Reviews (5)

very good all-around reference
I primarily work as a structural-architectural engineer and am becoming more and more involved in civil-site work.This handbook is exactly what I was looking for in terms of something that would quickly get me "up to speed" in the fundamentals of civil-site design. Difficult to follow!
I am in a class at Community College of Baltimore Countyand we are using this book at this time. Our whole class along with the Professor find this book to be very difficult to follow. The book constantly repeats itself making it extremely boring to read and is not fluent at all. They have examples that reference charts that are 3-5 pages apart from the problem being discussed the formulas you almost have to figure out for yourself how they are used and there are alot of typos. A Must Have Pub
Ever since I purchased this publication I can't stop using it.Every civil engineer should have this as part of their reference library, regardless of your area of specialty.It providesmacro to micro scale explanations of general processes, design applications, etc in a very readable format.More times than I can remember I have looked to this book for an answer or at least for some guidance and was throuroughly satisfied.No it is not a definitive reference for civil engineers but its' breadth and usability overshadows any technical shortcomings.If I had to have just one reference book for my area of practice (general civil), this would be it.Yeah, yeah, the "Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers" is a more definitive reference, but I usually find out what I need in this pub.Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Building Sites    3. Construction - General    4. Engineering - Civil    5. Engineering geology    6. Handbooks, manuals, etc    7. Land Use    8. Land Utilization    9. Law    10. Planning    11. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    12. Real estate development    13. Remodeling & Renovation - General    14. Science/Mathematics    15. Surveying    16. Architecture / Planning    17. Civil Engineering, Surveying & Building    18. Property & real estate   

Editorial Review

In this fanciful volume, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.), both analyzes and celebrates New York City. By suggesting the city as the site for an infinite variety of human activities and events--both real and imagined--the essence of the metropolitan lifestyle, its "culture of congestion" and its architecture are revealed in a brilliant new light. "Manhattan," Koolhaas writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations (Central Park, the Skyscraper), utopian fragments (Rockefeller Center, the U.N. Building), and irrational phenomena (Radio City Music Hall)." Filled with fascinating facts, as well as photographs, postcards, maps, watercolors, and drawings, the vibrancy of Koolhaas's poignant exploration of Gotham equals the heady, frenetic energy of the city itself. Anyone who loves New York will want to own this book. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked, on the nth floor.
The quote written above is excerpted from Delirious New York. It is a perfect example of the lyrical quality of the writing prevalent throughout this amazing book. Delirious New York is not an objective chronological listing of New York's development, but a collection of manifestos and stories with opinionated perspectives about a city founded on the idea that maximum congestion is a desirable factor. It is informative, funny (the midget firefighters of Coney Island had me laughing aloud for a solid minute or two), twisted, and inspiring.
best koolhaas ever, man
koolhaas is a bit over-the-top for me, but this I think is is best work. it's worth checking out if only for the story of coney island. once you get past blisteringly pretentious phrases like "coney island is a fetal manhattan", you'll find it gloriously entertaining as both a narrative and theoretical work.

the culture of congestion
This is by far Koolhaas's most accessible work, as it is rooted so clearly in detail from the city's past. Further, the book is simply brilliant. His take on urban history is to Jane Jacobs what Socrates is to common sense. New York is a special case of modernism that sprang from a special constellation of poltiical and technological forces that collectively create a cultural "big-bang" at the turn of the century. Read it. Blow your mind. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American architecture    2. Architecture    3. Buildings    4. Criticism    5. New York    6. New York (N.Y.)    7. New York (State)    8. New York - Local History    9. Planning    10. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    11. Social History    12. U.S. Architecture - General    13. Art / Subjects & Themes / General    14. Local history    15. USA   

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Planning    3. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    4. Real Estate - General    5. Reference    6. Regional & Area Planning   

Reviews (2)

Extremely valuable tool
"Land Development Calculations" provides an excellent and innovative strategy for working towards sustainable land use and development.The models for varying land development strategies can assist local government land use decision makers and planners as well as developers determine the carrying capacity of land within realistic thresholds.The accompanying spreadsheets for the development scenarios on the CD-ROM are extremely user friendly and do not place an undue burden on the user by requiring what may be hard to find or to collect data.All of the data required just is typical of what is necessary to make appropriate land development decisions.As a local government planner, I am working towards incorporating the information received from the models in to the zoning and development code as part of the approval process by using it to further assess suitability of the property for the purposes proposed (a zoning consideration required in accordance with the State of Georgia Zoning Procedures Act).I strongly encourage other land planners and developers to read "Land Development Calculations," because of its highly practical and very timely material.

Author Delivers Valuable Techniques and Tools
This is a terrificaly valuable technical reference for practitioners who need an efficient method of performing land development calulations. The book and its companion set of spreadsheets enable users to answer two key questions: 1) how much can be built on a given piece of land; or 2) how much land is needed to accommodate a given use? The material is clearly written and well illustrated, especially a series of worksheets leading through the method. Another strength is its comprehensiveness and detail, including all major land-use and micro site conditions. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Land use    3. Mathematical models    4. Natural Resources    5. Planning    6. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    7. Real estate development    8. Reference    9. Architectural structure & design    10. Architecture / Methods & Materials    11. Structural engineering   

Reviews (25)

Excellent Edition to Your Reference Library
I purchased this book during my first semester as an architecture student and am still referencing it well into my third semester.It has good text but the high quality illustrations are what I find most helpful.Many of them are representations of existing structures.Great Book!

A Primer not just for Architecture but for Creative Thought
As an artist, designer and storyteller, I find Dr. Ching's book to be a revelation. You can open it to any page, like casting the I Ching, and begin to read. His draftsmanship, his infinite patience and exceptionally ordered mind places even the most esoteric subject firmly into perspective. And it seems to rub off on the reader. If you are ever blocked for any reason, duplicate a page. I guarantee you'll return to your own work with fresh insight.

Can't Afford To Miss It!
Hi! I'm a practising architect. All 5 years of my study, i evaded buying the book: always taking photocopies of isolated pages from my college library. After practising for more than an year now, i feel that one simply ought to know Ching (this book). Without the fundamentals of this book, our architecture does not speak the language it ought to. After saving enough money, this is the costliest and most eagerly awaited book for me, ever...i'm waiting for it to land so that I can start digging!!
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Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Composition, proportion, etc    3. Design & Drafting    4. Planning    5. Reference    6. Space (Architecture)    7. Architectural structure & design    8. Architecture / Reference    9. Theory of architecture   

Subjects:  1. Architectural & Industrial    2. Architecture    3. City planning    4. History - General    5. New York    6. New York (State)    7. Planning    8. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    9. U.S. Architecture - General    10. Urban renewal    11. Architecture / Planning   

Reviews (1)

Power and ample information and graphics
I found this book to be one of the best out on the topic, of which there are too few at present for such an important topic. The depth and breadth of place-making topics and their coverage makes this a very excellent easy-to-read-and-understand as well as a long-term reference tool. The graphics are very well done. Having recently attended a Harvard program on retail for cities and new towns and urban center given by Bob Gibbs and Terry Shook, I especially found the book right on target. I want to see more of these types of books. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Case studies    3. Central business districts    4. City planning    5. Community development, Urban    6. Planning    7. Political Science    8. Politics/International Relations    9. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    10. Real Estate - Investments    11. United States    12. Urban & Regional   

Subjects:  1. Architectural design    2. Architecture    3. City planning    4. Planning    5. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    6. Architecture / Planning    7. City & town planning - architectural aspects    8. Urban & municipal planning   

Reviews (20)

alexander's courage gave birth to this noble book
this is simply (as all the other books by c. alexander) the best book I have ever read on architecture, and the humanity of architecture
My wife loves it - and that's good enough for me.
I bought this (and Patterns...) because my wife always liked discussing the structure of our city, our house and life in general, as we headed home after work.
Very Intersting and Original Viewpoint
Alexander's book is fascinating. It teaches the reader to draw the distinction between pattern design and modular design. Previously, I was not even aware that these two design methods were on a type of continuum. Aside from its lessons, it is in fact a very interesting book. It does have a kind of utopian feel to it, and it feels good! I highly recommend this book to anyone. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Design & Drafting    3. Pattern perception    4. Planning    5. Study & Teaching    6. Architecture / Criticism    7. Art & Architecture | Theory & Criticism; Aesthetics   

Subjects:  1. Architecture / Planning    2. Business & Economics / Real Estate    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Real Estate - General    6. Architecture    7. Residential Construction    8. Urban & Land Use Planning    9. Urban Planning    10. Urbanization   

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Building    3. Design & Drafting    4. Details    5. Drawings    6. Planning    7. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    8. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    9. Standards    10. Architecture / Planning   

Reviews (1)

A Great Idea Book for New Projects
In a time when it seems like there is less and less human interaction because of the spreading out to the burbs, TV and the Internet, it seems that there is more and more demand for social interaction in public places.
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Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. General    3. Planning    4. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    5. Urban Architecture    6. City & town planning - architectural aspects   

Reviews (52)

How to teach engineering to a pie-in-the-sky type
The great joy in Jacobs's book is that it's rabidly empirical, which makes it empowering. Naïve change-the-world types like me tend to get stuck on the size of the world they want to change. For instance: thinking about the problems Jacobs is addressing, I'm likely to go like so: "We need to reduce the number of cars in cities. So let's tax people who drive into cities, like London does, and boost mass-transit spending. But that would cost a lot, and we don't have the political strength for that. Man, city problems are hard."
Timeless and Brilliant
I first heard of this book referenced in Steven Johnson's "Emergence".I asked a friend if he'd heard of it, and the next thing I knew, I was being sent home with his copy with an assignment !
Classic
No book in the 20th Century has done more to shape how we think about cities. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. City planning    3. Planning    4. Sociology    5. Sociology - Urban    6. United States    7. Urban History    8. Urban Planning    9. Urban policy    10. Urban renewal    11. City & town planning - architectural aspects    12. Social Science / Sociology / Urban    13. USA    14. Urban communities   

Reviews (4)

Whoa!
I'm amazed that people didn't like this book more... I am also a Land Arch student who had it as an assigned book that was rarely actually assigned.I was thumbing through it in hopes of generating ideas for another class and was amazed at the amount of usable information it contained.Perhaps it is better digested in chunks instead of the whole.I found it great as a reference book.

An okay book- required textbook
Being a new student of a landscape architecture program, this was a required textbook for one of my classes.After reading between the lines and through the wordiness of the book, I finally understood the point the author was making and found the point interesting.It took a couple of times to finally understand what he was saying, but it was interesting once I understood it.It was on the dry side.

Dull disengaged preaching
The book is much weaker than Lynch's classical piece "The Image of the City". Text sometimes gets dull and too dry, like in many of reference books. In fact, the "referential" quality of "SitePlanning" is the only positive feature of the book. When authorspursue the singular goal to create a comprehensive textbook, the livenessof arguments suffers a lot. The book becomes rather a dull close-mindeddisengaged preaching that requires a lot of effort on the side of a readerto understand and utilize it. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Architecture (Specific Aspects)    3. Building sites    4. City planning    5. General    6. Landscape architecture    7. Planning    8. Architectural structure & design    9. Architecture / General    10. Structural engineering   

Reviews (3)

Borrowed spiritual wisdom
Alexander's Pattern Language series was/is a great accomplishment. It made the mysteries of good architectural design accessible to everyone. It attempted to liberate home- and town-building from the arrogant priesthood of professional architects and exposed the bankrupt values behind so much of contemporary building. It offered a deeply human alternative much more in tune with the way we really live.
wisdom through patience
I'm not an architect, though I do paint a bit and presume to teach. A friend from Ohio undertook one of Alexander's architectural courses, 20 years ago, and posted me notes on Alexander's colour theory. I've used them ever since. But the articulation of this guru's understanding of the experience world & how we process it & make art in and for it, has become keener, more subtle & concise over the years. This is a very, very profound teaching without any messianic overdrive. Indeed, its the patience and humility of Alexander's process of discovering essential rules & roles for making art, that are most profound and the enduring feature of his presentation. And the book's own look exemplifies his quest for the beautiful.I'm not so taken with the reproductions of his own painting, however. I can't quibble with the twentieth century masters he reproduces as evidence for enduring beauty. A fabulous book!

A Profoundly Eloquent Glimpse of Life's Depth...
*** Original review: May 20, 2004 ***
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Subjects:  1. Aesthetics    2. Architecture    3. Architecture and philosophy    4. Color (Philosophy)    5. Cosmology    6. General    7. Planning    8. Architecture / General    9. Topics in philosophy   

Reviews (5)

A Beautiful book of New York History and Architecture
An exquisite book! There are stories about each apartment house and how it came to be. I found the two architects, Candela and Carpenter, to be very interesting characters. The homes they designed are ahead of their time. The floor plans are fascinating. The book also shows, by the floor plans, how people lived and what their needs were. The authors even quote costs of building and tell of the people who lived there. If you like real estate you will find this fascinating.

Grand New York
Let me first say that I loved the period black and white photos of the buildings, I also appreciated the fact that all of the buildings mentioned came with requisite photos, that is a must in book of this sort.I really didn't know that much about these buildings nor the architects so this book gave me a real education, I came away more knowledged and very impressed. The attention to detail the architects employed in these buildings is amazing and the fact that so many are still extant is a tribute to the artistry and talent that went into designing and building them and obviously contempory wealthy apartment seekers appreciate these attributes or else we all know these buildings would have been pulled down long ago, just like so many of the Gilded Age mansions they replaced.This publishing house puts out such finely crafted books and this one does not disappoint, I highly recommend it.

Andrew Alpern's Labor of Love
Candela and Carpenter were two of New York's most noted architects of the inter-war era, specializing in luxury apartment buildings. Architectural historian Andrew Alpern has assembled a reference text of their buildings, organized in geographic sequence. In this book, a typical building has two pages dedicated to it. One page consists of a floor plan, and the facing page has a photo or rendering of the exterior, combined with a one-to-six sentence description. Also, there are several brief essays at the beginning of the book.Read more

Subjects:  1. (James Edwin R.),    2. 1890-1953    3. Apartment houses    4. Architecture    5. Candela, Rosario,    6. Carpenter, J. E. R    7. Catalogs    8. Domestic    9. Individual Architect    10. Interior architecture    11. New York    12. New York (State)    13. Planning   

Reviews (76)

A must Read
Once in a while a book comes along that helps put a framework around thought and ideas already in ones mind. Suburban nation truly deserves all the praise it has received from the academic as well as the non-academic community. It helped me understand why I feel more comfortable, secure and happy in urban centers and lost, confused and unsafe in suburban sprawl. Even though there are some definitely biased and skewed examples and anecdotes used to support the authors claims. Overall I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in getting a better understanding of urban design or in just realizing how our living environment affects our social and cultural well being.
One of the greatest books I've ever read.
This single book has done more to change my perspective on how I look at American culture than any other.
It's not meant to be in-depth!
To the reviewers who criticized this book as lacking depth of arguement:to describe the process by which we discard modern suburban land development patterns and adopt neotraditional patterns would fill volumes upon volumes.This book is meant to be an introduction to concepts, not an exhaustive study.It is written for the layperson, not the academic.This is its greatest strength; you do not have to be a city planner to understand and appreciate it.
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Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Planning    3. Politics / Current Events    4. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    5. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    6. Sociology - Urban   

Reviews (7)

not as good as i expected
this highly recommended book started out as a compelling read, but became something i had to force myself to finish. it seems to be a series of lectures strung together, which may have been interesting as lectures, but is not cohesive enough to be a book. the good information is lost amidst the rambling style.

A must read for Landscape Architects
Anyone studying environmental planning or LA should read this book.

Significant Book for Architects - Though a Little Slow
While it's not the kind of book you want to lounge around the fireplace reading, it is a book that is frequently referred to by architects.It is significant in designing and ecologially friendly building in today's built-up environment.Summary:Not a great book, but a useful resource for architects. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Effect of human beings on    3. Environmental Conservation & Protection - General    4. Environmental policy    5. Human ecology    6. Landscape    7. Nature    8. Nature/Ecology    9. Planning    10. United States    11. Applied ecology    12. Architecture / Landscape    13. City & town planning - architectural aspects   

Subjects:  1. Architecture    2. Automobile parking    3. General    4. Land use, Urban    5. Parking garages    6. Planning    7. Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev.    8. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    9. Transportation    10. Business    11. Real Estate   

Reviews (1)

Exaggerated title
The book analyses the subjects at an amateur level and it is lacking in content. As a necessity of my doctoral dissertation I bought it and regret.The letter fonts are unnecessarily too big; according to me the realvolume should be about 175 pages.Photographs and drawings(plan, etc.)areinadequate and print quality is not good.I was expecting a satisfying book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Architecture    3. Architecture Of Specific Structures    4. Architecture, Modern    5. Commercial Interior Design    6. Design & Drafting    7. History    8. Interior Design - General    9. Interior decoration    10. Planning    11. Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    12. Resort architecture    13. Architectural structure & design    14. Architecture / Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings    15. Environmental Engineering & Technology    16. Houses, apartments, flats, etc    17. Interior design    18. Landscape art & architecture