The organization of letters on a blank sheet -- or screen -- is the most basic challenge facing anyone who practices design. What type of font to use? How big? How should those letters, words, and paragraphs be aligned, spaced, ordered, shaped, and otherwise manipulated? In this groundbreaking new primer, leading design educator and historian Ellen Lupton provides clear and concise guidance for anyone learning or brushing up on their typographic skills. Thinking with Type is divided into three sections: letter, text, and grid. Each section begins with an easy-to-grasp essay that reviews historical, technological, and theoretical concepts, and is then followed by a set of practical exercises that bring the material covered to life. Sections conclude with examples of work by leading practitioners that demonstrate creative possibilities (along with some classic no-no's to avoid).

The classic visual guide to the basics of building construction, now with the most current information

For nearly three decades, Building Construction Illustrated has offered an outstanding introduction to the principles of building construction. This new edition of the revered classic remains as relevant as ever-providing the latest information in Francis D.K. Ching's signature style. Its rich and comprehensive approach clearly presents all of the basic concepts underlying building construction and equips readers with useful guidelines for approaching virtually any new materials or techniques they may encounter.

Laying out the material and structural choices available, it provides a full under-standing of how these choices affect a building's form and dimensions. Complete with more than 1,000 illustrations, the book moves through each of the key stages of the design process, from site selection to building components, mechanical systems, and finishes.
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Illustrated throughout with clear and accurate drawings that present the state of the art in construction processes and materials
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Updated and revised to include the latest knowledge on sustainability, incorporation of building systems, and use of new materials
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Archetypal drawings offer clear inspiration for designers and drafters
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Reflects the most current building codes and CSI Master Format numbering scheme

With its comprehensive and lucid presentation of everything from foundations and floor systems to finish work, Building Construction Illustrated, Fourth Edition equips students and professionals in all areas of architecture and construction with useful guidelines for approaching virtually any new materials or techniques they may encounter in building planning, design, and construction.

Get the expert support needed to comply efficiently, avoid violations, and keep electrical installations on track with the National Electrical Code® in this exclusive NEC® 2008 Handbook from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Only the handbook offers the full NEC® 2008 text alongside expert commentary from code specialists, offering insight into code rationale, explanations of new and revised rules, and practical, hands-on advice on how to apply the code. A valuable resource for anyone involved in electrical design, installation, inspection, and safety, this book will give users the knowledge needed to feel confident that their work will be safe, efficient, and code-compliant. Delmar, a part of Cengage Learning is pleased to make this one-of-a-kind reference - containing the most widely accepted and most frequently used criteria for electrical installations in the U.S. - available directly from us for our customers who work in and around the electrical trades. It may be used independently and also makes an excellent companion to books in Delmar’s best-selling electrical wiring series.

2008 Silver Award Winner, Architecture Category, Independent Publisher Book Awards. and Winning entry, General Trade Illustrated Category, in the 2008 New England Book Show sponsored by Bookbuilders of Boston.

This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom. These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation—from the basics of How to Draw a Line to the complexities of color theory—provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum. Each lesson utilizes a two-page format, with a brief explanation and an illustration that can range from diagrammatic to whimsical. The lesson on How to Draw a Line is illustrated by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on the dangers of awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a drawing of a building split neatly in half between the two. Written by an architect and instructor who remembers well the fog of his own student days, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School provides valuable guideposts for navigating the design studio and other classes in the architecture curriculum. Architecture graduates—from young designers to experienced practitioners—will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem.

SOFTCOVER VERSION: Featuring time-tested safety concepts and the very latest industry standards in material design, the 2009 International Building Code® offers up-to-date, comprehensive insight into the regulations surrounding the design and installation of building systems. It provides valuable structural, fire-, and life- safety provisions that cover means of egress, interior finish requirements, roofs, seismic engineering, innovative construction technology, and occupancy classifications. This content is developed in the context of the broad-based principles that facilitate the use of new materials and building designs, making this an indispensable reference guide for anyone seeking a strong working knowledge of building systems.

This comprehensive code for homebuilding combines building, plumbing, mechanical, fuel gas, energy, and electrical provisions into a single resource. The 2009 International Residential Code® For One- and Two- Family Dwellings uses these provisions to provide detailed insight into the construction of one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses up to three stories high. Using foundational principles that facilitate the use of new materials and building designs to guide the content, this reference guide also establishes minimum regulations using prescriptive provisions.

Michael Pollan’s unmatched ability to draw lines of connection between our everyday experiences— whether eating, gardening, or building—and the natural world has been the basis for the popular success of his many works of nonfiction, including the genre-defining bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. With this updated edition of his earlier book A Place of My Own, readers can revisit the inspired, intelligent, and often hilarious story of Pollan’s realization of a room of his own—a small, wooden hut, his “shelter for daydreams”—built with his admittedly unhandy hands. Inspired by both Thoreau and Mr. Blandings, A Place of My Own not only works to convey the history and meaning of all human building, it also marks the connections between our bodies, our minds, and the natural world.

Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments. Jane Jacobs, an editor and writer on architecture in New York City in the early sixties, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. The author has written a new foreword for this Modern Library edition.

Google SketchUp for Site Design illustrates a holistic approach to SketchUp: how it works and more importantly, what to do with it.

Filled with tutorials from front to back, the book focuses on the start and completion of projects that include rich detail and expression. Each part and chapter of the book builds on the previous chapters and tutorial.

You will learn how to approach modeling site plans, buildings and site elements: from modeling each of these exterior environment elements to piecing them together to generate a singular and expressive model.

The book culminates with tutorials demonstrating effective and simple ways to include grades and terrain using the Sandbox tools and how best to integrate the entire approach with AutoCAD and SketchUp.

Also included are links to supplemental on-line resources such as YouTube tutorials and free tutorial and example models from 3D Warehouse.

The book is useful for all SketchUp proficiency levels including beginners, hobbyists, and professionals.

Brilliant....Here's how to design or redesign any space you're living or working in--from metropolis to room. Consider what you want to happen in the space, and then page through this book. Its radically conservative observations will spark, enhance, organize your best ideas, and a wondrous home, workplace, town will result--San Francisco Chronicle. A handbook designed for the layman which aims to present a language which people can use to express themselves in their own communities or homes, and to better communicate with each other.