Product Description

Clearly written and profusely illustrated, Patterns of Home brings the timeless lessons of residential design to homeowners who seek inspiration and direction in the design or remodel of their homes. Patterns of Home promises to become the "design bible" for homeowners and architects. The 10 patterns described in the book -- among them, "capturing light" and "the flow through rooms" -- are drawn from hundreds of principles and presented with clarity by the authors, renowned architects who have designed homes together for more than 30 years.

Patterns of Home will jump-start the design process and make the difference between a home that satisfies material requirements -- and one that meets the personal needs of "home."
-- Insightful tours of 33 homes that bring essential design concepts to life
-- 300 photos and 50 illustrations illustrate the patterns

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #302186 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-27
• Released on: 2002-10-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Coauthors (along with several other writers) of the landmark design guide A Pattern Language, Jacobson and Silverstein join with their architectural partner, Winslow, to further simplify building design by distilling the principles they previously set forth as ten essentials for residential homes. These fundamentals cover such subjects as making the best use of light; keeping all parts of the house from windows to walls to rooms in proportion; and including "in-between" places like porches, window seats, alcoves and sunrooms in the design of the home. Some of their concepts are fairly abstract; for example, they suggest imagining the home as not just a building but a "site" that contains both indoor and outdoor rooms, and they counsel readers to "let the overall form of the house grow naturally out of the forms of its various parts, rather than being superimposed from the outside." These theories are complemented by more concrete advice about how to measure out a human-sized room, balance private and common spaces and much more. The authors include diagrams and color photographs of 33 actual homes with detailed explanatory captions. While it is aimed predominately at professional designers, this guide is useful for anyone contemplating a new home or making renovations to an existing one; certainly it will change the way readers think about the architectural spaces around them.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Why are some houses such a pleasure to visit or inhabit? This spin-off from A Pattern Language, which has been a design resource for decades, successfully answers that question. California architects Jacobson and Murray Silverstein helped coauthor A Pattern Language, and with partner Barbara Winslow they have chosen ten principles or patterns of house design that they consider most important (and which serve as chapter heads): "Inhabiting the Site," "Creating Rooms," "Sheltering Roof," "Capturing Light," "Parts in Proportion," "Flow Through Rooms," "Private Edges, Common Core," "Refuge and Outlook," "Places in Between," and "Composing with Materials." Each pattern is illustrated with sketches and photographs, as the authors provide beautiful examples of 33 homes by various U.S. architects or designers, mostly in the western United States. The well-organized text and layout combine with the 410 outstanding color photographs and 155 black-and-white illustrations to help the reader visualize these patterns in practice. Highly recommended for public libraries and libraries supporting architecture courses.
David R. Conn, Surrey P.L., BC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
It is a book intended for the intellectual architect, the sophisticated (and affluent) homeowner, and the committed environmentalist. Through many words and almost as many pictures, the Californian architectural team led by Jacobson (and authors of the influential A Pattern Language [1977]) are now defining what a home should be, using 10 principles of "enduring design." Much of their advice is aimed toward creating a psychological nest, such as developing "private edges, common core" for rooms, nooks, and crannies containing different levels of intimacy. Others bond to the spirit of nature, like the yen to provide a "refuge and outlook" as a safe shelter. Illustrations are taken from 33 homes (mainly coastal) from Rhode Island to Oregon, amply demonstrating what makes a house a true home. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

An interesting and well documented approach
This book is clearly affiliated to Alexander's "A pattern language".
What is positive is the focalisation on house building : easier to keep in mind 10 patterns compared to 253 (some of these not so useful in this case, as concerning region, city or neighbourhood).
For each pattern, a general explanation of the concept is followed by a description of 2/3 houses particularly embodying it.
Beautiful pictures, intesresting and informative comentaries, clear layout.
What is lacking is the explanation of generally why some patterns are preferred to others in any given case ; and particularly why some have been overlooked in the various exemples and how this could have been amended.

J.B. Epinal, France

Great Patterns that Fit with Subjective Experience of Home
I first got this book when checking out a bunch of books on home design from the library. This one really spoke to me and stood out from the crowd. I ended up buying one copy for friends who are building a house and one for me... because SOMEDAY I am going to build my house... and just has good ways to think about what I want to do with the house I'm in and what I'd look for both as existing features and potential features of a new home. Concrete ways to think about how to create a home that feels like home.

it's just for rich people
I loved the original, but this one is lame. One star for pretty pictures. In a nutshell, here are the 10 patterns in this book.
1. Be rich.
2. Own a very large piece of beautiful property.
3. Preferably in an environmentally sensitive area like a wetland.
4. Or own a house in a historical neighborhood.
5. Be very rich.
6. Build a small house, say 4000-5000 square feet.
7. Make sure your house is perfectly new and perfectly clean, but with mature landscaping.
8. Use tons and tons of wood to build your house.
9. Own several invisible cars.
10. Be one of the .001% of the people who can afford these insane homes.
Good luck.