It was the American Dream by Mail Order —Smithsonian Americans have ordered from Sears, Roebuck just about everything they have needed for their homes for 100 years—but from 1908 to 1940, some 100,000 people also purchased their houses from this mail-order wizard. Sears ready-to-assemble houses were ordered by mail and shipped by rail wherever a boxcar or two could pull in to unload the meticulously precut lumber and all the materials needed to build an exceptionally sturdy and well-designed house. From Philadelphia, Pa., to Coldwater, Kans., and Cowley, Wyo., Sears put its guarantee on quality bungalows, colonials and Cape Cods, all with the latest modern conveniences—such as indoor plumbing. Houses by Mail tells the story of these precut houses and provides for the first time an incomparable guide to identifying Sears houses across the country. Arranged for easy identification in 15 sections by roof type, the book features nearly 450 house models with more than 800 illustrations, including drawings of the houses and floor plans. Because the Sears houses were built to last, thousands remain today to be discovered and restored. Houses by Mail shows how to return them to their original charm while it documents a highly successful business enterprise that embodied the spirit and domestic design of its time. "After decades of obscurity, Sears houses have become chic." —Wall Street Journal "These were … spacious, solidly built homes." —Parade "Don’t be surprised if your own cozy bungalow turns up [in the book]."—Philadelphia Inquirer "A nostalgic and informative look at the tastes of Americans in the years before World War II."—Publishers Weekly "The bible to researchers of Sears’ ready-cut homes."—Saturday Evening Post

Australia has wildly differing topographies and climates, and its best residential architecture draws on those site conditions in inventive ways. This book illustrates the strength of the country's shift from British-influenced Georgian-style homes to more indigenous structures attuned to the land-a movement led by Australian architects such as Glenn Murcutt, Richard Leplastrier, and Gabriel Poole in the 1970s. Witness a range of new houses that grapple with the locales in which they are built. Up north, down south, and on the coast, from small and low-budget to multimillion-dollar dwellings, the focus is on the use of raw materials, energy efficiency, adaptable spaces, and embrace of the great outdoors for which the country is known. Drawings and interviews with the architects shed light on how they apply their intelligence and creativity to produce striking buildings that are uniquely Australian.

In countless neighborhoods across America, the streets are lined with houses representing
no established architectural style. Many of the 80 million homes in the United States
today have only loose-fitting, general names like ranch, duplex, bungalow, and flat.
Most, however, cannot even be identified by these common names, much less by an
architectural type such as Colonial, Italianate, or Queen Anne. The few regionally
recognized vernacular terms-- shotgun, Cape (Cod), three-decker, and the like--remain
exceptions rather than the rule. In this innovative, copiously illustrated guide, Thomas C.
Hubka considers why most ordinary, working-class houses lack an adequate identifying
nomenclature and proposes new ways to name and classify these anonymous structures,
shedding a fresh light on their role in the development of American domestic culture and
its housing landscape.
Popular, developer-built, tract, speculative, everyday--whatever they are called,
these common homes constitute the largest portion of American housing in all regions
and historic periods. Without classification, these dwellings tend to be left out of histories
of American building, neglected in preservation surveys and plans, and ignored when it
comes to considering their impact on American culture. Current methods of interpreting
common houses need not be replaced, Hubka shows, but only modified to include a
broader, more complete spectrum of common dwellings. As Hubka explains, by applying
an order of census and a floor-plan analysis, scholars can adequately characterize
the actual homes in which most Americans live, particularly in recent times after the
widespread growth of suburban homes.
Based on years of field observations, measured drawings, and surveys of regional
house types, this handbook provides a working vocabulary for the study and appreciation
of America¹s common houses and will prove useful to preservationists, academics, and
architects, as well as owners and residents of America¹s most ubiquitous residences.

Both professionals and students are increasingly committed to achieving high-performance metrics in the design, construction and operation of residential buildings. This book responds to this demand by offering a comprehensive guide which features:

• architectural innovations in building skin technologies which make lighter more transparent buildings high performing
• energy-free architectural design principles and advances in building-integrated photovoltaics
• essential engineering principles, controls and approaches to simulation for achieving net zero
• the advantages of integrated design in residential construction and the challenges and opportunities it engenders
• detailed case studies of innovative homes which have incorporated low-energy design solutions, new materials, alternative building assemblies, digital fabrication, integrated engineering systems and operational controls.

Divided into four parts, the book discusses the requisite AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) knowledge needed when building a high-performance home. It also communicates this information across four case studies, which provide the reader with a thorough overview of all aspects to be considered in the design and construction of sustainable homes. With contributions from experts in the field, the book provides a well-rounded and multi-faceted approach.

This book is essential reading for students and professionals in design, architecture, engineering (civil, mechanical and electrical), construction and energy management.

The Robie House in Chicago is one of the world's most famous houses, a masterpiece from the end of Frank Lloyd Wright's early period and a classic example of the Prairie House. This book is intended as a companion for the visitor to the house, but it also probes beneath the surface to see how the design took shape in the mind of the architect. Wright's own writings, rare working drawings from the period, and previously unpublished photographs of the house in construction help the reader look over the shoulder of the architect at work. Beautiful new photographs of the Robie House and related Wright houses have been specially taken to illustrate the author's points, and a bibliography on Wright is provided.

The Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio was one of the most influential figures that the field of architecture has ever produced. For classical architects, the term Palladian stands for a vocabulary of architectural forms embodying perfection and beauty. Of even greater significance than Palladio's buildings is his treatise I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books On Architecture), the most successful architectural treatise of the Renaissance and one of the two or three most important books in the literature of architecture. First published in Italian in 1570, it has been translated into every major Western language.This is the first English translation of Palladio in over 250 years, making it the only translation available in modern English. Until now, English-language readers have had to rely mostly on a facsimile of Isaac Ware's 1738 translation and the eighteenth-century engravings prepared for that text. This new translation by Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield contains Palladio's original woodcuts, reproduced in facsimile and positioned correctly, adjacent to the text. The book also contains a glossary that explains technical terms in their original context, a bibliography of recent Palladio research, and an introduction to Palladio and his times.The First Book discusses building materials and techniques, as well as the five orders of architecture: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. Palladio describes the characteristics of each order and illustrates them. The Second Book discusses private town houses and country estates, almost all designed by Palladio. The Third Book discusses streets, bridges, piazzas, and basilicas, most of ancient Roman origin. The Fourth Book discusses ancient Roman temples, including the Pantheon.

First impressions count, especially in Milano. In this unprecedented photographic journey, editor Karl Kolbitz opens the door to 144 of the city's most sumptuous entrance halls, captivating in their diversity and splendor. These vibrant Milanese entryways, until now hidden away behind often restrained facades, are revealed as dazzling examples of Italian modernism, mediating public and private space with vivid configurations of color and form, from floors of juxtaposed stones to murals of minimalist geometry. The collection spans buildings from 1920 to 1970 and showcases the work of some of the city's most illustrious architects and designers, including Giovanni Muzio, Gio Ponti, Piero Portaluppi, and Luigi Caccia Dominioni, as well as non-pedigreed architecture of equal impact and interest. The photographs for the publication were exclusively created by Delfino Sisto Legnani, Paola Pansini, and Matthew Billings, each evoking the entryways with individual sensibility and a stylistic interplay of detail shots-such as stones, door handles, and handrails-with larger architectural views. The images are accompanied by outstanding written contributions from Penny Sparke, Fabrizio Ballabio, Lisa Hockemeyer, Daniel Sherer, Brian Kish, and Grazia Signori, together bringing a wealth of architecture, design, and natural stone expertise to guide the reader through the applied materials and fittings as well as the art-historical and social implications of each of the ingressi. As much an architectural city guide as an aesthetic study, the book provides the exact address and an annotated Milan map for all featured entryways, as well as the architect name and date of construction. In the well-documented realm of 20th-century Italian design, Kolbitz has stepped over the threshold and delivered a brand new area of inquiry in Milanese modernism. With the rigor of its multifaceted research, poised photography, and breadth of its featured hallways, this is an invigorating new reference work and an inside look at the city's design DNA across high to low architecture.

Peter Baumberger and Karin Stegmeier are young architects who have produced high-quality Zurich housing in recent years. In addition to their highly refined residential architecture, they have designed inspired buildings such as the extension to the Dietlikon village school or the extension to the primary school centre in Laufen. Text in English and German.

A city famous for its rapid growth and high cost of living, London is not a place one immediately associates with social housing. Yet the British capital has a long history of such projects: from Henry Roberts' works for the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes in the nineteenth century to the contemporary, RIBA-award-winning Dujardin Mews. Divided by period rather than architectural style, this guide focuses on the developments in this often-overlooked field, beginning at the close of the nineteenth century and finishing at the present day. Twentieth-century buildings thus make up the bulk of the guide: the pre-First World War Hampstead Garden Suburb, quintessentially English Mock-Tudor estates, and brutalist icons such as the Barbican are all included. Alongside these well-known works, there are lesser-known works. The urban planner Tjerk Ruimschotel showcases residences in both the heart of the metropolis and its outer suburbs. Location details, tube stations and maps accompany the projects for easy navigation, and a comprehensive reading list provides inspiration for further investigation. Architectural Guide: London offers an alternative way to view the city's diverse architecture - where remarkable buildings are frequently hidden in plain sight.

Powerful, memorable architecture in response to diverse conditions and briefs, conceived and developed by the Geneva architectural couple Kristina Sylla Widmann and Marc Widmann: this volume presents five school buildings and facilities with a high architectural quality, as well as several outstanding residential and administrative buildings. Text in English and German.

Zeals, an English Country Manor House in Wiltshire, was filled with life, dogs, books, flowers and a grand piano in the Great Hall. It was a house for landed gentry, but is now on Historic England's 'At Risk' register. This fascinating house has a rich history. Charles II took refuge at Zeals on his flight to the coast and a family member was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell for daring to confront his parliamentary troops. The house has medieval origins, but there were later additions - predominately those from the nineteenth century by Victorian architect George Devey, as well as earlier changes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Chafyn-Grove family, later Troyte-Bullock inheriting in a sideways move, lived at Zeals for 500 years until the mid-twentieth century, when the fate of the estate mirrored that of many others in England. Jennie Elias charts the joys and tragedies of generations of Zeals residents, with characters ranging from haughty to charming; eccentric to prejudiced. There were failures through political levelling down and cultural change, but also of their own making. This definitive history also explores and celebrates the architecture of Zeals.

At the beginning of the economic crisis in 2007, housing became a central commodity in the short-circuit system of mortgages granted to private individuals and businesses. In the aftermath of the crisis, and in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, housing-as a right, in its most radical form-re-emerged due to local housing, migration, and health emergencies. In light of an eclipse of a general discourse on housing, a new secular and international ethics arose, both foreign and superior to nation states. This book returns to a broader notion of housing: using metaphors of sanitary and salvific reinstatement, it retrieves case studies from the 1950s for re-conceptualizing the housing question in contemporary architecture and visual arts.

The lack of available surface area, budget restraints or solely seasonal use are the main criteria for the construction of these small-scale dwellings. This book showcases the expertise of architects in tackling a project despite the determining factors that may limit them. Small urban homes, holiday chalets, studio apartments, lofts, duplexes, prefab houses and even tree houses illustrate the pages of this book