Customer Reviews

Adobe Architecture

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you want a REAL adobe house with authentic details appropriate to the style, this is the book for you. If you want a McMansion stuccoed brown, with all the energy-wasting bells and whistles and a garage for your multiple gas guzzling SUVs, move along. There are plenty of resources that will tell you how to build a house with "today's architectural advancements", but not too many that will tell you how to build a small, efficient, comfortable, charming home that will stand the test of time. The text and the drawings in this book are wonderful points of access if you want to replicate the charm of true Santa Fe Style, no fake, stuccoed frame construction, no bandanna-ed howling coyotes.

I too thought that this book was going to have contemporary plans instead of reprints of 1930's houses. Despite my initial disappointment I can say that the book remains useful as a sourcebook of nice exterior and interior details of three different South West styles. For a person actually intersted in building a real adobe out of abobe there is also some useful information. However, if you are looking for a book of frame houses, stucco-clad and three-car-garaged, then this is probably not the book for you.

The copyright on the book is misleading. What you find out once you've bought it, is that the house plans date to the authors' book from the 1930's, as the style of the illustrations clearly indicates. The plans are small and dated, with none of the architectural and building ideas developed in the next 70 years of the 20th century! A waste of money.

A great little book with many images and sketches about adobe and southwestern architecture in general.