R4 reflects the new realities of planning carefully, spending wisely, maximizing space and building durably. Its 614 pages contain extensively revised chapters on planning; doors, windows and skylights; electrical wiring; and energy conservation. Its illustrations are crisp and informative. And its 1000+ photos were selected from more than 40,000 that the author has taken over the years. This classic work covers renovation from start to finish surfaces. Best of all, R4 is written in a down-to-earth conversational style that is clear and easy to understand. Litchfield has a sharp wit and a dry sense of humor that makes this book not only useful, but great fun to read.

    Many of us have suffered the consequences of an inflated mortgage, an unmanageable construction project, or a house simply too large to keep clean. Will our dream home always be a celebration of excess, and a drain on our lives? Some wise people buck the trend. They build, remodel, redecorate, or just rethink their needs--prudently and calmly constructing a joyful, sane life around themselves. They think, sometimes literally, outside the box, and they live close, warm, and simple, applying spiritual and social solutions to their material desires. Pockets of people all over the continent are realizing the benefits of scaling down. They are designing a new dream, one that reunites extended families, makes space for friends, and emphasizes home life over home maintenance. Little House on a Small Planet is a guidebook to this movement, and an invitation to join. Author Shay Salomon offers fourteen basic principles for the design and habitation of efficient, high-density homes. These fourteen principles outline the invisible supports of a happy home, set within the context of a future, more caring society. With floor plans, photographs, advice, and anecdotes, Little House on a Small Planet asks and answers, "What fills a home when the excess is cut away, and how do we get there from here?"

    Translated into twenty-three languages, it is one of the world's most widely read books on design. In this edition, Victor Papanek examines the attempts by designers to combat the tawdry, the unsafe, the frivolous, the useless product, once again providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible design in this world which is deficient in resources and energy.

    Sleek, legible mobility platforms are connecting people to cars, trains, buses, and bikes as never before, opening up a range of new transportation options while improving existing ones. While many large city governments, such as Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C., have begun to embrace creative forms and processes of government, most still operate under the weight of an unwieldy, risk-averse bureaucracy.With the advent of self-driving vehicles and other technological shifts upon us, Gabe Klein asks how we can close the gap between the energized, aggressive world of start-ups and the complex bureaucracies struggling to change beyond a geologic time scale. From his experience as a food-truck entrepreneur to a ZipCar executive and a city transportation commissioner, Klein’s career has focused on bridging the public-private divide, finding and celebrating shared goals, and forging better cities with more nimble, consumer-oriented bureaucracies.In Start-Up City, Klein, with David Vega-Barachowitz, demonstrates how to affect big, directional change in cities—and how to do it fast. Klein's objective is to inspire what he calls “public entrepreneurship,” a start-up-pace energy within the public sector, brought about by leveraging the immense resources at its disposal.  Klein offers guidance for cutting through the morass, and a roadmap for getting real, meaningful projects done quickly and having fun while doing it.This book is for anyone who wants to change the way we live in cities without waiting for the glacial pace of change in government.

    BUILDING CONSTRUCTION BY RANGWALA, 9789385039041

    Introducing the science of "proxemics," Hall demonstrates how man's use of space can affect personal business relations, cross-cultural exchanges, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal.

    Design drawing is drawing used during the early part of the design process for the communication of ideas - from conception through to late schematics - before the design process is closed.

    Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem.Inside, you'll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles--and why it just doesn't work. New development and high-risk investing don't generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens' quality of life.Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the "traditional" search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

    Something terrifying and utterly exhilarating... Leading dancer Anna Conolly's life is governed by one important principle: never become someone's mistress. With a successful career at the London Theatre, she has no desire to fuel society's opinion of women like her. Until a man, belonging to the same circles she has sworn to avoid, causes her world to shift. Despite his mother's insistence, finding a wife is the last thing Nathaniel Hawkins, the Duke of Yanborough wants. When his love for the performing arts leads him to the London Theater, he never expects to see his own destiny staring back at him from the center of the stage. But the odds are against them, and the future seems grim… Someone is going to great lengths not only to tear them apart but also to awaken them to reality. For their greatest enemy is also the one thing they can't live without: each other.

    Hitler has just conquered Poland, but life in London continues much as it did in peacetime, albeit a little more restricted since the introduction of petrol rationing. No bombs have been dropped on the city as yet, but the population go about their daily business under the constant threat of German air raids, and a blackout remains in force at night. For Scotland Yard and the criminal fraternity, however, it is business as usual. When a pawnbroker’s assistant is wounded by a gunman wearing a gasmask, it appears to be a straightforward case of a bungled armed robbery, but as Hawker proceeds with his investigation, the more facts he uncovers the more confusing the affair becomes. A red-headed soldier, a missing gun, a dead cat, an empty violin case and a damaged violin are only a few of the threads that have to be unravelled before he can wrap up the case – with a little help from Sherlock Holmes.

    Fuller expresses what may well be his penultimate view of the human condition. Here, in a mood at once philosophical and involved, Mr. Fuller traces man's intellectual evolution and weighs his capability for survival on this magnificent craft, this Spaceship Earth, this superbly designed sphere of almost negligible dimension in the great vastness of space.Mr. Fuller is optimistic that man will survive and, through research and development and increased industrialization, generate wealth so rapidly that he can do very great things. But, he notes, there must be an enormous educational task successfully accomplished right now to convert man's tendency toward oblivion into a realization of his potential, to a universe-exploring advantage from this Spaceship Earth.It has been noted that Mr. Fuller spins ideas in clusters, and clusters of his ideas generate still other clusters. The concept spaceship earth is Mr. Fuller's, and though used by Barbara Ward as the title of a work of her own the idea was acknowledged by her there as deriving from Mr. Fuller. The brilliant syntheses of some fundamental Fuller principles given here makes of this book a microcosm of the Fuller system.

    Nearly 200 photos & drawings illustrate moats, keeps, baileys etc. Covers Caernarvon Castle, Dover Castle, Hadrian's Wall, the Tower of London etc. 199 black-&-white illustrations.PrefaceThe ancient fortresses of Babylon, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Asia Minor & GreeceFortifications of Greece & Rome, 300 to 200 BCFortifications of the Levant, Rome & Western Europe, 200 to 30 BCFortifications of the Roman Empire Byzantine fortifications from the 5th to the 10th centuryFortifications of Western Europe from the 5th to the 11th centuryRectangular keeps or donjonsByzantine & Saracen fortifications of the 12th centuryTransitional keeps of the 12th centuryFortifications & buildings of the bailey in the 11th & 12th centuriesCastles from about 1190 to 1270Siege engines & siege operations of the Middle AgesEdwardian & contemporary castlesTowns, fortified bridges & towersGatehouses & defences of the curtain during the 13th & 14th centuriesDevelopment of the tower-house16th-century fortsIndex

    Callahan, whose popular Good House Book helped environmentally-minded readers create an earth-friendly home, have returned with a photo-packed, amazingly complete, start-to-finish guide to "green" housebuilding.This absolutely groundbreaking manual doesn't just talk about eco-friendly building techniques, but actually shows every step! More than 1,200 close-up photographs, along with in-depth descriptions, follow the real construction of an alternative house from site selection to the addition of final-touch interior details. Co-authors Clarke Snell and Timothy Callahan (a professional builder and contractor) provide thorough discussions of the fundamental concepts of construction, substitutes for conventional approaches, and planning a home that's not only comfortable and beautiful, but environmentally responsible. Then, they roll up their sleeves and get to work assembling a guest house that incorporates four different alternative building methods: straw bale, cob, cordwood, and modified stick frame. The images show every move: how the site is cleared, the basic structure put together, the cob wall sculpted, the bales and cordwood stacked, a living roof created, and more. Most important, the manual conveys real-world challenges and processes, and offers dozens of sidebars with invaluable advice. It's head and shoulders above all others in the field.

    He tells of the Nazi cult of the primeval German forest; the play of Christian and pagan myth in Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers; and the duel between a monumental sculptor and a feminist gadfly on the slopes of Mount Rushmore. The result is a triumphant work of history, naturalism, mythology, and art. "A work of great ambition and enormous intellectual scope...consistently provocative and revealing."--New York Times"Extraordinary...a summary cannot convey the riches of this book. It will absorb, instruct, and fascinate."--New York Review of Books

    After all, who doesn't yearn for a landscape that is as well designed as the interior of their home? In "Outside the Not So Big House," Julie and Sarah teach you everything you need to know about the design concepts essential to extending your home beyond its four walls.Lushly photographed and illustrated with vivid drawings, "Outside the Not So Big House" explores how to build pathways and journeys in your gardens; how to make the most of your site; how to use details to bring it all together. Twenty homes from across the country aptly illustrate these easy-to-grasp design ideas. Fans of Sarah's previous Not So Big books will be pleased to discover not only Julie's clear, concise prose but also a new vision for creating home.