Rating: 
Summary: Lots of Hay, but Very Few Needles
Review: Once again the editors of Graphic Standards have promised a useful reference for architects, and have fallen way short. In architecture school (1972), I purchased the sixth edition and found it better than most reference books for students of architecture. However, even then I noticed many sections of questionable value. Pages and pages of dimensions of designer furniture and kitchenware fall into this category.Recently, after practicing architecture for 20 years, I was suckered back by publisher Wiley's siren song of how the new tenth edition is new, informative, refreshing, up to date, etc. Fooled again. Sure, the Graphic Standards is a fair source of information, but I question the editors' judgement as to what is worth publishing between the wonderfully bound front and rear cover. For example, look up "R-value" in the index and you are directed to 55 words on page 486 how R-value relates to windows and that it's the inverse of U-values. Nothing on the R-value of all exterior skin construction materials or how the R-value relates poorly to thermal massing materials. These things should be very important to architects and are disappointingly absent from the Graphic Standards. However, if you ever need to know what a Zamboni looks like, or need to know the dimensions required for a rodeo barrel race, this is your book! Want an entire page showing ten pieces of gymnastics equipment (pg. 777) or how to draw an ellipse using pen or pencil (pg.999)? Seek no more. Twenty four pages of kitchen utensils and garden tools are still there. This is the best place to find loads of pages of barely useful information of dubious worth. Once the editors of Graphic Standards discover that a meaningful discussion on R-values in building materials deserves more space than the dimensions of a belt sander, then I might reconsider purchasing a later edition, but I won't hold my breath. Oh, one more thing, for you architects out there working on a Macintosh platform, the accompanying CD-ROM is useless.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Hay, but Very Few Needles
Review: Once again the editors of Graphic Standards have promised a useful reference for architects, and have fallen way short. In architecture school (1972), I purchased the sixth edition and found it better than most reference books for students of architecture. However, even then I noticed many sections of questionable value. Pages and pages of dimensions of designer furniture and kitchenware fall into this category. Recently, after practicing architecture for 20 years, I was suckered back by publisher Wiley's siren song of how the new tenth edition is new, informative, refreshing, up to date, etc. Fooled again. Sure, the Graphic Standards is a fair source of information, but I question the editors' judgement as to what is worth publishing between the wonderfully bound front and rear cover. For example, look up "R-value" in the index and you are directed to 55 words on page 486 how R-value relates to windows and that it's the inverse of U-values. Nothing on the R-value of all exterior skin construction materials or how the R-value relates poorly to thermal massing materials. These things should be very important to architects and are disappointingly absent from the Graphic Standards. However, if you ever need to know what a Zamboni looks like, or need to know the dimensions required for a rodeo barrel race, this is your book! Want an entire page showing ten pieces of gymnastics equipment (pg. 777) or how to draw an ellipse using pen or pencil (pg.999)? Seek no more. Twenty four pages of kitchen utensils and garden tools are still there. This is the best place to find loads of pages of barely useful information of dubious worth. Once the editors of Graphic Standards discover that a meaningful discussion on R-values in building materials deserves more space than the dimensions of a belt sander, then I might reconsider purchasing a later edition, but I won't hold my breath. Oh, one more thing, for you architects out there working on a Macintosh platform, the accompanying CD-ROM is useless.
Rating: 
Summary: Architectural Graphic Standards 1932 Edition
Review: The book is fine. ()It only contains standards from 1932.This book is not very usefull to anyone building to current standards.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed from Texas
Review: The early editions of this book are must-haves for architects. Much of the information, especially residential details, is relevant today. As a literal graphic standard, this work presents visual information that was the genesis of modern professional working drawings. The clarity and richness of information as presented here can stand up in as well as inform today's CADD environment. One note: With a little effort, you can find an original(2nd or 3rd)edition in good condition for less than the cost of this reprint.The first three editions contain nearly identical information.
Rating: 
Summary: Every Architect Needs a Copy
Review: The early editions of this book are must-haves for architects. Much of the information, especially residential details, is relevant today. As a literal graphic standard, this work presents visual information that was the genesis of modern professional working drawings. The clarity and richness of information as presented here can stand up in as well as inform today's CADD environment. One note: With a little effort, you can find an original(2nd or 3rd)edition in good condition for less than the cost of this reprint.The first three editions contain nearly identical information.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent all around quick reference
Review: This affordable Architectural Graphic Standards reference has a great index and offered all of the details that I sought over a couple of months as a junior in a five year professional architecture program. It is compact, as complete as one would need for a quick reference, and it seems to have all of the normal standards required in school and at work, too.
Rating:
Summary: An Architect's Best Friend
Review: This book is one of the best reference books an architect will ever use. It contains the necessary information for the beginning and advanced architect. Inside the 568 pages in this book one will find from the most basic to the highly complex architectural graphics. The book provides reference for the various arcchitectural plans such as the floor plan, elevation and perspective drawings. No other reference material can surpass the amount of information provided in this excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Valued Possession
Review: This book is reviewed in The Earth Times, issue of Dec. 1-31, 1999, by Louis Silverstein, executive editor of the publication, who calls the 1953 edition the book he values more than any other in his possession. "If you need to build a home or a small city from scratch ... there is one one book of instruction you would need."
Rating:
Summary: great! but not acceptable price wise
Review: This is a great source but something should be done about it's cost. It is absolutely a must have for all architects but the price is something one hesitates about.
Rating:
Summary: A 1932 Heirloom copy of 1st edition, NOT A CURRENT BOOK!
Review: This text is a coffee-table book or a teaching library text, suitable for impressing novices to architecture how things were actually drawn to be built in 1932. It has no current value, unless one is renovating a building of that era. No code or other standards are included.
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