Many homes across America have designs based on plans taken from pattern books or mail-order catalogs. In Houses from Books, Daniel D. Reiff traces the history of published plans and offers the first comprehensive survey of their influence on the structure and the style of American houses from 1738 to 1950. Houses from Books shows that architectural publications, from Palladio&’s I Quattro Libri to Aladdin's Readi-Cut Homes, played a decisive role in every aspect of American domestic building. Reiff discusses the people and the firms who produced the books as well as the ways in which builders and architects adapted the designs in communities throughout the country. His book also offers a wide-ranging analysis of the economic and social conditions shaping American building practices. As architectural publication developed and grew more sophisticated, it played an increasingly prominent part in the design and the construction of domestic buildings. In villages and small towns, which often did not have professional architects, the publications became basic resources for carpenters and builders at all levels of expertise. Through the use of published designs, they were able to choose among a variety of plans, styles, and individual motifs and engage in a fruitful dialogue with past and present architects. Houses from Books reconstructs this dialogue by examining the links between the published designs and the houses themselves. Reiff&’s book will be indispensable to architectural historians, architects, preservationists, and regional historians. Realtors and homeowners will also find it of great interest. A catalog at the end of the book can function as a guide for those attempting to locate a model and a date for a particular design. Houses from Books contains a wealth of photographs, many by the author, that enhance its importance as a history and guide.

This concise, easy-to-follow guide supplies everything needed to properly design, specify, and install mechanical components and systems in any type of building--all in a convenient outline format that provides instant access to information. Packed with easy-to-use tables, clear calculations, and nearly 200 how-to illustrations, it covers all major systems.

This textbook offers an introductory course to structural mechanics for architects, including problems and solutions. It follows a completely different approach to structural mechanics than the usual books for engineering schools, making it much more attractive for architecture students and practitioners. It also offers a different point of view for engineering students, as it provides them with a more intuitive understanding of structural mechanics and the models therein.Instead of studying the classical theory of linear elasticity and then particularizing it to simple structures, this book analyzes structures in a historic and also typological order. The book starts with cable structures and stone arches, followed by trusses and, finally, frame structures made of beams. For every typology, the latest, state-of-the-art theory in the field is introduced in a very didactic way.