Customer Reviews

Architects' Studio Companion/Building Construction Illustrated

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is designed to help architects in their design of new buildings. Spedifically, the book is organized about the common building codes in place around the United States. The intent of the book is to minimize the time that an architect need spend on checking building codes themselves so that he can proceed to working on the design of the building.
The book establishes a simple system of seven steps to help the architect in his initial design effort.

The first step is to determine the Building Code and occupancy, then check as to what types of construction are permitted by the code, move on to a preliminary structural design, consider using daylighting, plan for mechanical and electrical systems, determine building code requirements for egress and accessibility, and finally parking.

By having all this informaion at your fingertips a great deal of time can be saved.

As an architecture student, I was required to purchase this text book to accompany my studio course. I have quite often reached for this book from my expansive library of required texts to find answers to rules of thumb for preliminary design. I found that this book is very good at explaining the basics that one needs to accommodate early in the design process. If you are looking for something dealing more with code regulations, this is not really the book to purchase. It includes a wide range of topics which can help answer many student questions. I have been happy with my purchase!

My only problem with this book is I can never find it because all my fellow studio classmates keep borrowing it. This saved hours having to calculate spans and dimensions. Definitely worth the price.

This text is indeed a very helpful resource for students and professionals working on preliminary designs. Your building will design itself using some of the techniques shown in the book. I used to think the graphics were outdated but they are very clear and concise. I appreciate the extra room left for note-taking. The cover is unexpectedly thin, but it is growing on me as a proper way to make books in the 21st century.

This book has tons of detailed illustrations, charts, tables, and information on conventional building design. The book is organized in an easy to read format. It begins with building code models and occupancy groups, then provides guidance for the structural system, daylighting, mechanical and electrical systems, accessibility and egress, and even parking. It is not the end-all be-all for this type of information, but is a very useful reference for the design process. I will continue to use it for many years since it is such a great resource.

This book contains alot of technical information at an easy to understand level for student architects. The information complements my other textbooks very well.

This book was very good on the concepts of Architecture and the stages of creating 3D sketches and images as guides before actual drawing of the building.
Also it helped with building lables and detail sections, elevations.

Thank You
Talibah Salih

I was somewhat dissappointed with this book. The "rules of thumb" tend to go a little further in direction of "design" than "rules of thumb". I was looking for a simpler approach to many of the items based upon similar materials that the author included in another publication. Instead it seems he had second thoughts about, perhaps, careless use of the information and resorted to charts and tables based upon actual design criteria in some cases. For example, a rule of thumb for designing wood floor joist might be "The depth of the joists in inches can be estimated by taking the span in feet and subtracting 4. A 2x8 floor joist can span 12 feet." Instead there are tables based upon formulas. Rules of thumb are handy to make a quick approximation of the geometry of a building in order to prepare a preliminary drawing for engineers to use to begin design. I would have liked more simplification even if it had to include warnings or possible exceptions to the rule.

I needed this book for a class of mine. It was delivered early and was in great condition. Thanks!

I've never ordered a used book before but when I saw the savings in price I decided to try it. NEVER AGAIN. The description said "looks new" but it looked as though it had been through a car wash and had been kicked from here to China! It was by far the most battered book I had EVER seen. A total misguidance.