidance insufficient. Many assumptions in existing codes defining the entrained airflows within building drainage vent systems cannot be theoretically supported, so designers concerned with these systems need analysis and simulation capabilities which are at least as reliable as those enjoyed by other building services practitioners.

The Method of Characteristics solution techniques which are well established in the pressure surge field are now used to provide solutions for drainage designers. The material is applied to a whole range of abstract scenarios then to a series of real world applications including the forensic modelling of the SARS virus spread within Amoy Gardens in 2003 and the refurbishment of the O2 Dome. Applications to specialised services, including underground station drainage and highly infectious disease treatment facilities are discussed and demonstrated, alongside the use of design and simulation techniques in support of product development.

Aimed at both professional and academic users, this book serves both as a design aid and as a core text for specialist masters courses in public health and building services engineering.

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The Building Environment : Active and Passive Control Systems, 3rd Edition

The Building Environment : Active and Passive Control Systems, 3rd Edition

Vaughn Bradshaw 

To capitalize on today's rapidly evolving, specialized technologies, architects, designers, builders, and contractors work together to plan the mechanical and electrical equipment that controls the indoor environment of a building. The Building Environment: Active and Passive Control Systems, Third Edition helps you take advantage of design innovations and construction strategies that maximize the comfort, safety, and energy efficiency of buildings.

From active HVAC systems to passive methods, lighting to on-site power generation, this updated edition explains how to strategically plan for and incorporate effective, efficient systems in today's buildings. It covers the underlying thermal theories and thermodynamic principles and focuses on design that enhances the building environment and minimizes the impact on the world's environment.

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Materials for Architects and Builders, Fourth Edition

Materials for Architects and Builders, Fourth Edition

Arthur Lyons, 

Butterworth-Heinemann | 2010 |  | 440 pages | PDF | 15,8 M

Materials for Architects and Builders covers the broad range of materials used within the construction industry and is a descriptive introduction to their manufacture, key physical properties, specification and uses.

This new edition has been completely revised and updated to include the latest developments in materials, appropriate technologies and relevant legislation. The current concern for the ecological effects of building construction and lifetime use are reflected in the emphasis given to sustainability and recycling. An additional chapter on sustainability and governmental carbon targets reinforces this issue.

The book is illustrated in colour throughout with many photographs and diagrams showing materials and building components both individually and in use. Chapters list up-to-date British and European Standards, relevant Building Regulations together with related Building Research Establishment publications and suggested further reading.

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Fundamentals of Building Construction : Materials and Methods

Fundamentals of Building Construction : Materials and Methods

Edward Allen, Joseph Iano

5 edition 2008 | 1008 Pages | | PDF | 83 MB

Now in its Fifth Edition, this essential textbook has been used by thousands of students annually in schools of architecture, engineering, and construction technology. The bestselling reference focuses on the basic materials and methods used in building construction, emphasizing common construction systems such as light wood frames, masonry bearing walls, steel frames, and reinforced concrete. New introductory material on the processes, organization, constraints, and choices in construction offers a better look at the management of construction. New sections covering the building envelope uncover the secrets to designing enclosures for thermal insulation, vapor retarders, air barriers, and moisture control. The Fifth Edition also features more axonometric detail drawings and revised photographs for a thoroughly illustrated approach and the latest IBC 2006, CSI MasterFormat, ASTM references, and LEED information.

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Construction Materials : Their Nature and Behaviour

Construction Materials : Their Nature and Behaviour

Peter Domone, John Illston, 

2010 | | PDF | 584 pages | 8.5 MB

So far in the twenty-first century, there have been many developments in our understanding of materials’ behaviour and in their technology and use. This new edition has been expanded to cover recent developments such as the use of glass as a structural material. It also now examines the contribution that material selection makes to sustainable construction practice, considering the availability of raw materials, production, recycling and reuse, which all contribute to the life cycle assessment of structures. As well as being brought up-to-date with current usage and performance standards, each section now also contains an extra chapter on recycling.

Covers the following materials:

metals concrete ceramics (including bricks and masonry) polymers fibre composites bituminous materials timber glass.

This new edition maintains our familiar and accessible format, starting with fundamental principles and continuing with a section on each of the major groups of materials. It gives you a clear and comprehensive perspective on the whole range of materials used in modern construction. A must have for Civil and Structural engineering students, and for students of architecture, surveying or construction on courses which require an understanding of materials.

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Construction Management and Design of Industrial Concrete and Steel Structures

Construction Management and Design of Industrial Concrete and Steel Structures

Mohamed A.El-Reedy,

The recent worldwide boom in industrial construction and the corresponding billions of dollars spent every year in industrial, oil, gas, and petrochemical and power generation project, has created fierce competition for these projects. Strong management and technical competence will bring your projects in on time and on budget. An in-depth exploration of both these aspects and the resulting challenges, Construction Management and Design of Industrial Concrete and Steel Structures provides a practical guide to the design of reinforced concrete and steel structures and foundations in industrial projects.

Renowned expert Mohamed A. El-Reedy covers the entire industrial construction process, from project management to design and construction to sigh off and providing a maintenance plan. Highlighting the differences between industrial construction and real estate or residential construction, he examines every phase and every role, from managerial to technical. He includes cases from industrial projects and covers the international technical practices, codes, and standards used in steel or concrete onshore or offshore projects. The book provides up-to-date methodologies in structure analysis, geotechnical studies, and international special codes and standards for industrial structures such as tanks, foundation under towers, machines, and special structures in industrial projects. It also examines the safety and economic benefits of developing a structure integrity management system.

When a project has a budget that seems as huge at the structure itself, the client, engineering firm, and contractor must work together to achieve success. Discussing the interface between these three main partners, this book outlines strategies for checking the design and controlling a project in all its phases.

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Burger Indoor 2011

Burger Indoor 2011

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Watercolorist's Guide to Painting Buildings

Watercolorist's Guide to Painting Buildings

Richard Taylor, 

David & Charles | 2000 | | 128 pages | PDF | 19,3 MB

Buildings-old and new, ornate or simple-provide an endlessly intriguing subject for watercolorists. Author and artist Richard Taylor gives you all the techniques for capturing perspective, proportion, light and shade, detail and texture. After deciding on the right materials, try your hand at everything from sheds and shacks to classical architecture with formal designs, arches, and elegant frontage. Capture the weathered appeal of a crumbling, ruined boatyard; by using lots of water, and downward vertical strokes with the brush, all the dramatic effects of ageing emerge on the paper. Stone steps leading up to a quiet Mediterranean courtyard shine in dappled light and warm shadows-deep in the interior, leafy branches, potted plants, windows, and a statue catch the eye. Or, paint quadrangles, cloisters; terraced homes, town houses, and street life. Throughout, 120 paintings in various stages of completion, show the effects of color, shadowing, and balance. A Selection of F&W's Book Clubs.

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Mirror of the World : A New History of Art

Mirror of the World : A New History of Art

Julian Bell, 

Publisher: Thames & Hudson | 2007 |  | PDF | 496 pages | 6.2 MB

A vivid and compelling history of human artistic achievements, from the first stone fashioned into a figure by a hunter-gatherer to the latest new media and installation work.With remarkable clarity, Julian Bell tells the story of how art has evolved through the millennia and across the world. He follows the changing trends in the making and significance of art in different cultures, and explains why the art of the day looked and functioned as it did. Key images and objects—some of them familiar works of art; others, less known but equally crucial to the story—act as landmarks on the journey, focal points around which the discussion always centers. Along the way, Bell answers fundamental questions such as "What is art and where does it start?" and "Why do humans make it and how does it serve them?"Previous histories tended to focus only on the masterpieces of Western art, in the process excluding the work of women or non-Western artists, or else considering developments around the world as separate, unrelated phenomena. Bell's achievement is to take a global perspective, bringing the distinct stories together in one convincing narrative. He draws insightful and inspired connections between different continents and cultures and across the millennia, which results in a rich and seamless introduction to the world of visual creativity.Hundreds of carefully selected illustrations show how artists from different ages and societies often shared the same formal, technical, and aesthetic concerns, while others took divergent paths when their vision dictated it. 460 illustrations, 300 in color.

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L'aquarelle : De l'émotion à la création

L'aquarelle : De l'émotion à la création

Joëlle Krupa-Astruc, 

Ey-lles | 2009 |  | 106 pages | PDF | 28,3 MB

L'aquarelle, de l'émotion à la création. L'aquarelle est un médium en mouvement, un appel à créer et une source de plaisir accessible à tous. C'est là le credo de Joëlle Krupa-Astruc, qui, au fil de ces pages, guide vos pas et vos pinceaux à la découverte de cette technique picturale fascinante, mais parfois capricieuse. Aiguisant vos sens et votre intuition créative, l'artiste vous propose tout d'abord de vous familiariser avec les outils et d'acquérir les bases propres à l'aquarelle : choix du matériel, préparation du papier, méthodes d'application de la peinture et de l'eau, élaboration d'une composition, etc. Puis cinq réalisations, détaillées pas à pas et abondamment illustrées, vous invitent à mettre en pratique vos acquis, à votre rythme. Du paysage au portrait, en passant par la texture de la pierre et l'éclat de la végétation, chacune est le reflet d'une expérience, d'une situation donnée où l'artiste a dû trouver les clés picturales et créer un langage en accord avec l'eau et le pigment. La technique et le récit se trouvent mêlés en lieu intime, où la création est associée au plaisir.

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White Papers, Black Marks : Architecture, Race, Culture

White Papers, Black Marks : Architecture, Race, Culture

by Lesley Naa Norle Lokko

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press | edition 2000 | PDF | 379 pages | 18,0 mb

Mapping the relationship between race and architecture, the authors of this volume explore the vexed if often unspoken ways in which notions of "difference" figure in the shaping of the built environment. The terms of architectural design and study-"space, site, form, architect, and user"-are derived from the historical task of adapting space to an existing socioeconomic structure. Exposing the racial subtext in this language of vision and logic, this book brings to light the complex connection between the question of identity and the questions architecture poses: Whose pleasures are pursued, who gets to build what, whose histories and experiences are represented, whose voice is heard?

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The Portfolio and the Diagram : Architecture, Discourse, and Modernity in America

The Portfolio and the Diagram : Architecture, Discourse, and Modernity in America

Hyungmin Pai, 

Publisher: The MIT Press | 2002 | | PDF | 403 pages | 5.1 MB

The Portfolio and the Diagram is about the changing ways architects see, read, and use the words and images of architectural publications. Architects today do not use the glossy photographs of magazines in the same way that nineteenth-century architects mobilized the drawings in the grand folios. The images have changed, and so have the ways in which they are used. The book begins with an outline of the academic discipline and the mimetic practice of the portfolio, established in America during the late nineteenth century. World War I triggered a historical process that resulted in the demise of the portfolio and the emergence of the discourse of the diagram. The Beaux Arts-trained architects had fashioned their discipline through the meticulous object-centered images of the portfolio. The discourse of the diagram provided a new range of possibility in the architect’s relation to words, images, and buildings. More than the diagram itself, more than the province of narrow-minded functionalists, the discourse of the diagram is a complex formation of texts, concepts, and modes of representation. Concerned less with constructing a new kind of modernism than with understanding the boundaries and structures of modernity, the book is a history of modern architecture as a discursive practice and its striving to become a viable discipline. 

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The Poetics of Space

The Poetics of Space

Gaston Bachelard (Author)

A magical book. . . . A prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced-and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard. -from the foreword by John R. Stilgoe

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The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Writing Architecture)

The Alphabet and the Algorithm (Writing Architecture)

Mario Carpo

Digital technologies have changed architecture--the way it is taught, practiced, managed, and regulated. But if the digital has created a "paradigm shift" for architecture, which paradigm is shifting? In The Alphabet and the Algorithm, Mario Carpo points to one key practice of modernity: the making of identical copies. Carpo highlights two examples of identicality crucial to the shaping of architectural modernity: in the fifteenth century, Leon Battista Alberti's invention of architectural design, according to which a building is an identical copy of the architect's design; and, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the mass production of identical copies from mechanical master models, matrixes, imprints, or molds. The modern power of the identical, Carpo argues, came to an end with the rise of digital technologies. Everything digital is variable. In architecture, this means the end of notational limitations, of mechanical standardization, and of the Albertian, authorial way of building by design. Charting the rise and fall of the paradigm of identicality, Carpo compares new forms of postindustrial digital craftsmanship to hand-making and the cultures and technologies of variations that existed before the coming of machine-made, identical copies. Carpo reviews the unfolding of digitally based design and construction from the early 1990s to the present, and suggests a new agenda for architecture in an age of variable objects and of generic and participatory authorship.

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terror and wonder : architecture in a tumultuous age

terror and wonder : architecture in a tumultuous age

Blair Kamin

For nearly twenty years now, Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune has explored how architecture captures our imagination and engages our deepest emotions. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and writer of the widely read Cityscapes blog, Kamin treats his subjects not only as works of art but also as symbols of the cultural and political forces that inspire them. Terror and Wonder gathers the best of Kamin’s writings from the past decade along with new reflections on an era framed by the destruction of the World Trade Center and the opening of the world’s tallest skyscraper.

Assessing ordinary commercial structures as well as head-turning designs by some of the world’s leading architects, Kamin paints a sweeping but finely textured portrait of a tumultuous age torn between the conflicting mandates of architectural spectacle and sustainability. For Kamin, the story of our built environment over the past ten years is, in tangible ways, the story of the decade itself. Terror and Wonder considers how architecture has been central to the main events and crosscurrents in American life since 2001: the devastating and debilitating consequences of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina; the real estate boom and bust; the use of over-the-top cultural designs as engines of civic renewal; new challenges in saving old buildings; the unlikely rise of energy-saving, green architecture; and growing concern over our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

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State, Space, World : Selected Essays

State, Space, World : Selected Essays

Henri Lefebvre - 

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press | 2009-03-24 | PDF | 320 pages | 4.41 MB

One of the most influential Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, Henri Lefebvre pioneered the study of the modern state in an age of accelerating global economic integration and fragmentation. Shortly after the 1974 publication of his landmark book The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre embarked on one of the most ambitious projects of his career: a consideration of the history and geographies of the modern state through a monumental study that linked several disciplines, including political science, sociology, geography, and history.

State, Space, World collects a series of Lefebvre’s key writings on the state from this period. Making available in English for the first time the as-yet-unexplored political aspect of Lefebvre’s work, it contains essays on philosophy, political theory, state formation, spatial planning, and globalization, as well as provocative reflections on the possibilities and limits of grassroots democracy under advanced capitalism.

State, Space, World is an essential complement to The Production of Space, The Urban Revolution, and The Critique of Everyday Life. Lefebvre’s original and prescient analyses that emerge in this volume are urgently relevant to contemporary debates on globalization and neoliberal capitalism.

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Rethinking Technology : A Reader in Architectural Theory

Rethinking Technology : A Reader in Architectural Theory

| February 23, 2007 |  | 488 pages | PDF | 3.1 MB

This essential reference for all students of architecture, design and the built environment provides a convenient single source for all the key texts in the recent literature on architecture and technology.The book contains over fifty carefully selected essays, manifestoes, reflections and theories by architects and architectural writers from 1900 to 2004. This mapping out of a century of architectural technology reveals the discipline's long and close attention to the experience and effects of new technologies, and provides a broad picture of the shift from the 'age of tools' to the 'age of systems'.

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Questions of Perception : Phenomenology of Architecture

Questions of Perception : Phenomenology of Architecture

By Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Perez-Gomez

 2 edition 2007 | 155 Pages | | PDF | 49 MB

This new edition of Questions of Perception brings back into print one of the most important architectural theory treatise of recent years. Authored by noted architectural scholars Alberto Perez-Gomez and Juhani Pallasmaa as well as the preeminent architect Steven Holl, the three separate essays are thematically linked: each one tries to explain the role human perception and phenomenological experience play in architecture. In particular, Holl -- who was named by Time magazine as the most important architect of his generation and the designer of the much-lauded Chapel of St. Ignatius at Seattle University and the highly anticipated Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art addition -- lucidly explicates the importance of intuition in the construction and experience of built space. Holl explains his search for phenomenological experience thus: "To open architecture to questions of perception, we must suspend disbelief, disengage the rational half of the mind, and simply play and explore. Reason and skepticism must yield to a horizon of discovery."

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Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean

Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean

Jean-Francois Lejeune, Michelangelo Sabatino,

English | 2009 | | 320 pages | PDF | 12,5 MB

Bringing to light the debt twentieth-century modernist architects owe to the vernacular building traditions of the Mediterranean region, this book considers architectural practice and discourse from the 1920s to the 1980s. The essays here situate Mediterranean modernism in relation to concepts such as regionalism, nationalism, internationalism, critical regionalism, and postmodernism - an alternative history of the modern architecture and urbanism of a critical period in the twentieth century.

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Memory Culture and the Contemporary City

Memory Culture and the Contemporary City

Uta Staiger, 

Publisher: P M.| 2009 |  | PDF | 264 pages | 2 MB

These essays by leading figures from academia, architecture and the arts consider how cultures of memory are constructed for and in contemporary cities. They take Berlin as a key case of a historically burdened metropolis, but also extend to other global cities: Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, Cape Town and New York.

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Immaterial Architecture

Immaterial Architecture

Jonathan Hill

Edi Routledge

This fascinating argument from Jonathan Hill presents the case for the significance and importance of the immaterial in architecture.

Architecture is generally perceived as the solid, physical matter that it unarguably creates, but what of the spaces it creates? This issue drives Hill's explorative look at the immaterial aspects of architecture. The book discusses the pressures on architecture and the architectural profession to be respectively solid matter and solid practice and considers concepts that align architecture with the immaterial, such as the superiority of ideas over matter, command of drawing and design of spaces and surfaces.

Focusing on immaterial architecture as the perceived absence of matter, Hill devises new means to explore the creativity of both the user and the architect, advocating an architecture that fuses the immaterial and the material and considers its consequences, challenging preconceptions about architecture, its practice, purpose, matter and use.

This is a useful and innovative read that encourages architects and students to think beyond established theory and practice.

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Gender Space Architecture : An Interdisciplinary Introduction

Gender Space Architecture : An Interdisciplinary Introduction

edition 1999 | PDF | 448 pages | 2 mb

This significant reader brings together for the first time the most important essays concerning the intersecting subjects of gender, space and architecture. Carefully structured and with numerous introductory essays, it guides the reader through theoretical and multi-disciplinary texts to direct considerations of gender in relation to particular architectural sites, projects and ideas. This collection marks a seminal point in gender and architecture, both summarizing core debates and pointing toward new directions and discussions for the future.

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Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonology

Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonology

Edited by Eric Raimy and Charles E. Cairns

The essays in this volume address foundational questions in phonology that cut across different schools of thought within the discipline. The theme of modularity runs through them all, however, and these essays demonstrate the benefits of the modular approach to phonology, either investigating interactions among distinct modules or developing specific aspects of representation within a particular module. Although the contributors take divergent views on a range of issues, they agree on the importance of representations and questions of modularity in phonology. Their essays address the status of phonological features, syllable theory, metrical structure, the architecture of the phonological component, and interaction among components of phonology.

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Building Ideas : An Introduction to Architectural Theory

Building Ideas : An Introduction to Architectural Theory

Jonathan A. Hale, 

 | 2000 |  | 242 pages | PDF | 10,8 MB

Building Ideas An Introduction to Architectural Theory This book is an essential text for students of architecture and related disciplines, satisfying the demand for an accessible introduction to the major theoretical debates in contemporary architecture. Written in a lucid and user-friendly style, the book also acts as a guide and companion volume to the many primary theoretical texts recently made available in reprinted collections. Whilst architectural monographs, collections of building precedents and polemical manifestoes are growing more and more numerous, Building Ideas is the first book to provide an introduction to such a broad range of issues in architectural theory. This text therefore serves to fill a widening gap between the everyday practice of architecture and the often bewildering field of academic theoretical debate. Beginning with a general introduction to the field of architectural theory, covering the interface between philosophy and technology in the production and interpretation of buildings, the book presents the major theoretical positions in contemporary architecture through a series of thematically structured chapters. Each chapter deals with a specific approach to the theory and criticism of architecture by presenting a series of related buildings as illustrations of a key theoretical position, as well as setting this position in a cultural and historical context. Under the five broad headings of 'Architecture as Engineering - The Technological Revolution', 'Architecture as Art - Aesthetics in Philosophy', 'The Return of the Body - Phenomenology in Architecture', 'Systems of Communication - Structuralism and Semiotics' and 'Politics and Architecture - The Marxist Tradition', the book presents a wide but critical survey of the central questions in the current theoretical debate. Providing the theoretical tools necessary for an understanding of the history of philosophies and technologies in architecture, this book is essential reading for undergraduate architectural theory courses as well as a first point of reference for anyone wishing to understand the complex connections between architecture and related fields of cultural enquiry.

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Construction Drawings and Details for Interiors : Basic Skills, 2 edition

Construction Drawings and Details for Interiors : Basic Skills, 2 edition

Rosemary Kilmer, W. Otie Kilmer ,

2009 |  | EPUB | 320 pages | 23 MB

Construction Drawings and Details for Interiors serves as the essential reference for designers preparing interior construction documents, explaining how to do a new construction, remodeling, or installation project. In a highly visual format, the book covers drafting fundamentals and conventions; drawing types, plans, and schedules; and computer-aided design (CAD). With expanded coverage of the preparation and communication of construction documents in digital formats, drawing interior perspectives, and more, the text also serves as an invaluable study reference for the contract documents section of the NCIDQ exam. 

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Architecture in Detail II

Architecture in Detail II

Graham Bizley, 

Architectural Press | 2010 |  | 224 pages | PDF | 38,6 MB

Following on from Graham Bizley's successful Architecture in Detail, Architecture in Detail II presents 40 case studies of detailing on recent construction projects. Over 150 full colour drawings and photos provide a reference compendium for the professional architect seeking detailing inspiration.

Originally featured in Building Design's In Detail magazine, the included projects represent some of the most interesting and innovative techniques in recent architecture. Graham Bizley's beautifully presented detail drawings allow the architect to easily see how ideas and techniques can be applied to other projects. The book is organised by building type for quick and easy reference.

* Accessible and diverse range of 40 detailing case studies from the UK, on big and small architectural projects

* Presents Graham Bizley's concise and easy to understand drawings of detail in total clarity to consider for design solutions

* Up to date UK projects from 2008 and 2009

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The Fundamentals of Interior Architecture

The Fundamentals of Interior Architecture

Naomi House & John Coles

Now students of architecture and interior design can get a full introduction to interior architecture and its history in one authoritative volume. The Fundamentals of Interior Architecture, the first in a series on the subject, is also the only book on the market that approaches the topic in a detailed, educationally focused way. Whether "home" is the simplest railroad flat or the halls of Versailles, interior architecture reflects our times. Discover the intriguing past and the exhilarating present of architectural interiors and furnishings, drafting and presentation skills, space planning, materials, lighting design, professional practices, 2D design, color theory, 3D design, drawing and illustration skills, and the use of CAD. A great price and handy paper binding make this book a must-have for everyone interested in how we live and work today.

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Site Analysis : A Contextual Approach to Sustainable Land Planning and Site Design

Site Analysis : A Contextual Approach to Sustainable Land Planning and Site Design

James A. LaGro

Publication Date: November 9, 2007 | Edition: 2

Site analysis is the key to a well-designed project. In fact, the careful and complete analysis of a site and its surrounding context can lead to better development proposals, smoother design implementation, and, ultimately, higher quality built environments.

This carefully conceived book is the first to detail each crucial step in the site analysis and planning process, from site selection through design development. It shows how these activities are integrated to arrive at a site plan that successfully balances the needs of the client and other stakeholders with the site's suitability for the intended land uses. With more than 130 illustrations, this book includes many outstanding examples of maps and site plans created by leading land planning firms. It offers guidance on:

* Site identification, evaluation, and selection

* Site inventories of physical, biological, and cultural attributes

* Land use suitability analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

* Concept planning and design development

* Graphic communication with clients, government agencies, and other stakeholders

Filled with need-to-know information on the entire land planning and design process, Site Analysis is a vital addition to the library of students and professionals in landscape architecture, urban design and planning, and related areas.

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Managing quality in architecture : A handbook for creators of the built environment

Managing quality in architecture : A handbook for creators of the built environment

Charles Nelson, Charles E. Nelson - 

2006-07-27 |  | PDF | 320 pages | 7.50 MB

This handbook addresses the question of how best to manage quality in architecture for the mutual benefit of design practices and their clients. Based on research from the last two decades, it explores the general principles, tools and techniques that can be adapted to the unique culture of any design practice.

The book addresses all aspects of quality in creating the built environment, with international contributions representing some of the best thinking that exists in design practice management. It is aimed at the entire design team - those who have a role in design inputs, design processes and design execution; including project managers, contractors, suppliers and clients. An accompanying website also provides commentary and updates on the text.

Topics are linked to relevant sections of the current quality standard, and the standard is interpreted as to its application to design practice. Practices interested in establishing an ISO 9001-compliant quality system will find all the tools they need.

The interpretation of quality is comprehensive. The focus is completely practical, rather than theoretical, affording readers a concise picture of how the issues of excellence and quality performance flow across every aspect of design practice. This focus provides the vital link that distinguishes truly successful practices from the rest, Here, simply, is the answer to the forces of commoditization that challenge all designers in today's competitive environment.

The text is augmented and supported by chapters from twenty-two authoritative contributors, a foreword authored by Eugene Hopkins, and illustrations by graphic artist Michael Lindell.

Key case studies are also provided focusing on:

Anderson-Brulé Architects, San José CA

Add, Inc., Cambridge MA

Geyer Pty Ltd, Melbourne, VIC Australia

Harley Ellis Devereaux, Southfield MI

RVK Architects, San Antonio, TX

* The only book for the design and construction industry that references the current (2000) version of the Quality Standard ISO 9001

* Over 20 expert contributions from around the world represent the best thinking in design practice management

* Accompanying website will enable readers to access nearly 1000 pages of related information; a virtual encyclopaedia on the topic

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House Rating Schemes : From Energy to Comfort Base

House Rating Schemes : From Energy to Comfort Base

Maria Kordjamshidi, 

2010 |  | 300 pages | PDF | 2,6 MB

"House Rating Schemes" provides information to students, architects and researchers in the field of the built environment. It reviews current House Rating Schemes (HRS) used in different countries and investigates how these schemes assess the thermal performance of a house. It challenges the way that these schemes assess building energy efficiency and their inability to evaluate free running buildings which do not need an energy load for heating and cooling indoor environments. Finally, the book proposes a new index and method for HRS in which the efficiency of a house design can be evaluated with reference to its thermal performance in both free running and conditioned operation modes. The book deals with various approaches and methods for rating buildings on the basis of different indexes, with implications for both energy efficiency and thermal comfort. It also guides readers through a computer simulation program for developing a rating system that evaluates and ranks building energy efficiency.

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