Customer Reviews

Building Structures: From Concepts to Design

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This book is excellent for understanding the underlying concepts of the theory of structures. There is information about materials, stresses, and structural analysis. A background in statics is required to understand this book. This book is NOT intended for laymen! I would not even recommend it to architects unless they have a solid structural background.

The main drawback is that the analysis details are in the appendix of the book. This book is useful as a complement to an undergraduate education in structural analysis, but it is NOT a text on the subject. If I ever get to teach a course on structures, I would use information from this book to provide a conceptual framework.

The examples are non existent throughout the text (only separated in later chapters) so this book really wasn't helpful with learning how to calculate forces within structural members. It is helpful in the aspect that it teaches you what occurs within structural members as force is applied, the problem is that they do not apply numeric forces and break down how to solve it through example. This left me with a poor understanding of how to calculate action/reactionary forces within a truss or a beam or what have you.

I should mention that this book was assigned to me as a text book for a beginner's college course on structural analysis. This book had no role in studying for tests, or for teaching me how to calculate by example. Do not buy it if you intend to use it for a college course on structural analysis. If you would like to purchase it to understand the complications and the inner workings of structural members, be my guest. I intend to keep the book (and not sell it back) because it helps with comprehension. I just believe that building structures is an extremely mathematical based process and to not have examples with the teachings is balderdash.