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Rating: 
Summary: A Shelter Sketchbook
Review: I came across this book while assembling reference material for planning a treehouse at the cottage. While most of the books I was looking at were hands-on/how-to type, I found this book interesting, and there are a few ideas in the book I can definitely use. At first glance, the book has, as the title implies, just a bunch of sketches - each page has four or five architectual details and hand-written notes explaining or referencing the drawing. Despite the rough-draft appearance, though, there is a lot of organizing of the 600+ drawings, and they obviously draw on a wealth of structure details. Examples range from villas in ancient Greece, Japanese houses, African huts, Aztec dwellings, to the current UNESCO headquarters in Paris and modern Frank Lloyd Wright homes. The book is arranged in three sections: protection (from sun, wind, cold, water); accomodating human needs (sleeping, cooking, eating, sitting, etc.); and structural elements themselves (roofs, doors, windows). Each section draws on examples from all parts of the world, and much of history, to show how, in many cases, simple solutions from 'simple' people, and even animals, solve basic living problems, and I found it quite interesting how different cultures at different times came up with similar solutions to such things as drainage, ventilation, etc. I found the ideas in this book useful for my treehouse project because I wanted simple construction, low cost, and flexibility, and the concepts in the book, being drawn as they were from basic construction principles, quite practical. This book would likely be of interest to several groups of readers: those studying architecture (there is an extensive bibliography), those building or designing energy-efficient homes (it is somewhat humbling to see so many concepts that we may think are new and radical, that natives somewhere have been doing for centuries!), or just for general interest (the book explains such things as roof angles on saltbox houses, cupolas, etc.)
Rating: 
Summary: Ideas and ideas that have worked
Review: The book was recommended to me as a sourse for a shade problem I have with my house. I live on the West Coast in California's Central Valley. Our house is in the middle of a large pasture. We have NO shade. The trees we have planted will not have any shade value for many years. The West side of the house bakes in the summer. What I wanted was a solution to my problem. An aesthetic design and technical information on shading our house with structures, vegetative, and or fabric (pictures, line drawing, Etc.What the book provided was many ideas for what I wanted not the solution. I am happy with the book and will use it for many projects. I enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures.
Rating:
Summary: Ideas and ideas that have worked
Review: The book was recommended to me as a sourse for a shade problem I have with my house. I live on the West Coast in California's Central Valley. Our house is in the middle of a large pasture. We have NO shade. The trees we have planted will not have any shade value for many years. The West side of the house bakes in the summer. What I wanted was a solution to my problem. An aesthetic design and technical information on shading our house with structures, vegetative, and or fabric (pictures, line drawing, Etc. What the book provided was many ideas for what I wanted not the solution. I am happy with the book and will use it for many projects. I enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures.
Rating:
Summary: A little bit of every other book.
Review: This book seems to have sketches of just about everything to do with Shelter. I have seen most of these pictures in full colour
at one time or another after having read lots of other books on architecture, but it is quite nice to have them all sorted out in
one book, each with a short description.
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