Distinctive Home (American Institute Architects) [Hardcover]

Jeremiah Eck (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Institute Architects | Publication Date: February 14, 2003

Jeremiah Eck believes that a distinctive home is the result of a balance between site, floor plan, exterior elements, and interior details. In The Distinctive Home, he describes the significance of each of the four elements and provides numerous examples of good design for each. Included are images and descriptions of 50 houses (ten of them the author's own designs) that cover a wide range of styles, regions, and budgets. A final chapter unifies the four elements in detailed profiles of several of these houses, examining how their components work together to attain the status of "distinctive."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The first volume in the joint imprint launched by Taunton Press and the American Institute of Architects, this exploration of "distinctive and timeless" homes proves that good design can be very human design. While upscale shelter magazines seem to delight in houses laid out for visual effect-the living room as graphic design more than functional interior-the homes Eck features here illustrate the enduring, comfortable qualities of the genuinely livable home. An architect and landscape painter, Eck identifies four primary tenets of a pleasing home-its site, floor-plan, exterior face and details-and demonstrates how they should balance each other and the world around them. (As Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen said, "Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context-a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment.") When these four elements are carefully considered, Eck believes, they result in atmospheres of sustained pleasure and character. He roams the country for examples of the distinction he prizes, finding it in Rhode Island beach homes and California bungalows, New England farmhouses and suburban custom jobs, all of which harmonize with their surroundings and within their parts to provide their tenants with daily domestic gratification. Copiously illustrated with architectural drawings and photographs of inviting interiors and intelligent facades (and occasionally enlivened by asides lambasting the thoughtless placement and stingy finish of contemporary home architecture), this unpretentious and impressive project will provide food for thought for anyone looking to buy, renovate or build a house.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Taunton Press (February 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561585289
• ISBN-13: 978-1561585281
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,101,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for new construction, February 14, 2003

By 

Sarah Lewis (booklete dot com) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distinctive Home (American Institute Architects) (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful book, with wonderful photographs and helpful diagrams. Mr. Eck tackles topics I have not seen discussed in depth before, including how to build a house so that it suits its site as well as the neighborhood, why we should think outside the box, and how to go about doing that. If you are looking at building a house, this is one book you should definitely get your hands on, or you'll kick yourself later when you read it.

That said, there is one point I am particularly disappointed with:

Mr. Eck states repeatedly that the same principles hold true for subdivision lots and houses as for the oceanfront and large lots that make up the vast majority of the photographs and case studies in this book. I would find this to be a bit more believable if a subdivision house on a subdivision lot was actually shown. I looked through this book, intent on finding a picture or case study of a subdivision-sized lot with a house like mine (1300 square feet). I could not find a single picture. There was one house shown that is on a small lot but it's not exactly in a subdivision; it's surrounded by large, stately houses.

I'm well aware that my house is smaller than average but I was frustrated at the total exclusion of the kinds of homes that a million Americans buy every year. Surely there is something that could be done to make our houses distinctive, too, but apparently not anything that was good enough to make it into the book.

Nonetheless, the ideas in this book can be applied to any new construction in order to make the most of what's available. People looking to renovate should probably look elsewhere, unless they're interested in a ground-up kind of change, as many of the most helpful suggestions (designing the floor plan around your life, redefining rooms, etc.) won't apply without such significant changes.

I will recommend this book heartily to the patrons at the library where I work, especially if they're building, but almost everyone will find the pictures alone are worth a browse.

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy it if you suffer from serious house-envy..., April 22, 2003

By 

bensmomma "bensmomma" (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Distinctive Home (American Institute Architects) (Hardcover)

...if you are the sort of person who dreams of building your perfect house some day, this book will give you conniption fits, and leave you absent-mindedly drawing little floor plans on napkins in restaurants.

Eck's framework for the book cites four sources of great design: siting the house on the property, floor plans, exterior (elevation) and final details. This makes the book more balanced than those that just focus on, say, the floor plan and finish.

I found his discussion of the 'massing' of the house to be fascinating. It went a long way towards explaining why the too-large floor plans of the usual suburban house today--although in many cases just traditional layouts blown up by 50%--just don't look quite right.

That said, the book is predominantly oriented towards relatively empty-nester second homes in relatively rural locations. With some pleasant exceptions, these are not houses for people who have to, say , wonder where to store the dirty soccer equipment or the snow blower, or where their kid's model collection is going to go.

They ARE beautiful, though - I swear that some day I'm going live on p.107!!

24 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top notch design book, January 17, 2003

By 

Victoria A. Griffith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Distinctive Home (American Institute Architects) (Hardcover)

This is far and away the best book I've seen for people contemplating building or remodeling a home. Truly innovative designs that fall somewhere outside the traditional box of thinking in terms of floor plans and details create truly distinctive homes. A great place to start if you're considering major changes in your home.