Customer Reviews

Dictionary of Architecture and Construction

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

 

 

A must-have for students and professionals alike. Clear definitions, useful illustrations, everyday terminology. Contains terms used by building professionals in coordinating with other trades. Resolves office terminology disagreements to provide for more accurate construction documents. For non-professionals - gain the knowledge you need in order intelligently communicate your needs to your architect or contractor.

The masterpiece. Now upgraded with some 2,800 new terms for a total of 25,000, and 200 new illustrations for a total of 2,500, this book is in its fourth edition.

Architecture and Construction like any profession has developed it's own terminology its own jargon. An outsider coming into the field is faced with a daunting task just to be able to communicate with the professionals in the business.

The dictionary is designed to be comprehensive in scope. Its range spans terms encountered in the practiceof architecture from Classical to green, from traditional materials to the latest products, from precise definitions of architectural styles to the particulars of specification writing.

In addition to the physical construction terms, the dictionary covers ancillary areas such as electrical, fire, security, waste disposal, water supply. In short the dictionary covers every specialized word, every specialized meaning of standard words that are to be encountered in the building of a building of any size from house to cathedral.

Simply put, this is the standard of the industry.

This book is the most complete I have ever come across, and extremely easy to use. The illustrations (2500) and terms (26000) are well-described and easy to use, yet concise. As a Project Manager for a General Contractor, I find this book extremely handy in the construction world. Working with an Architect on a daily basis, I find myself using it several times per day sometimes. You can never learn every term in architecture and construction, but this book will help you learn those unfamiliar words we come across every single day in construction and architecture.

I have seen this book and borrowed it often. An invaluable reference... BUT: how do you pronounce all of these scientific and foreign-sourced words? I guarantee you will not find them in Webster's. This is a major oversight for a book calling itself a "dictionary."

No table of contents. No Alphabetical index. No navigation at all. To look up a word 'Zoning' , you need to press next page button 1,000 times or more. (I got a refund as soon as I addressed the issue to the customer service.) Hopefully they(McGraw Hill) fix the problem soon. This review only addresses the mechanic of the kindle edition, not the contents.

I'm not trained in the field, yet needed a gift for an extremely bright graduating high-school student who's headed to design school. Having (very superficially)researched available titles in on the subject I ordered this volume on-line and was very pleasantly surprised by it's scope and depth. I'm certain it'll be frequently used for years to come.

I own an older version of this dictionary (with fewer illustrations, sadly). That being said, I really like this dictionary. It contains scores of obscure terms and does a fair to excellent job of explaining them. The illustrations are generally helpful and well-executed. If you are curious about basic construction, or want to avoid using the word "thing" when referring to a architectural feature, then you can hardly go wrong with this dictionary.

For anyone who just wants to know more about architecture. Perfect for non-english speaking architectural students like me. I really improved my knowledge of architecture.