Architects Dictionaries and Reference Books

Welcome to the Boulder Creek Bookstore's catalog page for architects books.
The following list of books were carefully selected by our research staff for architects, engineers, designers, contractors,
builders, and do-it-yourselfers.
These books were selected because their text material is clearly written, easy to follow, and usually are accompanied with
instructive photographs and detailed illustrations. And that if followed closely, the reader should acquire the necessary
knowledge to perform the work required to complete a successful project.
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Architects Reference Books

- Architects' Data
~Usually Ships Within 24 Hours
- -Ernst Neufert, Peter Neufert, Bousmaha Baiche, Nicholas Walliman
This comprehensive book is an essential aid in the initial design and planning of a project. The relevant building type
is located by a comprehensive index and cross reference system. A condensed commentary covers user requirements,
planning criteria, basic dimensions, and other considerations of function, siting, aspect, and more.
A system of references based on an extensive bibliography supports the text.
Click on the book title to read more about this book.
- Dictionary of Architecture and Construction
~Usually Ships Within 24 Hours
- -Cyril M. Harris / Hardcover 1040 pages, 4th Edition / Published August 2005
This massive comprehensive compendium by a renowned architectural editor and 50 expert contributors features over 2300 line drawings and clear, concise definitions of more than 26,000 important architecture and construction terms.
The most definitive reference in the field, Cyril M. Harris's Dictionary of architecture and Construction brings you the broadest possible coverage of the language of architecture and building construction.
Special care has been taken to include the latest terms in legal areas, technologies, techniques, materials, organizations, historic architectural styles, and architectural trends.
Click on the book title to read more.
- History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals
~Usually Ships Within 24 Hours
- -Spiro Kostof, Greg Castillo / Paperback, 816 pages, 2nd Edition / Published April 1995
This comprehensive work examines an inclusive spectrum of manmade structures: prehistoric huts, the pyramids at Giza, the Rome railway station, the ziggurat and the modern department store. Indeed, Kostof considered every building worthy of attention,
every structure or shelter a potential source of insight, whether it be the prehistoric hunting camps at Terra Amata, or the caves at Lascaux with their magnificent paintings, or a twenty-story hotel on the Las Vegas strip.
This Second Edition
features a new concluding chapter, "Designing the Fin-de-Siecle," based on Kostof's last lecture notes and prepared by Castillo, as well as an all-new sixteen-page color section. Many of the original line drawings by Richard Tobias, as well as some fifty photographs,
have also been updated or replaced, for improved clarity.
Click on the book cover or title to read more.
- Why Buildings Stand up: The Strength of Architecture
~Usually Ships Within 24 Hours
- -Mario G. Salvadori, Saralinda Hooker (Illustrator), Christopher Ragus (Illustrator)
Paperback, 323 pages / Published November 1990
This book is an excellent introdution to architecture and the design of building. The author gives a historical overview
of architecture by examining important structures and their significance both technically and socially. The technical
information is delivered in a clear and easyly understood manner.
Here is a clear and enthusiastic introduction to building methods from ancient times to the present day, the revolution in technology,
materials, and structures. and the recent advances in science and technology that have had important effects on the planning and
construction of buildings.
Explainations cover the use of improved materials by the introduction of steel, concrete, and plastics, progress in antiseismic
designs, and the revolutionary changes in both architectural and structural design made possible by the computer.
Click on the book cover or title to read more.
- Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail
~Usually Ships Within 24 Hours
- -Matthys Levy, Mario Salvadori, Kevin Woest (Illustrator), With Mario G. Salvadori
Paperback, 334 pages / Published June 1994
While modern technologies, computerized designs, and new materials have minimized structural failures nearly to the
vanishing point, it is important for architects to understand how not to design structures. This important book chronicles
and provides an instructive examination as to the how and why of the most important and interesting structural failures in
history and especially in the twentieth century.
The authors, both world-renowned structural engineers, take the reader on a guided tour describing structural failures
in a variety of structures such as buildings, bridges, and dams. Including a variety of buildings, from ancient domes
like Istanbul's Hagia Sophia to the state of the art Hartford Civic Arena, from the man-caused destruction of the Parthenon
to the earthquake damage of 1989 in Armenia and San Francisco, the Connecticut Thruway bridge collapse at Mianus, and
one of the most fatal structural disasters in American history: the fall of the Hyatt Regency ballroom walkways in Kansas City.
Black-and-white illustrations point out key structural points of building that have failed (as well as illustrations
of the basic laws of physics), providing a professional look at these disasters, with a focus on these building failures.
Buildings have fallen throughout history whether made of wood, steel, reinforced concrete, or stone. These building failures all
respect the laws of physics. All are the result of static load or dynamic forces, human error, earthquakes, temperature changes,
uneven settlements of the soil, or other unforeseen forces. A few are even due to natural phenomena that engineers and
scientists are still unable to explain or predict. The stories that make up Why Buildings Fall Down are, finally, very
human ones, with tales of the interaction of people and nature, of architects, engineers, builders, materials, and natural forces.
Click on the book title to read more.
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This page last updated July 24, 2007.