Visual Notes for Architects and Designers

Visual Notes for Architects and Designers
by Norman Crowe, Paul Laseau

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Book Description
The completely updated step-by-step guide to capturing experiences in sketch format regardless of artistic ability.

Recording your ideas and observations primarily in pictures instead of words can help you become more creative and constructive on the job, no matter what your level of artistic ability. Featuring completely new coverage of visual note-taking in a digital world, Visual Notes for Architects and Designers, Second Edition demonstrates how to make rapid, notational sketches that serve as visual records for future reference, as well as improve understanding and facilitate the development of ideas. It shows you how to expand your knowledge of a subject beyond what is gained through observation or verbal representation alone. You gain access to simple techniques for collecting, analyzing, and applying information. Crowe and Laseau examine the relationship between note-taking, visualization, and creativity. They give practical guidance on how to develop:

• Visual acuity -- the ability to see more in what you experience
• Visual literacy -- expressing yourself clearly and accurately with sketches
• Graphic analysis -- using sketches to analyze observations

Numerous examples demonstrate some of the many uses of visual notes. They help you develop a keener awareness of environments, solve design problems, and even get more out of lectures and presentations. The authors also discuss types of notebooks suitable for taking visual notes. If you want to develop your perceptual and creative skills to their utmost, you will want to follow the strategies outlined in Visual Notes for Architects and Designers, Second Edition. It is a valuable guide for architects, landscape architects, designers, and anyone interested in recording experience in sketch form.

About the Author
Norman A. Crowe is Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame's School of Architecture and author of Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World.

Paul Laseau is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Ball State University. He has twenty-five years' experience teaching freehand sketching and design drawing, and is author of several books related to visual communication.

The Sustainable Sites Handbook

The Sustainable Sites Handbook
by Meg Calkins

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Book Description
The Sustainable Sites InitiativeTM (SITESTM) is transforming land design, development, and management practices across the United States with the first national rating system for sustainable landscapes. The Sustainable Sites Handbook features comprehensive and detailed information on principles, strategies, technologies, tools, and best practices for sustainable site design. Contributors to this book are some of the same experts that carefully shaped the SITES rating tool, ensuring thorough coverage of the broad range of topics related to sustainable site design.

The Sustainable Sites Handbook offers in-depth coverage of design, construction, and management for systems of hydrology, vegetation, soils, materials, and human health and well-being. Focusing primarily on environmental site design and ecosystem services, this wide-ranging guide also covers issues of social equity, economic feasibility, and stewardship, which are crucial to the success of any sustainable site.

Equally useful as a handbook for obtaining SITES credits or for the independent development of sustainable sites, The Sustainable Sites Handbook is an indispensible resource for practicing professionals in landscape architecture, landscape design, architecture, civil engineering, land planning, horticulture, ecology, environmental engineering, landscape contracting, and parks and recreation management.

About the Author
MEG CALKINS, ASLA, LEED AP, is?an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Ball State University. As an officer of ASLA's Sustainable Development Professional Practice Network, Meg was part of a small team that approached ASLA about forming the effort that eventually grew into the Sustainable Sites Initiative.? Today, Meg is a member of the SITES Technical Core Committee. She served for many years on the LEED Sustainable Sites Technical Advisory Group. Meg is the author of Materials for Sustainable Sites and is an editorial advisory board member of and contributor to Landscape Architecture Graphic Standards, both published by Wiley. She holds master's degrees in both landscape architecture and architecture from the University of California at Berkeley.

The Professional Practice of Architectural Working Drawings

The Professional Practice of Architectural Working Drawings
by Osamu A. Wakita, Richard M. Linde, Nagy R. Bakhoum

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Book Description
The past decade has produced enormous changes in both the technology and standards applied to the practice of architectural working drawings. Computer-aided drafting (CAD) has changed the graphic way in which working drawings are produced, while the function of government agencies has been altered dramatically by the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as other less comprehensive legislation. This revised and expanded edition of Wakita's and Linde's classic reference is fully updated and includes more than 300 new illustrations both photos and line drawings prepared by the authors especially for this edition. Also new is a case study used to illustrate the creation of a set of working drawings, sheet by sheet, and an entire chapter on tenant improvement, a growing segment of many architects' practices.

Still the only book that provides in one elegant and beautifully illustrated volume, the full range of skills, concepts and principles, and practical applications that are the hallmarks of a first-rate reference book, The Professional Practice of Architectural Working Drawings, Second Edition, emphasizes, throughout, the importance of communicating general design concepts through specific working drawings. Chapters proceed logically through each stage of development, beginning with site plans and foundation plans and progressing through to elevations, building sections, and other drawings.

The book's final chapters consist of five case studies of actual construction projects: a simple wood residence, a mountain cabin, a beach house, a steel and masonry theatre, and an office park. Stages of development and construction of each building are fully documented, with photographs supplementing and providing comparisons with the working drawings.

Elegant, practical, and comprehensive, the ultimatehandbook for architects is now revised and updated for the 1990s and beyond.

The Professional Practice of Architectural Working Drawings speaks to architects in a language they understand, the visual language in which design concepts are communicated through specific graphic representations. It provides step-by-step guidance for the development of an entire set of working drawings and, in five case studies of actual building projects, documents each stage of development and construction.

This Second Edition is revised and updated to cover significant changes in code procedures and emphasizes the technical information used as a basis for creating working drawings either manually or by CAD. True to its topic, this book features a masterful visual program of drawings and photos that are sure to please the most sensitive visual palate. It also provides: New sections on codes, procedures, and government agencies, including important coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act An entire new chapter on tenant improvements Case studies of actual building projects that deal with different building materials, different regional requirements, and different sorts of terrain; working drawings are compared with actual construction photos, including aerial photos A new case study that demonstrates, step-by-step, the evolution of an entire set of working drawings Over 900 outstanding drawings and photo illustrations, more than 300 of which are new to this edition

About the Author
OSAMU A. WAKITA is Professor of Architecture and Department Chair of Architecture at Los Angeles Harbor College. He has been involved in architectural education since 1958. He is the recipient of the California Council of the American Institute of Architects' prestigious Outstanding Architectural Educators Award and is listed in the Council Generals Reference as one of the leading authorities in perspective drawing. He also designs a number of custom residences each year.

RICHARD M. LINDE, AIA, is a licensed architect in California, Arizona, and Hawaii, and President of his own architectural firm, Richard M. Linde & Associates, Inc. Mr. Linde has provided architectural services internationally and in the various states in which he is licensed to practice. He is an authority on industrialized housing and is a former president of the American Institute of Architects, Cabrillo Chapter. Mr. Linde is the coauthor of The Professional Handbook of Architectural Detailing.

Green Building: Project Planning and Cost Estimating

Green Building
by R. S. Means

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Book Description
Green building is no longer a trend. Since the publication of the widely read first edition of this book, green building has become a major advancement in design and construction. Building codes and standards have adopted much stricter energy efficiencies. Businesses, institutions, and communities have discovered huge savings, along with health and marketing advantages, in sustainable building. Private facilities, as well as public buildings for Federal, state, and local governments are increasingly required to design and build sustainably in both new construction and renovation.

This Third Edition has been updated with the latest in green building technologies, design concepts, standards, and costs. The chapters, case studies, and resources give you practical guidance on green building, including the latest on:

• Green building approaches, materials, rating systems, standards, and guidelines
• Energy efficiencies, implementing energy modeling tools
• Designing and specifying, as well as commissioning, green building projects
• Often-specified products and materials, as well as a sample spec
• Goals and techniques for health, comfort, and productivity
• Evaluating the cost versus value of green products over their life cycle
• Low-cost green strategies, and special economic incentives and funding
• Building deconstruction and cost considerations

With a new chapter on greening of commercial real estate, this reference is a one-stop resource for the latest in green building approaches and implementation.

The contributors, all prominent leaders in green building, include:

• Mark Kalin, FAIA, FCSI, author of the original GreenSpec
• Andy Walker, Ph.D., PE, senior engineer with NREL
• Joseph Macaluso, AACE, certified cost consultant

About the Author
RSMeans is North America's leading supplier of construction cost information. A product line of Reed Construction Data, RSMeans provides accurate and up-to-date cost information that helps owners, developers, architects, engineers, contractors, and others to carefully and precisely project and control the cost of both new building construction and renovation projects. In addition to its collection of annual construction cost data books, RSMeans also offers construction estimating and facilities management seminars, electronic cost databases and software, reference books, and consulting services.

Sustainable Renovation for Commercial Building Systems

Sustainable Renovation
by Lisa Gelfand, Chris Duncan

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Book Description
The complete resource on performing sustainable renovations for both Historic and modern existing buildings.

This forward-looking and insightful guide explores how the sustainable renovation of existing buildings presents great opportunities for initiating extensive changes in the performance of the built environment. Great examples of existing building upgrades are examined, illustrating how to do sustainable renovations, along with current design approaches for radically improving the functionality of existing prewar, postwar, and late modern buildings. Sustainable Renovation saves its key focus for institutional and commercial buildings, but discusses the challenges they pose within a global scope that encompasses all building practices. Some of the discussions in this book include:

• The significance of energy and resource demands by the building sector and the urgency of reducing loads in existing buildings
• Management, design, and construction approaches to achieve major modernization in occupied buildings
• International case studies that focus on methods and benefits of successful sustainable transformations of existing building performance

Repurposing buildings to preserve style and add performance remains a work in progress as designers and builders discover new methods for improving sustainable practices and standards. With incremental modernization and operations strategies available for immediate implementation, this book demonstrates the different ways of thinking necessary when considering and attempting the integration of sustainable concepts into existing buildings and enables readers to rethink the world that's built around them.

About the Author
Lisa Gelfand, FAIA, LEED-AP, one of the preeminent experts in green design and construction, is Managing Principal of Gelfand Partners Architects (gelfand-partners.com) in San Francisco. With more than three decades of experience, Gelfand has been involved in all aspects of a project, including project management, design, planning, marketing, and staff management. Her firm has designed many award-winning sustainable buildings and renovations.

Chris Duncan, AIA, LEED-AP, has two decades of experience and is a principal and senior staff manager at Gelfand Partners Architects. Duncan has managed project teams through all phases of design and construction. He has special expertise in educational and residential design, particularly the modernization of early twentieth-century buildings. He is also involved in a variety of community and professional service projects.