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It is basically all pictures and drawings -- very little narative. It has a ton of drawings to help make its points. The book provides extensive detail about the architectural detail of a TRADITIONAL house. It will not help much with a contemporary house.
The book is mainly illustrations of the various ways (right and wrong) to change your home without the use of an achitect. Remodelling made easy with this visual book. I worked out some details on a remodel alongside my contractor using this great resource.
This book is easy to read and it presents clear and useful solutions to the mistakes that many applicates and their architects seem to want to make. This book is a reasonable articulate resource that alows an applicant to see the problems he/she might be having with a design. I have gotten copies for all of the Commissioners and I am working with the Library system to make sure all of our libraries have a copy. A local Architect recommended that I get a copy of this book. I am staff to the local historic zoning commission and always can use assistance explaining architectural concepts to applicants.
The language is simple and clear. While the focus is residential the principles can be applied to all types of buildings. A lot of work went into this book. What you get is a book that is very practical and that explains in great detail the dos and don't of design. Highly recommended. The overall presentation and layout is friendly and easy to the eye. The illustrations are very effective and easy to understand.
Hopefully, Ms. Most of them are NOT CAD drawings, but honest-to-goodness pencil illustrations, which all have a definite artistic flair to them.The premise is simple: the Greeks and Romans got it right, and modern home designers try to ape their aesthetic without doing the requisite homework make awful looking houses. I hope it does, so she can focus all of her energies toward the classicist movement. That's the downside--you're an instant architectural snob after one read.
I bought this book about a month or so ago. Cusato and her classicist colleagues can put the last few nails in that coffin. I'd sure love to hire her to design my next home (if I could ever afford her now).The modern architectural ethic of the last century, emphasizing a lack of details, machinelike designs, and a material driven ethos (steel, glass, and concrete) is absolutely put to shame by the Greek and Roman orders of proportion, balance, and detail. I have read through it once.
But the upside is that when it is time to YOU to buy or build, you'll know precisely what to look for and what to avoid.Marianne Cusato has proven her genius with the "Katrina Cottage" design, which will probably set her for life financially. I could live the rest of my life quite well without having to view another gawd-awful building that looks like it was designed by Fisher Price.This book is a masterpiece. While I will skim it again, from time to time, I'll be keeping it as an irreplaceable reference manual for home design or purchase.The illustrations are gorgeous and pure genius. Once you read this book, you'll never be able to go into a rich new suburban development without easily being able to point out the painfully obvious design gaffes that abound.
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