Modern Shoestring: Contemporary Architecture on a Budget [Hardcover]

Susanna Sirefman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2008

Residential design provides a rich testing ground for architectural innovation. Intimate scales and specific programs inspire distinctive homes, and comparatively small budgets are catalysts for exploring nontraditional materials. Modern Shoestring proves that building a contemporary house can be affordable and shows how constraints actually stimulate the most creative design solutions.

Eighteen residential projects are presented, with emphasis on the goals of the owners, the site, and the cost in the design process. Collections determine floor plans, observatories are built for starry rural nights, and found and industrial materials such as highway construction remnants, laboratory counters, plastic water bottles, and discarded chalkboards keep costs low while imbuing structures with character. These ingenious designs range in cost from $50 to $220 per square foot and represent geographical settings from Los Angeles to Anchorage to East Hampton.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Susanna Sirefman is the founder and principal of Dovetail Design Strategists LLC, a firm that matches clients with designers, architects, and landscape architects. She is the author of several books, including New York: A Guide to Recent Architecture, Chicago: A Guide to Recent Architecture, Whereabouts: New Architecture with Local Identities, and The Contemporary Guesthouse: Building in the Garden; has contributed to Architecture, Architectural Record, Metropolis, and Graphis; and is currently a contributing editor for Surface. Sirefman trained at the Architectural Association School of Archiecture in London before returning to her native New York, where she has taught at the Parsons School of Design and at the School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture at the City College of New York. She was recently an advisor for "Urban Voids: Grounds for Change," an international design competition for Philadelphia's vacant land sponsored by the Van Alen Institute and the City Parks Association of Philadelphia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: The Monacelli Press (May 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580932029
• ISBN-13: 978-1580932028
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 0.8 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Interior Design > Decoration & Ornament

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Missed Opportunity, March 16, 2009

By 

Peter H. Burge (Reno, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Modern Shoestring: Contemporary Architecture on a Budget (Hardcover)

My greatest disappointment with this book is one of a lack of value. After reading the book several times I searched for each architect online. With few exceptions, most of the information presented on each architect's Web site was repeated in the book. The photographs looked much better online - many of them in the book were muddy in tone, much darker than online (yes, a monitor has a distinct advantage, but not to the point where this book came up short), and several of the images reproduced in the book were enlarged way past an acceptable size for their resolution. The text accompanying could have been far more descriptive of the theme of the book - how these homes were built on a budget. And, how the reader might design and spec a building themselves. Although I have never authored a book, it seems like there was little effort in compiling the information presented here.

To its credit, this book does include a complete floorplan for each house.

I think that the point of this book could have been accomplished by a Web site. In fact, the author should have included Web site addresses for each of the architects, and the architects could have provided additional information on what is a commodity in short supply - value-oriented design.

[...]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful and Fascinating Read, January 10, 2010

By 

carpbrain (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Modern Shoestring: Contemporary Architecture on a Budget (Hardcover)

I found this book extremely helpful, since it's rare for architectural books to feature modern homes that people can afford, let alone design in such a way that is livable. The floor plans and photographs seemed especially well laid out and many of the homes offered interesting and accessible ideas for either the modern home owner or small architectural firm. I wish more books were printed that had that focus. An excellent guide.

5.0 out of 5 stars Yeah! For the middle class who also love design..., May 10, 2010

By 

NY Aesthetic (Brooklyn, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Modern Shoestring: Contemporary Architecture on a Budget (Hardcover)

This book resides in a narrow category often ignored in the design profession: Moderate Cost equating High Value. The commentary in the book is indeed light at best, I would have wished for more. However what is expressed is that those of us whom reside in perhaps the largest representative economic group of the middle class can strive for design. The selection of projects is diverse and shows a range of styles, material aspirations and building sites. Much like design itself there is less of a uniform theme of design in exchange for a display of what can only be imagined as designer and client relationships manifesting themselves in works that loosely fall into the category of Modern. There is the refined, the quirky, the bare etc. etc. a democracy of sorts.

What is perhaps the most successful part of this collection of homes is that they appear at least in photos to be without the usual pretense of glamour and wealth often reserve for the coffee table collection.