Building Structures Illustrated: Patterns, Systems, and Design 2nd Edition

Once again Ching and Wiley provide the basis of architectural knowledge you can't get in a classroom. Brilliant.

tons of useful knowledge for architects or engineers

Who doesn’t love a good Ching book?

Another great book by Ching. It describes the basics of building structures in a succinct manner. However, the book should have included calculations as well, which it completely lacks, thus the four stars instead of a perfect score.

Super awesome book! Great illustrations! Using it for structural behaviors class

Great book by ching

The best

Building Structures Illustrated: Patterns, Systems, and DesignFRANCIS D. K. CHING, BARRY S. ONOUYE, DOUGLAS ZUBERBUHLERI started working for my Uncles architectural/engineering firm as a sophomore. Throughout high school, design school and graduate school architecture remained one of my majors, and one of my three Ford Foundation Fellowship Awards was in architecture.I worked for the family firm for several years, designing and building Catholic hospitals, churches, schools. Later I worked for five years for an architectural firm, which specialized in monumental church art, of all sorts. I was then recruited by colleges and universities to teach and accepted one of those offers, though I ended up teaching more art than architecture because despite my deans attempts to place all design into one division politics intervened blocking the rightful merger’s gained tenure as chair/coordinator of design and summer chair of architectural design. I was thus admitted as an ASIA Associate, now Emeritus.I read and studied thoroughly the book Building Structures Illustrated: Patterns, Systems, and Design and found it excellent. If you are an architect, an architectural engineer, a student of either or both, this is the perfect book to place in your library along with Building Construction Illustrated, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order, Building Codes Illustrated: A Guide to Understanding the 2012 International Building Code, A Global History of Architecture, Architectural Graphic Standards and other classic architectural text books, most or all of which can be found here on Amazon or other sellers of such books.This is the newest edition of the so titled book. It is filled with more than 1,000 of illustrations. This version is built upon close to thirty years of updated information and sketches, as well as new materials and ideas and drives us through each of the key stages of the design process, from site selection to building components, mechanical systems, and finishes.This version is built upon thirty years of updated information and sketches, as well as new materials and ideas.The book is illustrated throughout with excellent drawings that present the state of the art in construction processes and materials. It is Updated and revised and thus includes cutting edge systems and includes Archetypal drawings offer clear inspiration for designers and drafters, as well as the most current building codes and CSI Master Format numbering schemeIt covers everything from foundations, systems right through tofinished worksThe book consists of several chapters:Beginning with Ch. 1. Building Structures in which the great structures starting with a sketch of the Gobekli Tepe (Turkey), which remain the oldest known stone temples right up to the drawings of the currently newest and largest, tallest buildings in the world and goes on through the eight chapters and 333 pages of all of the below:Ch. 1. Building StructuresCh. 2. Structural PatternsCh. 3. Horizontal SpansCh. 4. Vertical DimensionsCh. 5. Lateral StabilityCh. 6. Long-Span StructuresCh. 7. High-Rise StructuresCh. 8. Systems IntegrationThis is less a text book filled, cover to cover with lectures and a relative spattering, sprinkling scarcity of much needed illustrations, as it is fortunately of necessarily useful, and minimal notes just enough to be understood and enough to wet the appetite for more, solidified by the more inspiring illustrations, which haunt the true architect to further explore HOW to create such inspirational works.The minimal text is not a loss but a godsend for the image oriented architect as well as those architectural engineers with an eye for the anatomy and guts of the figurative buildings.The multiplicity of drawings, and limited notes varying in length, makes me wish such books were in more high profile when I was a student.This book will find a home in my large and still growing library of art and architecture.I give it five stars, with ease.