How Buildings Work: The Natural Order of Architecture

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How Buildings Work: The Natural Order of Architecture Details

Review "In clear and lucid prose--accompanied by delightful drawings--Ed Allen explains the intricacies of building performance and construction. This new edition of a classic guide will prove of interest to both students of architecture and lay persons alike." --Witold Rybczynski, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Architecture and author of The Perfect HouseAcclaim for previous editions: "Whether you're an armchair architect or are planning to design and build your own home, this book helps you grasp the basic concepts." --Popular Science"With its homespun drawings and offerings of architectural wisdom for lay readers, this book is like a Whole Earth Catalog building course.... By focusing primarily on housing, Allen lets readers clearly understand everything from lighting, comfort, and quiet to the basics of making a sturdy structure." --Library Journal"Well written, attractively illustrated with line drawings, and handsomely put together." --AIA Journal"With simple explanations and over 300 illustrations, Allen defines the true functions of buildings and gives advice on how to create a structure that will satisfy all your needs." --House Beautiful Building Manual"Explains in clear, non-technical language and by ingenious pictures, what buildings do and how they do it." --What's New in Building Read more From the Back Cover Illustrated throughout with several hundred clear, sometimes whimsical line drawings, more than half of them from the author's own hand, this easy-to-read work reveals virtually every secret of a building's function: how it stands up, keeps its occupants safe and comfortable, gets built, grows old, and dies - and why some buildings do this so much better than others. Read more See all Editorial Reviews

Reviews

The underlying premise of this book is that architecture is an imitation and application of the principles of nature. To build is not merely to impose our will on nature. It is to cooperate with nature.Shelter is a natural human need. Building is the art of meeting that need. It does so, according to Allen, by following the example of nature herself and applying her principles. An organic analogy runs through the book. Buildings live and breathe. A building, like a human body, is matter so arranged that it interacts dynamically with its environment and thus perpetuates the arrangement. Buildings, however, are highly dependent on human beings, whom they serve. The parts of buildings, e.g., the roofs, walls, windows and mechanical systems must work together with the other parts in such a way as to "survive" but most importantly to provide optimal human shelter. Buildings that outlive their usefulness "die."My favorite passage from the book is a section entitled "People as the Measure" (pp. 169-171). Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the history of architecture, Allen explains how "people literally became the measure of buildings." For example, the brick... was standardized in medieval times within a range of sizes and weights that could be easily manipulated by the left hand of the mason, leaving the right hand free to operate the trowel." Allen cautions against bulk materials manipulated by machines instead of people: "[T]he finished product will not automatically display the human-scale texture that hand-sized components have and that occupants often subconsciously identify with."This book was very educational for me, a Ph.D. in philosophy who has left academia to help run a construction business. I highly recommend it to new students of architecture or engineering or anyone who has amateur interest in those fields.

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