[thechat] Your dream house: what tech stuff?

[Martin Burns]

On 22 Oct 2006, at 19:17, Joel D Canfield wrote:

> my favorite thinking-launching point for home design: Rex Roberts'  
> "Your
> Engineered House" (1964, updated endlessly by Charlie Wing; ISBN:
> 0871311100)
>
> Lots of low-tech technical solutions to what's wrong with most homes
> (kinda US-centric thinking in the book, but a lotta valid points)

having simply scanned the first chapter of this, it's already shaping  
up to be possibly the most sane book on architecture I've ready (and  
I've read a few) and profoundly influential on my thinking. I fell in  
love with it just from these two paragraphs:

     I believe that the shape of your house will best be determined  
by what you want to do in it. Please do not arbitrarily select an  
exterior style, then force your family into it like butter into a  
crock. I have little patience with those who begin a house plan  
anywhere other than from the inside.

     I have even less patience with the opposite extreme, which is  
the business of doing something unusual for the sake of being  
different. This practice is bound to be expensive, and, because it  
didn't start with a pattern of uses, it accomplishes nothing.

...which for those of us with a UCD background, should be *really*  
familiar territory. I've spent *years* kicking designers up and down  
the street for just these two crimes.

Cheers
Martin

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