Customer Reviews

Underground Buildings: More than Meets the Eye

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
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This book is filled with wonderful pictures that augment the authors descriptions of underground buildings. She writes with wit and demonstrates that undergound buildings have many benefits, including financial and asthetic ones. This book is well worth a read as a detailed resource of information on this topic, as well as being an entertaining "coffee table" book. She explores this issue, which is more common than the average person would believe, and takes it to the next level.

At $29 or less, this book is being given away. This is a museum-quality book in terms of the paper, the photographs, the lay-out, and the cover.

I bought this book in part because land is becoming extremely scarce around the great universities and the central business districts, and I was looking for something to help me think through how to persuade a university to let me put a building into a hill or under a playing field.

This book does that. It is a very fast read, the photographs are priceless--worth 10,000 words each as the Chinese would say--and the only thing I did not find in this book were architectural specifics and photos of underlying infrastructure (pump rooms, air cleaning rooms, etc.)

If you are contemplating the need for squeezing a building into an area that is down to the "do not disturb" green space, or if you are contemplating how to exploit existing mines, caverns, or other underground options, this exquisite book is not only useful as a tool for reflection, it will help you "make the sale" to skeptical others you have to get on board.

The author provides a list of 50 places to visit with addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites, a fine resource section for more reading, and an excellent index.

This is an all-around world-class book that is easily worth $49 or more.

Underground buildings are surprisingly common, offering users a safe, attractive alternative to above-ground buildings. Most are even dry, warm and sun-filled. Loretta Hall's Underground Buildings features over a hundred underground buildings from famous structures to those which have received little comparative attention. Architectural drawings accompany these examples and a spectrum of structures provide a variety of examples of their applications and use. Beautiful, rich photos wonderfully enhance the informative text making Underground Buildings a welcome and much appreciated addition to academic and professional Architectural Studies collections.

This book has many short, easy-to-read sections about general topics relevant to building underground, and about many specific examples in the United States. Unfortunately, there is not room to go into much detail about all the examples, but this book is definitely a good starting point. Well illustrated with color photographs.

This is not your typical Underground House book. The author gives examples of building underground businesses, schools, offices, storage, stores, museums, theatres, sports complexes, military facilities and residences. And explains their history and why they do or do not work.

The photos are quite good and there are also some blueprints of a few underground structures. There are also two chapters on the theory and ins and outs of building underground.

I think the author should have made this book more global, because it could have been titled Underground Buildings of the United States.

I'll still give it 5 stars though, because I think she did a good job in accomplishing what she set out to do. I do hope she comes out with a sequel that is more global in its coverage.

This book should be a must read for any architect.

I have no training whatever in architecture or engineering, but I've always been interested, often fascinated, by unique and unusual buildings. Hall, a technical writer with a slightly groan-producing sense of humor, has put together a survey of below-ground-level structures in the United States, including private homes (whether bunkered and bermed or converted from old missile silos), schools, libraries (such as the Bradley Wing of the Los Angeles Public Library, which I was familiar with), museums, government emergency shelters (Mt. Weather and Cheyenne Mountain are both here), and corporate facilities (Kansas City is full of them). The information provided is just technical enough to make the author's point about the utility and efficiency of building below ground, and there are loads of color photos and architectural drawings. I only wish the book had been several times as thick so it could include non-U.S. structures. Maybe she'll do another volume.

Perfect, 'exactly what it said on the tin'!!!!!

Was devliverd exact time as specified

This book is "THE BOOK" if you are looking for non-technical aspects of underground buildings. Great photos, excellent commentary!