Home by Design: Transforming Your House Into Home review:5 stars (An Excellent and very useful book - don't believe the negative reviews) - After reading the negative reviews, I got the book from the library instead of buying it. The negative reviews are really unfounded. It is worth buying.
I was able to easily see all of the pictures, even the smallest ones, so the reviewer who complained about the small pictures needs glasses. I get more information from five small pictures on a page than one picture filling the entire page, so I appreciate the denser content.
While many of the houses are luxury houses, the design principles can definitely be adapted to more modest houses. One of the houses used granite bathroom tile on the counter - clearly they had budgetary constraints. Many of the unique design features could be added to a modest house with considerable impact.
The design principles are simplified into 27 types and illustrated better than any architecture book I have ever seen. In many cases, a second photo is modifed to remove the one isolated design feature being illustrated and it is easy to see the effect that the feature creates when it is missing.
Regarding the lack of scale in the floor plans: I am glad there *are* floor plans - most books don't have them at all. It is very easy to create a scale knowing that a kitchen or bathroom counter is 2 feet wide, or that a entry door is 3 feet wide and go from there. A trained designer does this automatically in their head.
Many projects are profusely illustrated from multiple angles and each one demonstrates several design principles. This is a very useful resource and an excellent primer on basic design principles. Although the principles explained are very basic, the examples shown are very sophisticated. This book is useful to the novice, and even more so to a trained designer who will see much more than what the text explains. The best design cannot be contained by mere words.
All of the projects illustrated are top-notch designs. If you want this kind of design quality, you can't expect to learn how to do it all yourself. Yes, an architect adds 10% to the cost of a house, but if you want expertise, you have to pay the person who spent twenty years of their lives earning it. It is the most important 10% of your budget you will pay. This book can at least help you to explain to the architect what it is you want.
3 stars (Disappointing. ) - As the name suggests, this book is rather more oriented towards design aspects (read: Technical) as compared to author's earlier two books.
But somehow after reading all three books from this author I started feeling that author is creating some sort of confusion and cashing on it!
It is easy to get mislead by the her (coined) word:' Not So Big House', several reader (including me) initially picked up her books with expectations that she will provide some new ideas for more economical housing (yet maintaining the essential qualities) but that is not the case. Her `Not So big Houses' are pretty expensive to build, insure, maintain and perhaps difficult to resale.
She says `Save on square footage and spend that on quality' but simple mathematics tells us that 'Detailing' the house the way the author has pictured costs many times more than what is saved by reducing the square footage. And on top of that, one MUST hire an architect (that could be the author's real motive behind all these books) to create such so-called 'Not So Big House' (which means additional 10-15% of the total cost).
If she thinks her `Not So Big Houses' are for tight budgeted common man then it is a joke, and if her `Not So Big Houses' are meant of rich people then what is new in her writing? People are building such highly detailed expensive houses ever since mankind started living in houses.
She is proclaiming that she is pioneer of these concepts but architects all across the globe are doing this for years.
While her books are full of nice pictures, text is quite disappointing; perhaps she (still) needs help from a professional writer (How about co-authoring?). I don't think there is anything beyond those pictures, which can really help a common man to build an economical house.4 stars (Another look at the home that is BETTER, not bigger.) - An architect turned writer turned "architectural advocate," Susanka made a name for herself by coining the term 'The Not So Big House' to describe residential architecture that emphasizes thoughtful design of a modest scale. While not pioneering anything new in the world of design, she did get attention (including ours!) for validating the sentiments of those folks disappointed in the rise of the suburban McMansion. Not just a populist, Sara also has 'street cred' among architects and builders, too, as evident in her regular appearences in the respected Fine Homebuilding magazine.
Within this context, her latest book seems like a natural evolution in her work. She turns the corner from a focus on the the entire house to its individual design elements. She had already done some of this in previous books (see Creating the Not So Big House and Not So Big Solutions for Your Home) but this book takes on the task in full force.
Fundamentally, Home by Design is an effort to make common architectural concepts and language accessible to the everyday homeowner. This is what Susanka does best. Again, nothing she advocates is particularly new or original--many of these concepts were made popular by the bungalow movement--but unfortunately they've been lost in today's residential architecture. This book attempts to bring back that awareness and explains/shows the importance of these elements.
We found her more detailed design studies especially appealing. Often, the photos will show a room or part of the house with and without the design element being discussed. This makes it particularly easy to visualize the concept and its effect on the space within a house (especially when you are making plans for your own house!)
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