Residential Books

the humanity only have 150 years of use of electricity and magnetism. who know the efects on nervius system of people at the cities ?. How is changing the healt and the psicology of the people ? It must be a serius study of this subjet.

high street title company noted that, as title examiners for all 120 kentucky counties, this book necessary for all who seek to understand the title insurance reasoning. it is best to always have title insurance with a title exam.

I found this latest Case Study book written by two European architects an interesting overview of the thirty-six projects . Anyone familiar with the concept will know that it was a sort of magical mystery tour of house design with Julius Davidson's House 1 in 1945 re-numbered as 11, Kemper Nomland's House 10 was actually the third one built in 1947 and because design and building was running behind by 1950 all the Houses were re-numbered leaving Ralph Soriano's House just as Study 1950 (actually the thirteenth built) and Richard Neutra's House 19 rejected by the Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza. None of this, of course, is any criticism of the wonderful designs sponsored by the magazine.

The authors plunge into this administrative confusion describing each House with a wealth of text detail and illustrated with pages from Arts & Architecture, plans and period ads. What appealed to me though about the book are the color photos they took of seventeen Houses. I've only ever seen these homes through Julius Shulman's brilliant work and now to see them as matured properties surrounded by trees and gardens and the interiors glowing with that lived in look is rather impressive.

Most of the book is, of course, taken up with the Houses but after that there is an interesting series of short sections dealing with the architects drawings, Shulman's photos, how advertisers used the properties, past and current owners and at the back a listing of each House with address, architect, photo (contemporary color or period) and a plan, unfortunately the plans are a bit small and don't have any key. Lastly there is a spread that has a useful timeline from 1945 to 1966 for each House.

Overall I found this a fascinating book and the inclusion of the contemporary photos a real plus. A couple of criticisms: the authors writing style is rather flowery though this might have something to do with the translation from French and (oddly) there is no index. I think the book is a good complement to Elizabeth Smith's quite remarkable Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses published by MIT in 1989.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover

As an Architecture student interested in historic preservation I noticed this book, purchased it (deeply discounted), and once I began reading, couldn't put it down. This is a great little treasure for inside information on people genuinely interested in several different areas of historic preservation. The author did a great service by indirectly convincing me I'm on the right road with his witty, intelligent stories

The publisher's trade catalog for this book says 'The only thing better than one boring building is hundreds of them' and the photographer Clive Piercy says of his images 'This is not a book about architecture-or photography. It is a visual poem, a love letter and a simple attempt to help preserve these fantastic, quirky characters'. Well, maybe and this chunky little book delivers 480 photos of them. Piercy was struck by the LA apartment that has the design characteristic of having an open to the street ground floor parking space the width of the building.

Flicking through the pages you get the impression that maybe the local builders have formed a cartel to make sure their efforts look as identical as possible, so to add a little bit of individual flavor to their apartments many owners have fixed large numbers or names to the buildings (set in appropriate typestyles: Atomic Bold Italic or Googie Casual Cursive) Piercy photographed many examples of this building detail and being a designer I found these fascinating. A thing I found rather disappointing though, was that nearly all the photos are in black and white and the reproduction makes them look rather grey (I wonder if they were originally transparencies?) so to break up this greyness color graphic elements are scattered through the pages, mostly type dingbats, how appropriate!

Piercy is not the only photographer to celebrate the 'Pretty Vacant' style, Jeff Brouws in his lovely book of color photos, Readymades: American Roadside Artifacts has a chapter devoted to ticky tacky homes in Daly City, California, especially interesting because he sought out homes that were painted in bright colors. Lewis Baltz photographed pretty vacant commercial units in his famous The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California.

I bet a copy of 'Pretty Vacant' will be popping up on the coffee tables of architects, designers and those interested in pop Americana.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

If your family has any Dutch heritage your family castle will probably be in this book. Each castle is described in some detail, many have a single BW picture but the more significant have large colour spreads. The external ( there are no internal pictures ) Dutch style of larger farm house and castle is well presented in this book and the general presentation quality is excellent. While in Holland I visited a number of castles and I have found this book to be a superb reminder of the places and sights.

"Private Ireland" is a wonderful book that is full of beautiful photos and information about a fascinating country, namely Ireland. Not only do you get history, you get today's furnishings with lots of information. Planning a trip to Ireland? Read this book. Want information? Read this book. It is not a travelor's book, rather, it is a wonderful way to get a romantic view of different spaces and decorating. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a glimpse of real-life Ireland.

This beautiful album has also a slight technical touch. It begins with one page introduction, and ends with one page list of architects. In between, each of 12 chapters - dedicated to one tower - begins with one page description followed by the best possible photos on 10+ pages, and 2 to 4 pages with floor plans, sections or sometimes elevations, site plan, model, axonometric view, sketch. Everything is beautifully published on a glossy paper, and looks spectacularly.

If, after reading Christopher Alexander's earlier books, you were wondering if he ever actually built a house in the real world, here's your answer. Yes, he did. Yes, the people owning the houses love the results. Yes, they feel the special connection with their homes that is the hallmark of Alexander's ideas. No, the powers that be, who agreed to temporarily suspend building codes for his project, were not happy with the results. Why? Because they look funny, and because he built five homes instead of five hundred. Well, if they'd read his other books, they would not have been surprised. Our intrepid hero is quite unsparing of himself - you can see his delight as his ideas work, and his horror when they don't.

I believe that Christopher Alexander is dead on in saying that the system he created is a better way to build homes, indeed a far superior way to do so. However, I can't say the official reaction to this project is encouraging. After the first five homes were built, the bureaucrats came in, stopped the project and sent our intrepid hero packing. You can tell from the ending of the book that this reaction spooked Alexander, and I can't blame him. A revolutionary system of construction, he says, antagonizes pretty much everyone. But it will triumph, he proclaims!

It looks like it didn't, but I see increasing awareness of his ideas in more recent architectural books, so hopefully all is not lost. Despite the ultimate outcome, this is a brilliant book from an inspired thinker. You probably want to start with The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language before tackling this one, but if you liked his earlier works, this is an excellent, real-world counterpoint.

This is an unusually valuable work that presents richly detailed case studies of long-term contemporary models of individual therapy with children and adolescents in residential treatment, rarely offered in current studies of psychotherapy. In addition, the chapters on both practical and theoretical issues that can arise in therapy provided for young persons in intensive shorter-term group care are of tremendous importance for those having to work within the present-day financial constraints of managed care.