Small House Designs

by Kenneth R. Tremblay and Lawrence Von Bamford

Book Overview

This impressive collection of a variety of award-winning designs for small houses is accompanied by expert commentary, specific technical data, and beautiful exterior photographs. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882669664
• ISBN13: 9780882669663
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Storey Publishing
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

We loved SMALL HOUSE DESIGNS!

We loved SMALL HOUSE DESIGNS. Since we don't expect to get something for nothing, and know that we will have to have an design drawn up anyway, we got a lot of great ideas on what we would like to see in our home design from this wonderful book. My spouse and I think it is well worth the money spent on this book to help us articulate to designing and building professionals what we want in our ideal house.

Commendable

For one thing, the book deserves recognition for pointing out that houses need not be any bigger than 1,250 sf. In 1947, the average new house in the United States was 1,000 sf -- houses like that accommodated the Baby Boom! No one needs a huge house. Anyway, this book presents a bunch of properly sized houses, some conventional, some unusual. It's fun to look at the various technical drawings and plan for your own building project. Most of the projects have reasonable building-cost estimates, too -- many under US$90,000.The authors talk about energy costs and some of the houses use modules, rammed earth and other "alternative" building techniques, but this book would be better if it covered those technologies (and others, like straw-bale construction) in greater depth.

A broad spectrum of designs

A good book for making you think about the possibilities. Few photographs, mostly illustrations. Cost estimates for building, heating and cooling.

a great resource with a variety of ideas and diagrams

This book is the product of a contest among architects to design homes of 1250 square feet or less. The resulting variety of designs and concepts is amazing. The designs range from conservative to modern to downright odd, and the book provides commentary with square footage, estimated cost to build, estimated cost to heat/cool, and suggestions as to what the particular floor plan is best suited for. The best part about the book is the ideas and concepts that can be picked out from the individual floor plans and incorporated into your home design - the use of curved walls and atriums, for example, to maximize space without adding square footage.We bought the book as a companion to The Not So Big House - we highly recommend them in tandem.