Product Description

Understanding the relationship between design and technology is critical to the understanding of architecture. Aimed clearly at architectural students, this book provides an accessible introduction to all aspects of architectural technology: structural physics, structural elements and forms, heating, lighting, environmental control and computer modelling. As well as providing a clear grounding in these topics, it will also help students to integrate their design thinking with appropriate structural and environmental solutions. The book sets out to explain the relationships between physical phenomena, materials, building elements and structural types using simple classification systems and real world examples. Photographs are used to familiarize the user with common construction technology, while historical examples are employed to chart significant moments in the history of architectural engineering. Every topic area is accompnied by a set of cross-references for further reading and research. In addition, this volume explores current computer techniques for assisting students to predict the structural and environmental behaviour of buildings. It also uses historical precedents to explain how the success of a technology is directly related to its cultural context.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39304 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
"...this is a well structured and clearly presented text, informative and up to date."
--Architectural Technology Magazine, 1st January 2009

About the Author
William McLean teaches at the School of Architecture at the University of Westminster and is the co-author of Fabrication (2006) and Introduction to Architectural Technology (2008), both with Pete Silver.

Pete Silver teaches at the School of Architecture at the University of Westminster and is the co-author of Fabrication (2006) and Introduction to Architectural Technology (2008), both with William McLean.

Customer Reviews

A good introduction
This book is a good way to read basic information that is clear and concise.
It is more like a glossary, explaining in simple terms what technology are used and in what capacity.

Thinking about doing a course in Architectural Technology, then buy this to give yourself a head start.

All the Technical Tutorials you will ever need, in book form.
I've looked through many an architecture textbook recently and I have to say 'Introduction to Architectural Technology' is one of the best and most intelligible. Maybe its because its one of the most recently published. It covers a lot of ground, and offers a lot of information without making it so complicated that it is inaccessible to the beginner or so banal that a more senior architecture student will find it useless. It taught me everything I find I need to know at 3rd year level and corrected some of my mistaken assumptions about structural integrity. It includes a great chapter about building performance and the use of computers for environmental and structural analysis. The 25 Case Studies are wonderful and include some of my favourite buildings: Prouve's Tropical House, Nervi's Palazetto Dello Sport, Otto's German Pavillion, and Buckminster's US Pavillion and Nox's D-Tower. Perhaps the only thing that might have made the book better would have been a more extensive use of the "Structural Logic" charts because the two which are included are truly perfect. If you want to understand structure once and for all, memorize those charts.

Prime Architectural Reference Book, easy to read
I came across Introduction to Architectural Technology because I had bought another of McLean and Silver's books called Fabrication: The Designers Guide) and found it very useful. 'Fabrication' offers 12 case studies showing the cutting-edge work of 12 UK `fabricators' whose industrial processes are slowly being integrated into the more mainstream architectural discourse. I found Fabrication truly inspirational and the sections about tensile yarns and spun metal outstanding, so I got Introduction to Architectural Technology and it is every bit as good. No, it is better.
Although very different in its approach, I think 'Introduction to Architectural Technology' is the perfect complement to Fabrication, a sort of prequel. Whilst 'Fabrication' is the source-book for material technologies, 'Introduction to Architectural Technology' is that for everything structural. It methodically examines every aspect of structural form, from material science and technology to structural integrity before offering the most crystal-clear structural classification I have ever come across. In a double-spread chart, simple structural diagrams are used to show how primary (2D) Compressive shapes can be combined to form every building type one cares to think of. Using this chart has allowed me to turn an impossibly `theoretical' building I was designing into a viable, structurally intelligible building without sacrificing any of my design intent. This is a book we all need.