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Title: Home by Design: Transforming Your House Into Home by Sarah Susanka ISBN: 1-56158-618-8 Publisher: Taunton Press Pub. Date: 11 March, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: beautiful photos, fewer details
Comment: This book is divided into three parts (space, light, order) and 27 chapters. Each chapter has a two-page spread introducing the topic (e.g. Changes in Level), with one full-page and several smaller photos, followed by a two-page spread giving examples of the concepts (e.g. Stairs as Sculpture, Lowered Room, Raised Room, Platforms, Over Under), with one or two illustrating photos or sketches and a couple of paragraphs for each. Following is about 4 pages profiling how the concept is used in one house. Some chapters include a half-page feature on the concept as used in public architecture, or using doctored photos to show how a space looks with and without the concept (e.g. show a space with a lowered soffit and without).
I found Susanka's first book, The Not So Big House, a helpful reference when buying my current quite-small house 4 years ago. It's far from architecturally designed, but allows light on two sides of major rooms, and I arranged furniture and art to use diagonal views and create window-seat-like spots on the edge of the living and dining rooms. The lack of visual connection between the living room and kitchen/dining area does, as predicted, make that room less used.
Her second book, Creating the Not So Big House, I found a helpful continuation of the theme, and I expect to use concepts I learned in both in five years or so when I hope to be looking for a slightly larger house in the same school district--land prices here would preclude building new. I'm trying to train my eye to figure out what is fixable with minor remodeling, or even a paint/drapery/furniture change, and what is intractable or very costly to fix, a skill I don't yet have a natural instinct for.
So I bought this book hoping to add to my toolkit. Many themes are well-illustrated, but I miss the focus on individual houses from Creating--the featured home sections show a couple of striking highlights, but I really wanted to see how it all worked together. There's no scale on the floorplans, so you can't tell how big a huge-seeming space really is. If you have read books from the Taunton Press, or Inspired Home magazine, you've seen some of these homes before. And by and large these are million dollar homes, including a truly beautiful two-story pool-house/gymnasium. It's stunning, but since you don't need to furnish it or lay it out to work like you do a home, how useful is this example? Of course, if you're thinking of building an elaborate two-story poolhouse, buy this book...
The doctored photos are an inspired idea, useful in identifying patterns that matter to you and those that don't. I confirmed that changes in ceiling height often irritate me, while aligning views is important. The two photos of the same space are a much better comparison than two photos of different rooms, since the only difference is the ceiling height, open view, trim line, etc.
Overall, the book is useful but not as strong as the others by the author. If you have those, you may not need this. I wish I'd gotten it from the library, and perhaps bought the paperback version in a year.
I would buy a book about Estes Twombley's architecture--in this and Creating they showcase comparably modest homes, made special by attention to detail. I'd like to see more of that, and fewer mansions--even if not mcmansions, they still aren't something I ever plan to buy or build.
Rating: 5
Summary: Very refreshing!!
Comment: I look at home design's books constantly but have never felt compelled to actually buy one until reading Home By Design. The layout of various design options in this book is great for those who own homes and even for those who wish to own homes in the future. There were numerous suggestions on how to utilize any living space. The explanations weren't difficult to understand or patronizing to those of us that aren't interior decorators or architechts. The photographs are beautiful. The rooms in the photographs are spacious but not in a far fetched way that some home design books feature. By that, I mean that you could actually picture some of these rooms in your own home. I think it's important in home design books to make the reader feel comfortable. You don't want the book to have a fairy tale vision because it'll end up in a pile of books at some garage sale. I would definitely recommend purchasing this book. I will be keeping it as a reference manual in my personal library.
Rating: 5
Summary: Good Design is Not an Accident
Comment: Sarah Susanka describes "Home by Design" as "the book I've always wanted to write." As an experienced architect, she works with clients who recognize what they like, but often lack the ability to describe it. She has developed not only a vocabulary to describe some of the design concepts she uses in her houses, but, through this new book, has illustrated these concepts with technically simple language and well selected photos.
She organizes the book into 27 concepts under the broad headings of "Space, Light, and Order." A chapter is devoted to each concept with photographs and layouts of a house carefully selected to illustrate the concept. Other illustrations are provided as needed, mostly selected from the other example houses.
The quality of publication is up to the standard of her first two books - beautiful photos, well formatted, pleasing to the eye and written in language accessible to a lay audience. She used the practice of her second book, illustrating the principles discussed with the works of other architects who share some of her design ideas. Except for three small photos, only one of the example houses is her own design (Introduction, pp. 10-17).
Does this really work? I can speak from a 6-year dialogue with the author that resulted in a house we love. My wife admired the author's work before I ever thought about building a house. We bought a "difficult" lot in an old neighborhood - long, narrow, with a big tree right in the middle of it. We needed an architect. We looked around and liked her work the best of the architects we considered. She accepted the challenge.
She had us make a scrapbook of house images we liked and drawings of layouts and other ideas that came to us. We talked a lot. She got an idea of our tastes in materials, forms and colors. She developed drafts of several houses she thought incorporated the ideas we liked. We selected a patchwork from among these possibilities. That provided the cartoon within which she applied her concepts of "Space, Light and Order."
The specifications of the house plans that evolved were very detailed - 19 pages of blueprints. Materials and construction methods were tightly specified. Despite that, several key pieces were designed on-site: the entry door, the fireplace surround, the stairwell, some of the trim layouts (both interior and exterior), several additional bookcases.
As I read the book, I can mentally illustrate each concept with at least one, often many, uses of the concept within our house design.
Does this work for others? It certainly should for readers who build a new house. Its not just that smaller is better - organization of space, use of natural light, alignment are essential to making a house look and feel right. Creative use of these principals is not necessarily expensive but it does not happen by accident. When a visitor admires the way something looks in our house, I tell them it is not an accident. It may look simple and easy, but it takes careful thought to provide the feel of a well-designed house.
Can this book be useful to the remodeler? I think so. Even if you can't knock out a lot of walls, most projects provide opportunity to reorganize the use of space, trim, surface materials, fixtures, window treatments, colors. These are all beautifully illustrated by this new book. For the remodeler, I'd suggest that the author's third book "Not So Big Solutions for Your Home", provides some essential insights that I would consider first principles, even before her first book, "The Not So Big House". Read "Not So Big Solutions", then develop the organization, balance, and beauty with the new book, "Home by Design".
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Title: Not So Big Solutions for Your Home by Sarah Susanka ISBN: 1561586137 Publisher: Taunton Press Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Good House Parts: Creating a Great Home Piece by Piece by Dennis Wedlick ISBN: 1561586285 Publisher: Taunton Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Creating a New Old House: Yesterday's Character for Today's Home by Russell Versaci, Erik Kvalsvik ISBN: 1561586153 Publisher: Taunton Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: The Not So Big House Collection: The Not So Big House and Creating the Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka ISBN: 1561586277 Publisher: Taunton Press Pub. Date: 10 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live by Sarah Susanka, Kira Obolensky ISBN: 1561583766 Publisher: Taunton Press Pub. Date: 31 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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