The Architecture Reference & Specification Book: Everything Architects Need to Know Every Day

Its the best guide

I keep this in my desk, bag, or wherever I'm working. It saves me so much time. There have been several times I with it had more in it, but then it wouldn't be so small and hence portable, present, useful... 90% of the time I'm able to flip right to it. Time will probably come when I have many of these basic answers and standards memorized, but right now It's simply a lifesaver. It won't replace a larger book of standards, but it will save you a bunch of time and effort you would normally spend pulling a big book down and navigating a bloated index. It took me a bit to find this book, because it is the updated version of "Materials, Structures, Standards" by the same author. It's been slightly re-arranged and retitled. I'd expect the re-arranging for a new edition, but not a completely new title. I had to email the author and ask her if she was going to publish a new edition since the old ones are sold out. She pointed me in the right direction and I'm glad she did.Overall, I'm really pleased. It won't replace a more comprehensive work - it isn't meant to - but it will cover the bulk of the quick questions you should know the answers to by now but don't. Or maybe you can just hand it to your colleague that keeps pestering you with questions like, "how much clearance do I need..." and say "here, buy a copy of this book."

What architect or architectural student has not dreamed of writing his or her own quick-reference book? How many of us carry around notebooks crammed with precious bits of information, hard won from years of experience, both good and bad? This book is an excellent attempt to formalize the most important and useful of that information. It's an attractive book printed in four tones with the occasional full-color spread and a "travel guide" feel. I wouldn't call it "pocketable" unless your pockets can accommodate an iPad Mini, but it will ride along very comfortably in a pack or messenger bag.The author acknowledges the immense quantity of information architects must be prepared to wield on a daily basis. Any attempt at abridgment will invariably leave out some critical piece of information or another. This particular abridgment appears to be best suited to students of architecture, young practitioners, and related professionals such as real estate agents, facilities managers, and the like. While each section contains valuable information architects with more experience will quickly move from this book to the full resources, many of which are identified in the "compendium" section of this book (though strangely the book references old versions of some of these resources).The inclusion of several pages devoted to hand-drafting implements and methodologies, and the omission of any mention of Building Information Modeling whatsoever is perplexing, particularly for a book published in 2013, but perhaps somewhat understandable given the author's professional academic background. Still, if the author intends to argue that software are tools and that tools should be taught on the job why devote an entire chapter to AutoCAD?In the end, I'm keeping this book as a really decent resource, but I think such abridgments would be more successful if they were tailored to particular real-life job descriptions (i.e. student, job captain, project architect, etc.).

This architecture book, along with their interior design book, gave me SO MANY ideas, concepts, pitfalls, things to think about, that I couldn't put it down. I thought I knew a lot behind the engineering for designing my next house, this book showed me how wrong I was. This is not written like a story book, nor is it just a technical-numbers reference... it gives a brief (technical) overview of each concept before presenting the numbers behind each reference. If you're used to reading stories or are looking for decorating ideas, look elsewhere. But, if you've also got an engineer's brain, you will love how this reads. I read this cover-to-cover, and will probably do it again more than once during my home design process.

A wonderful basic overview of how structures are put together. Years ago I worked in the office of a general contractor on high rises in Seattle and Denver. I was curious about the stages and processes of construction and I wished I had this book then. Recent reading has taken me into architecture and history so this book is a nice addition to my library.