This handy pocket book brings together a wealth of useful information that architects need on a daily basis – on-site or in the studio. It provides clear guidance and invaluable detail on a wide range of issues, from planning policy through environmental design to complying with Building Regulations, from structural and services matters to materials characteristics and detailing. This fifth edition includes the updating of regulations, standards and sources across a wide range of topics. Compact and easy to use, the Architect’s Pocket Book has sold well over 90,000 copies to the nation’s architects, architecture students, designers and construction professionals who do not have an architectural background but need to understand the basics, fast. This is the famous little blue book that you can’t afford to be without. Read more

The stories that make up Why Buildings Fall Down are in the end very human ones, tales of the interaction of people and nature, of architects, engineers, builders, materials, and natural forces all coming together in sometimes dramatic (and always instructive) ways. Read more

Collins Complete DIY Manual has sold over 3 million copies and is the most comprehensive and authoritative DIY manual ever produced.For novices, DIY enthusiasts or professionals, this essential book continues to be the most in-depth, up-to-date and user-friendly DIY book on the market, covering everything from decorating and repairs to electricity, plumbing and much more.This fully updated version features an even more accessible design to help you navigate easily through the info, and thousands of new photographs and illustrations to make sure you get your job done quickly and safely. There have been many changes to regulations in recent years, particularly in electricity (the new Part P legislation and changes to cable colours) – the Manual not only lists but also clearly explains these new regs and helps you work with them.And as we all become much more conscious of the environmental impact our homes have, new material on energy-saving DIY is essential reading for any householder – saving you money too in the process. Read more

Are you ready to embark on an adventure through the wonderful world of engineering?This book is not your ordinary activity book; it's a ticket to a thrilling journey filled with hands-on projects, brain-bending challenges, and endless fun!This is The Ultimate Activity Book for Awesome Engineers — a collection of more than 100 pages of puzzles, word games, trivia quizzes, jumbles, picture puzzles, acrostic puzzles, and lots more, all specially compiled around the subject of engineering.So alongside all the standard brain-bending puzzles, you’d find an ordinary activity book, like sudoku number grids and fiendish quick crosswords, the pages here include devilish word games, picture games, and quickfire quizzes all designed to put your engineering brain to the test!Uniquely compiled around the subject of engineeringMore than 100 pages of puzzles, games, quizzes, and picture puzzlesCovers all aspects of engineering, from robotics to constructionAll difficulty levels accommodatedBeautifully presented and illustrated throughoutMakes the perfect gift for anyone interested or with a background in engineeringFull solutions are provided at the back of the book if you become stuck!So if you know your acoustics from your avionics, your Babbage from your Brunel, and your cantilever from your cable-stayed, then this is very much the book for you.Whether you're an aspiring engineer, a curious tinkerer, or just someone who loves a good challenge, The Ultimate Activity Book for Awesome Engineers has something for everyone.Grab your hard hat, gather your tools, and let the adventure begin.Put your feet up, pick up a mechanical pencil, and get puzzling! Read more

The RIBA Principal Designer Guide, a companion guide to the RIBA Health and Safety Guide, provides architects with an essential understanding of the Principal Designer duties under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations and Building Safety Act Dutyholder Regulations. To ensure chartered architects are reaching a high standard of knowledge, the RIBA has introduced an online test based on a comprehensive curriculum to test for competency. The must-have content considers details of the relevant statutory duties, guidance regarding the implications of those duties for project delivery and examples of documents, templates and schedules that Principal Designers could use to manage, track and demonstrate compliance with the duties. This guide also includes guidance on the competence requirements for Principal Designers with content mapped against BSI Flex 8670 and PAS 8671 that enables readers to demonstrate their competence. Read more

Perspective is easy; yet, surprisingly few artists know the simple rules that make it so. Now they can remedy that situation with this step-by-step book, the first devoted entirely to clarifying the laws of perspective. Using over 250 simple line drawings, the author leads the reader through every important concept. 256 illustrations. Read more

From one of the world's most imaginative designers comes a story about humanity told through the lens of our buildings.'This book is a super-accessible guide as to why we shouldn't put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that' GRAYSON PERRY*****Our world is losing its humanity.Too many developers care more about their shareholders than society. Too many politicians care more about power than the people who vote for them. And too many cities feel soulless and depressing, with buildings designed for business, not for us.So where do we find hope?Thomas Heatherwick has an alternative. By changing the world around us, we can improve our health, restore our happiness, and save our planet. The time has come to put human emotion back at the heart of the design process. Drawing on thirty years of making bold, beautiful buildings, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Heatherwick brings together vivid stories and hundreds of beautiful images into a visual masterpiece. Humanise will inspire us to do nothing less than remake our world.*****'Thomas Heatherwick brings a velvet sledgehammer to the way we think about buildings and how they change our lives . . . I want to live in the kind of city Heatherwick imagines!' SIMON SINEK'Humanise is a masterwork. It's quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here' ALAIN DE BOTTON Read more

This handy pocket book brings together a wealth of useful information that architects need on a daily basis – on-site or in the studio. It provides clear guidance and invaluable detail on a wide range of issues, from planning policy through environmental design to complying with Building Regulations, from structural and services matters to materials characteristics and detailing. This sixth edition includes the updating of regulations, standards and sources across a wide range of topics, with a particular focus on sustainability issues. Compact and easy to use, the Architect’s Pocket Book has sold well over 100,000 copies to the nation’s architects, architecture students, designers and construction professionals who do not have an architectural background but need to understand the basics, fast. This is the famous little blue book that you can’t afford to be without. Read more

A new, larger format edition of Rice's Architectural Primer.This beautifully illustrated book covers the grammar and vocabulary of British buildings, explaining the evolution of styles from Norman castles to Norman Foster. Its aim is to enable the reader to recognise, understand and date any British building. As Matthew Rice says, 'Once you can speak any language, conversation can begin, but without it communications can only be brief and brutish. The same is the case with Architecture: an inability to describe the component parts of a building leaves one tongue-tied and unable to begin to discuss what is or is not exciting, dull or peculiar about it.' With this book in your hand, buildings will break down beguilingly into their component parts, ready for inspection and discussion. There will be no more references to 'that curly bit on top of the thing with the square protrusions'. Fluent in the world of volutes, hood moulds, lobed architraves and bucrania, you will be able to leave a cathedral or country house with as much to talk about as a film or play.Complete with over 400 exquisite watercolour illustrations and hand-drawn annotations, this is a joyous celebration of British buildings and will allow you to observe and describe the world around you afresh. Read more

A blank comic book to create great stories for young and old kids.110 pages of great and varied comic book templates, perfect for creating great stories.Good white paper and a great layout of comic panels make it easy to draw comics and allow you to move into the world of great colorful stories.The different layout of the panels and the large size of the pages are perfect for drawing any comic.Drawing comics is great creative fun and this blank comic book is the perfect tool for such fun.Specifications:Premium soft coverDimensions: 8.5 "x 11" (21.59 x 27.94 cm)Pages: 110 Pages Read more

'A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every colour has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking. Very hard painting the hallway magnolia after this inspiring primer.' Simon GarfieldThe Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book Kassia St Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colours and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilisation. Across fashion and politics, art and war, The Secret Lives of Colour tell the vivid story of our culture. Read more

Concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation, from the basics of "How to Draw a Line" to the complexities of color theory. This is a book that students of architecture will want to keep in the studio and in their backpacks. It is also a book they may want to keep out of view of their professors, for it expresses in clear and simple language things that tend to be murky and abstruse in the classroom. These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the creative process, and presentation-from the basics of "How to Draw a Line" to the complexities of color theory-provide a much-needed primer in architectural literacy, making concrete what too often is left nebulous or open-ended in the architecture curriculum. Each lesson utilizes a two-page format, with a brief explanation and an illustration that can range from diagrammatic to whimsical. The lesson on "How to Draw a Line" is illustrated by examples of good and bad lines; a lesson on the dangers of awkward floor level changes shows the television actor Dick Van Dyke in the midst of a pratfall; a discussion of the proportional differences between traditional and modern buildings features a drawing of a building split neatly in half between the two. Written by an architect and instructor who remembers well the fog of his own student days, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School provides valuable guideposts for navigating the design studio and other classes in the architecture curriculum. Architecture graduates-from young designers to experienced practitioners-will turn to the book as well, for inspiration and a guide back to basics when solving a complex design problem. Read more

Learn about key concepts behind the world's most incredible buildings in The Architecture Book.Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Architecture in this overview guide to the subject, brilliant for novices looking to find out more and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Architecture Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Architecture, with:- A global scope, covering architecture from all over the world- Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts- A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout- Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understandingThe Architecture Book is a captivating introduction to buildings and the ideas, and principles that make them key to the history and evolution of our built environment - aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you'll discover the most important ideas, technologies, and movements in the history of architecture and structural engineering, through exciting text and bold graphics.Your Architecture Questions, Simply ExplainedLearn about the evolution of construction, from ancient and classical architecture through Medieval, Gothic, and Renaissance buildings, Baroque and Rococo, to 19th-century emerging modernism and postmodernism and glittering skyscrapers. If you thought it was difficult to learn about buildings and the ideas behind them, The Architecture Book presents key information in a clear layout. Explore architectural movements, styles and celebrated buildings from all over the world, and stunning religious structures from mosques to churches, stupas to pagodas and temples.The Big Ideas SeriesWith millions of copies sold worldwide, The Architecture Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand. Read more

To ensure chartered architects are reaching a high standard of health and safety knowledge and the life safety of building users, the RIBA has introduced an online test based on a comprehensive curriculum to test for competency. This guide is designed to improve industry understanding of issues in accordance with CDM Regulations and prepare architects for the health and safety test. It provides practitioners with the required knowledge regarding site safety, hazards and design risk management to discharge their professional services and legal duties competently and safely. The 2nd edition features an update to the content relating to design risk management and statue to reflect the changes proposed by the Act and the Regulations, as well as a review of the relationship between these and the existing regime under the CDM Regulations. It includes a new chapter that sets out some of the detail of duties under the Act and the Regulations, including practical examples of how designer/architects might discharge their duties as designers and lead designers, considering how it compares to existing duties under the CDM Regulations. Read more

A practical primer to looking at architecture and all the elements that are included in buildings.How to Read Buildings is a practical introduction to looking at and appreciating architecture which guides you through the historical and architectural clues embedded in every building. Small enough to carry in your pocket and serious enough to provide real answers, this comprehensive guide:- Explores key characteristics of structures dating from every period from the ancient Greeks to the present day- Gives expert advice on how to identify any building and put it in historical context- Provides an accessible visual guide to architectural styles and structural elements using detailed engravings and text Read more

This book is quite simply about contract administration using the JCT contracts. The key features of the new and updated edition continue to be its brevity, readability and relevance to everyday practice. It provides a succinct guide written from the point of view of a construction practitioner, rather than a lawyer, to the traditional form of contract with bills of quantities SBC/Q2016, the design and build form DB2016 and the minor works form MWD2016. The book broadly follows the sequence of producing a building from the initial decision to build through to completion. Chapters cover:Procurement and tendering Payments, scheduling, progress and claimsContract termination and insolvencyIndemnity and insuranceSupply chain problems, defects and subcontracting issuesQuality, dealing with disputes and adjudicationHow to administer contracts for BIM-compliant projectsJCT contracts are administered by a variety of professionals including project managers, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and construction managers. It is individuals in these groups, whether experienced practitioner or student, who will benefit most from this clear, concise and highly relevant book. Read more

From ancient dwellings to modern high-tech skyscrapers, discover everything there is to know about the history of architecture worldwide.Covering over 6,000 years of human history, Architecture charts the most important developments in building materials, technology, design, and the social changes that have shaped the architectural landscape.Explore every significant architectural period and style in depth through critical examples.Take a tour of some of the world's most iconic buildings, beautifully illustrated with brilliant photography and specially commissioned CGI artworks.Dive deep into the pages of this book about architecture to discover:- An innovative approach to the story of architecture using iconic examples.- Explores buildings throughout history and across the world.- A combination of creative photography and specially commissioned CGI artworks to analyse every significant architectural style.- Profiles of the latest developments in architectural practice, including "green" technology, such as living façades.- Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution in the US- Optional 56-page reference section profiles key architects and contains profiles of additional important buildingsFind out why so many ancient Roman structures have withstood the test of time. Learn how the soaring ceilings of Gothic cathedrals are held up. And discover the architectural innovations that are helping to combat climate change.Architecture is the perfect book for anyone fascinated by the built world - its visual character and the factors that have formed it - and who wants to understand more. Read more

'This is definitely up there as one of the best books that I have read. It's got a special place in my heart. Just amazing!' 5* reader review'Gorgeous! Exuberant writing, convincing, adorable characters, romance and a little whimsy' TRACY REESLove will always find a way . . .Discover the intriguing secrets of Hawthorn Place in this heartfelt dual-time novel, filled with warmth and charm, perfect for fans of Lucinda Riley and Cecelia Ahern.'An intriguing dual timeline tale that weaves together interesting characters and history, with an added touch of magic' BELLA OSBORNE'An exquisitely detailed and enchanting love story' HEIDI SWAIN'An epic love story, mixed with gorgeous settings, a great deal of mystery and intrigue, lots of laughs, a few tears and fabulous characters, made this an absolute delight to read' KIM NASH'An absolutely wonderful dual time story that captivated me . . . and kept me spellbound' CHRISTINA COURTENAY'A beautifully intriguing love story, that . . . stays with you long after the last page' ROSIE HENDRY'Unforgettable and unique, the twists and turns of this enchanting book are woven together with threads of love and magic. I loved it!' CLARE MARCHANT........................................................................Two houses, hundreds of miles apart . . . yet connected always.When life throws Molly Butterfield a curveball, she decides to spend some time with her recently widowed granddad, Wally, at Hawthorn Place, his quirky Victorian house on the Dorset coast. But cosseted Molly struggles to look after herself, never mind her grieving granddad, until the accidental discovery of an identical Arts and Crafts house on the Norfolk coast offers her an unexpected purpose, as well as revealing a bewildering mystery. Discovering that both Hawthorn Place and Acacia House were designed by architect Percy Gladwell, Molly uncovers the secret of a love which linked them, so powerful it defied reason. What follows is a summer which will change Molly for ever . . .........................................................................'One of those wonderful, magical stories that appear rarely and stay in your heart forever' CELIA ANDERSON'A marvellous dual-time novel filled with mystery, fabulous detail and an enduring love story' MADDIE PLEASE'A wonderful, page-turning story full of intrigue and romance' VICTORIA CONNELLY'I found the book enchanting' SUZANNE SNOW'An enchanting storyline and engaging characters make this book a delight to read' LYNNE SHELBY'A beautifully written timeslip . . . Highly recommended. Five stars' ERIN GREEN'The perfect mix of mystery, magic, and romance' KATE G. SMITHReaders are captivated by The Secrets of Hawthorn Place:'A sweeping five stars from me for this novel that defies time but trusts in love''A sheer delight to read and can highly recommend''Utterly brilliant. The storyline is riveting, you never quite know what could be about to happen as it's constantly twisting and turning . . . such a beautiful book' Read more

The 12th edition of Chudley and Greeno’s Building Construction Handbook remains THE authoritative reference for all construction students and professionals. The principles and processes of construction are explained with the concepts of design included where appropriate. Extensive coverage of building construction practice, techniques and regulations representing both traditional procedures and modern developments are included to provide the most comprehensive and easy to understand guide to building construction.This new edition has been updated to reflect recent changes to the building regulations, as well as new material on modern methods of construction, greater emphasis on sustainability and a new look interior. Chudley and Greeno’s Building Construction Handbook is the essential, easy-to-use resource for undergraduate and vocational students on a wide range of courses including NVQ and BTEC National, through to Higher National Certificate and Diploma, to Foundation and three-year Degree level. It is also a useful practical reference for building designers, contractors and others engaged in the construction industry. Read more

The first guide to timber framing written specifically for beginners! Expert Will Beemer takes you through the entire process from start to finish, beginning with timber sourcing and ending with a finished building. Using full-colour photos, detailed drawings, and clear step-by-step instructions, Beemer shows you exactly how to build one small (12? x 16?) timber-frame structure - suitable for use as a cabin, workshop, or studio. He also explains how to modify the structure to suit your needs and location by adding a loft, moving doors or windows, changing the roof pitch, or making the frame larger or smaller. You'll end up with a beautiful building as well as solid timber-framing skills that you can use for a lifetime. Read more