Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
The key to creating a house that is memorable, satisfying, and enduring is to apply a group of design concepts–or “patterns”–that focus on the experience of being in a home. In this groundbreaking work, internationally respected architects Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein, and Barbara Winslow present the ten essential patterns that shape and define a well-crafted home. Patterns explore the presence of light, the relationship between indoors and out, the flow through rooms, and the feel of one
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(out of 35 reviews)
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(out of 19 reviews)
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Review by K. Parsons for Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
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“Patterns of Home” simply is a wonderful book. It contains some of the most beautiful residences anywhere, gorgeously photographed and described. The book also makes a lot of sense. In a time when so many “design” books are self-serving treatises on a particular style or philosophy, “Patterns of Home” steers clear of jargon and techno-babble. The book delivers ten distinct, yet complementary studies (patterns) that serve to wonderfully illustrate how a house can truly be a home. I am an architect in private practice and I design several custom homes or estates per year along with my commercial, institutional and other commissions. While this in no way makes me an expert, it does allow me to highly recommend this book to those seeking to improve the livability of their home, or design meaning into a home. Even if one is not involved in, or contemplating such a project, this book is a great source of ideas and… well, it has a great deal of tremendous pictures!I am heartened to see Jacobson, Silverstein and Winslow put forth such an accessible, readable and pleasant book on a subject that has been dangerously worn out recently. The material in “Patterns of Home” is not necessarily new, but the presentation of it in such a thoughtful manner is valuable and meaningful. The arrangement of the material is logical, starting with site planning, spatial relationships, and the basics of shelter, light and proportion. The transition into feeling, perception and texture is seamless and rewarding to experience.The chapter (pattern) on “Refuge and Outlook” addresses a concept dear to my heart. My own home high in the Southern California mountains embodies much of this concept. The presentation of this concept gave words to things I’ve often struggled to explain. I was very moved by the elegant, yet simple language used to present this and the nine other patterns. The ability to crisply and efficiently write about ideas and concepts that can easily become mired in technical or philosophical discourse is not common. It is precisely this skill that the authors bring to this work, and which makes “Patterns of Home” so useful. The authors clearly appear to practice what they preach, and the honesty that I sense in this book is refreshing. I commend the authors on producing a book that is highly informative in a very sensible way.This book is a companion to Lawler’s “A Home for the Soul” on my display table. I heartily give “Patterns of Home” five stars.
Review by Peter H for Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
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I treasure “Pattern Language”, the book, and was excited to see this followup.The premise of looking back at the patterns and reducing them to a few (10) “super” patterns sounded promising.The charm of the original”Pattern Language” book lay in its quirky drawings, and its reliance on the reader to reflect on any personal experiences with the particular pattern being discussed. The lack of glossy photos gave substance to concepts. The new book follows in the footsteps of the “Not so big house” books method of discussing concepts while surrounded by photos. Undoubtedly, the success of those books gave rise to the structure of this one. I find drawings infinitely more communicative of design concepts than photos. The photos here distract the eye, making it harder to focus on the principle being espoused.The authors walk you thru certain homes or rooms which supposedly illustrate the concept at hand. I found the process sort of phony and aggrandizing of the architect’s vision. Hello, but the point/power of “patterns” is that they are time-tested,non- regional, gut-level design parameters not requiring architectural vision. The, after the fact, microanalysis of houses to make their every aspect seem utterly preconceived by the genius architect is sophomoric. Again, the power of these patterns is that if you put them “in play”, good things, especially unforseen things, happen. Predictably. Hopefully, this book, along with the “Not so big house” books will inform the house buying/building community of design realities routinely ignored.
Review by TheSongsofDistantEarth for Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
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I am a HUGE fan of ‘A Pattern Language’, and found this book in the local library. It took me a while to realize that this book is a far cry from its predecessor. I found the patterns themselves interesting, but over-distilled from the quirky things that made ‘Pattern Language’ so wonderful…that book is full of the HUMANITY of places that people can create, and the effects on how places feel to us, how we interact, and how we live our lives in the context of these places.My big problem with this book is with the photographs. I actually had a hard time seeing and feeling the point of the patterns. These are all, for the most part, big, expensive architect showcase homes of the west coast. How about showing these patterns in more modest or ‘hand made’ type houses? How about showing some of these patterns in desert homes, or old european homes? Homes in Mexico or in Greece? How about the patterns shown in other world homes? All these homes are fancy and expensive…it’s ok to show some of those of course, but if the book is about PATTERNS, then the best illustration of a PATTERN is to show it in a wide variety of disparate settings. This book, which I sat down to relish, was actually dull. It didn’t stir my imagination and get the desire flowing the way ‘Pattern Language’ did. It’s probably worth a look, but do as I did and request it from your library, and read it. Then decide if you really want it. I didn’t.
Review by Gilbert S. Perreira for Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
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Skip this book. Instead get “A Pattern Language” which is the quintessential work of Christopher Alexander. Alexander is the real genius behind the “Patterns” of this book. There is almost nothing new in this book “Patterns of Home.”In the late 1960′s and 1970′s Alexander and his group (including two of these authors), formed the Institute of Environmental Structure in Berkeley, California. Alexander was clearly the spiritual and intellectual leader of this effort. “A Pattern Language” is a compilation of that thorough effort. Alexander et al’s book remains the most important treatise ever on the subject of Architecture. It disseminates a clear and concise identification of basic patterns that make a house a home, for example, pattern 115 of 253 – Courtyards that Live. In addition, “A Pattern Language” is written for us, in the hope that “we the people” can use the patterns to guide the development of wonderful homes and communities. Alexander’s book is accessible to all of us. These co-author’s of Alexander’s great book include two of the authors of “Patterns of Home.” These guys are sidekicks and it shows. For example, in the forward to this book, they acknowledge working on this book part-time while engaging in a full-time architectural practice. They didn’t put a life-force effort into this book, although it appears the photographers did. The illustrations and photographs are almost exclusively of high end giant homes in the price range of $300 to $500 and up per square foot! The vast majority of people do and will live in homes built to a budget of $100 psf or less. In short, this is a picture book for coffee tables that shows what an architect can do with an open-ended budget.I think I was dissapointed most with narrow scope of the photographs. As with another reviewer, I noted that the authors showed the patterns exclusively in new, contemporary, upscale California style homes, neglecting better illustrations of the essential patterns that can be easily found in other styles of homes, in older homes, or in homes from other areas of the world.Although I don’t believe the author’s intended, but this book is an elitist book for dreamers. The homes shown in this book are accessible to a tiny minority of ultra-rich people. If you, the reader, prefer picture type books, you’re better off with Sara Susanka’s “The Not So Big House” and others of her series. Her design approach is more accessible to a larger segment of the population. Best of all though, try “A Pattern Language” a truly wonderful book accessible to all of us. It will forever improve you architectural mindset.Regards, Steve
Review by Mara for Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
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This book takes the main concepts in A Pattern Language and fleshes them out, illustrating them with concrete examples and explanations, and demonstating how they can work in a residential home. Some of the themes are quite practical, like capturing light and creating indoor and outdoor rooms, while others are more abstract and theoretical, like the concept of being able to look out from a protected space. All of the principles are based on human psychology and why we inherently like and feel comfortable in some places and not in others, which makes Patterns of Home much more interesting than a typical architecture book. It is a great guide for anyone that wants to design their own house or is interested in vernacular architecture in general. The photos and diagrams are great, and haven’t been recycled from other Taunton Press books, which was a nice surprise. I found Patterns of Home very easy to follow and understand as it has a very organized layout that ties all the chapters and their themes together, making it an easy read in addition to everything else.
Review by R. Keith Martin for Punch! Home & Landscape Design with NexGen Technology
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This is the first CAD related software that I have ever used so I don’t really have anything to compare it to. Also, I’ve only been using this product for just a few weeks. So from a novice perspective, I will try to describe the pros and cons.
Pros: This product is integrated very well. As you design, it builds the big picture. When you start a project, it allows you to pick (point and drag) the rooms that you want to incorporate into the design. Once you have a basic layout, you move to the next step of doing the more detailed design work – adding/modifying walls, kitchen cabinets, etc.
It has a 2D and 3d rendering so that you can get an immediate visual of what your design will actually look like. It has a good library of objects suchas as floor coverings, wood stains, paint colors, masonry, furniture and basic kitchen cabinet components. It has 2 navigation options while in 3D mode – walk through for walking through the structure and fly over for, well, you get it.
There is a landscape component which I have not used yet.
Cons: I really only have one problem with the software. Some of the functionality is not that intuitive. The product comes with a thick user guide which for the most part I did not find very helpful. There is also an online help guide which is basically what is in the user guide and again, not very helpful. What I did find most helpful, was the online video tutorials. It allows you to watch how to do something from start to finish in detail. You can pause, rewind and watch again until you pick up on how to do it.
Some of the controls are over sensitive. For instance, inserting cabinets, sinks or doors from the objects library. It is sometimes difficult to get objects placed just the way you want them. As an example, in the kitchen, on a wall, you may have an overhead cabinet, a base cabinet, a sink and a dishwasher all grouped together on a wall. It is difficult to select the one you need to manipulate.
I learned through trial and error how to work through these issues. Again, these problems are not addressed in the user guide. Nor, was I able to find any blogs for this product.
Summary: I would recommend this product for it’s intended purpose. A quick and (barring the problems I’ve described) easy way to design a house.
Review by W. Yager for Punch! Home & Landscape Design with NexGen Technology
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This is an excellent product. When you first start the program, it presents “Quick Start”. This is an ingenious approach to getting your design into the program quickly. What you do is drag a room type onto the screen and then re-size it with your mouse to the correct dimensions. You then “snap” these rooms together to form your floor plan. Clicking “Continue” and you end up in the main program where you can easily add your doors and windows and view a 3D view of your design. The 3D rendering is FAST! The “Fly Around” and “Walk Through” are fast and smooth. Very impressive rendering on my older computer. The product that I tried previously couldn’t keep up with my mouse and presented a slow series of jerky screen redraws. Also, I was able to construct some complicated roofs with the free-hand roof tool. I was even able to apply a completely flat recessed roof with ease, something I couldn’t do with the product I used previously. Items that need height adjustment, like beams, walls, lamps, ceilings, etc., can be positioned by moving a slider control up and down. There is also a great range of selections for paint color, surface materials, furniture, etc. The landscaping portion of the program even had a large collection of cacti and other Southwest plants. I didn’t expect that. Beside the ability to “grow” the plants to compensate for age, you are presented with a description of each selected plant’s growing characteristics and required care. The product also has a CAD program “3D Custom Workshop” for modifying and/or designing your own items (furniture, fireplaces, etc.) which I haven’t tried yet. There are helpful videos and, rare these days, Home & Landscape Design actually comes with a printed manual (which is about an inch thick) that guides you through all of the house design steps. About a third of the manual covers the CAD program. There are many other features that I haven’t tried yet. I don’t understand some of the poor reviews for the suite version of this product. I was VERY impressed! I can see why this program is such a good seller.
Review by Michael A. Leco for Punch! Home & Landscape Design with NexGen Technology
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I purchased Punch Home and Landscape Design and tried to do a very simple project; design a free-standing garage. The screen interface was not very user friendly. It seemed to have a lot of wonderful features, but I have no idea how to make them work. I tried to change the size of the windows, but the program kept defaulting back to the same size. I tried to place a custom-sized door, but the program insisted on defaulting back to a 32 inch door. I tried to choose a simple gabled roof, but it kept insisting on a hip roof.
The two-inch thick manual that came with the software was no help in solving any of these problems. It was not very user friendly, and did not address any of the problems that I was encountering. I turned to the in-context video help. The pictures played fine, but the sound came out as a distorted growl. No help there!
I called Punch technical support to see if they could assist me in getting the video help to work correctly. I was using Windows Vista and my video sound worked great in Windows Media Player or in Real Player. Unfortunately, Puch uses some off-brand video player to render the AVI files. The raw files would play perfectly on my machine using Media Player but not using the internal player Punch supplied.
Technical help was no help. They kept insisting it was a Windows Problem, or that I lacked the proper codex for my Media Player. Clearly, they did not know how to fix the issue.
I am returning the software and looking for another home design program. I think I will avoid Punch products.
Review by Jennifer Austin for Punch! Home & Landscape Design with NexGen Technology
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I was very excited to get my new software. I installed it with no problems whatsoever….however almost immediately after installing it my computer ran extremely slow. It didn’t matter if I had the program running or not. I have more than enough space and speed on my system….but it bogged me down so much so that i UNinstalled the program. My computer is back to running like normal again. I didn’t even have a chance to really play around to see what I could do with it. I’m pretty disappointed.
Review by Stephanie V for Punch! Home & Landscape Design with NexGen Technology
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This software is really hard to figure out, unless you know CAD software or read the gigantic manual that comes with it. And seriously – who wants to read a several hundred page manual? That’s why we bought supposedly “easy to use” software in the first place! The quick start function is pretty nifty, and very easy to use. But that’s where the ease of functionality stops. Drawing rooms by hand is tedious, moving between screens or resizing your plan is nonsensical, and the fly around/3D function is nearly impossible to navigate. Finding the materials list menu is equally confusing, so although the entire program seems like a good idea, it’s not easy for a layman to use. We purchased this to explore options for a home addition, but have found paper & pen drawings to be easier, faster, and less aggravating, especially when doing multiple plans. Perhaps when we’ve determined a final design we’ll go back to the Punch software, but in the meantime, it’s more trouble than it’s been worth.