Mini House [Hardcover]

Alejandro Bahamon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2003

The increasing demand for space in both the city and the countryside has provoked a shortage of unused land on which to build. This book presents 25 small houses belonging to international architects who have demonstrated their ability to take full advantage of the few square feet they have available. Diverse distributions of space are illustrated through a careful selection of photographs and of drawings by the actual designers. In addition, a practical descriptive text reveals the architectural solutions key to each of these projects. Mini House is dedicated to those architects and homeowners who search for ingenious solutions to the scarcity of space.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alejandro Bahamon is a noted architect and photographer. He currently lives in Spain.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Collins Design (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060513594
• ISBN-13: 978-0060513597
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 9.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Half & Half, August 8, 2004

By 

Richard Sullivan (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mini House (Hardcover)

Indeed, this is no lifestyle book, but an architectural piece, one that gives some real inspiration and wonderful examples of living large in small spaces.

Inconsistently though, some houses are only shown in exterior photos and one longs to see what's inside, such as the gorgeously crafted NSW Tree House. A number of the house interiors are empty or nearly so, and any house looks spacious when it's completely unfurnished! The fortress-like Ithaca House in New York State gets 8 pages of coverage: the somber exterior is shot from every conceivable angle, but only the only interior room shown is the kitchen. The starkly simple but deceptively ingenious House In Zachary stars on the cover and gets 10 pages inside. 12 photos are devoted to its exterior, but only two to the interior, and those are more or less just vignettes.

Bottom line, people need to LIVE in these small houses and we need to see what the interiors look like. A small house is only successful if the interior works as a home. This book left me impressed but feeling very unsatisfied. Larger, better-labeled floor plans would have been welcome as well.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice concept but for a select audience, November 14, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Mini House (Hardcover)

If I could have looked inside this book before I ordered it, I probably wouldn't have bought it. While many of the houses are interesting, the style of most of them is 'European modern' or even experimental (that's not meant as a criticism in itself). In the author's introduction the sub-heading is "...producing small architectural objects..." -- that's a good description, the houses are more architectural objects than anything else. So, if you're interested in modern trends in residential architecture, this is a great book; if you interested in modest, economical homes of a more traditional nature, this definitely isn't the book for you.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Some Mini, Some Not!, December 22, 2004

By 

Scott Knudsen (Air Ronge, Saskatchewan Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mini House (Hardcover)

I bought this book to help give me some better ideas on how to build a small as house as possible, while still keeping it livable. This book does show some good examples for small houses. It also adds in houses that are up to 1,291 sq/ft, which for most people is not a mini house, in fact it would be classed as a normal size house. As I said it did give a few examples that I could imagine living in, but lots of the homes pictured, look cold and lifeless.

Also, there are not enough photos of each house to give you an idea what it would feel like to be in. And lots of the photos show the interiors as completely barren looking, as if no one actually lived in them!

Get it from your library first before you decide to buy. I won't be adding this book to my listmania list.