I'll start with, I got my copy of the book. So far, only done a quick skim through. I'll come back later to give a further detailed response or review. So far, it looks like a very well-prepared book.
Others, feel free to chime in on the book by Michael Maines, Dan Kolbert, Emily Mottram, and Christopher Briley.
I placed the thread in the category Sustainability but fits some of the other categories.
Non Sequitur
Jul 26, 22 6:19 pm
mine was expected to ship out today. Nothing yet. Shakes firsts at MM.
Wood Guy
Jul 27, 22 7:16 am
I have to wonder how much of the botched rollout is actually clever guerrilla marketing on the publisher’s part. They admit to nothing.
We’re doing a book release/signing party this afternoon; should be weird.
Non Sequitur
Jul 27, 22 7:44 am
Don't know but it's apparently available in a book store 400m away from my office yet the amazon pre-order is still MIA.
bowling_ball
Jul 27, 22 9:11 am
Yep, got an email notice from Amazon yesterday that shipping was delayed. No reason given but that's ok, I can be patient.
Wood Guy
Jul 27, 22 9:27 am
Thanks Rick! I've found a few typos and it would be good to hear about others so we can fix them on reprints. And of course we expect critical feedback; we know we can't please everyone. But we hope that most people find it to be a good primer for high-quality residential building.
Richard Balkins
Jul 27, 22 10:04 pm
Will look for any typos and other critical feedback but that will probably be after the AIBD and other stuff during this week and weekend. Additionally, I'm also working on some web-related stuff however, that can take time so I'll probably work on sending you feedback to you before the web-related stuff is done. (No, I'm not talking about Archinect regarding web-related stuff).
b3tadine[sutures]
Jul 27, 22 10:39 pm
When this goes to Audible, I'll narrate if you like. I'll even throw in a free Louis Kahn impersonation for free.
Richard Balkins
Jul 28, 22 2:57 am
If you can do a good Louis Kahn impersonation, I'd love to hear it, perhaps.
Donna Sink
Jul 29, 22 4:33 pm
Bumping this. I have need of an expert on residential energy efficiency renovations for a webinar I’m doing with the City of South Bend. Wood Guy, I’m sending you an email shortly…
Non Sequitur
Jul 29, 22 6:25 pm
MM. book came in 30min ago. looking forward to reading it with a beer in the sun soon.
proto
Aug 9, 22 1:33 pm
still nada...
Wood Guy
Aug 9, 22 1:53 pm
Did you order from Taunton, Amazon or somewhere else? Taunton's stash ran out quickly, and they are changing vendors so some people got a notice that basically means their order was cancelled and refunded. Maddening, but not in our control. The second printing is due in late August/early September. I don't know how many Amazon and other stores ordered but they seem to be more readily available, unless they have run out as well.
proto
Aug 9, 22 6:20 pm
funnily enough, i canceled the bookshop.org order that i put in in late Jan when you first announced & swapped to Taunton in July because tintt got his copy there...(sigh)...i just emailed customer service last night to ask on status as it's been a month with no info -- haven't heard back yet.
looks like Amazon is saying mid August delivery as of today
Wood Guy
Aug 10, 22 8:33 am
Did your payment to Taunton get refunded? The publisher (as in the Taunton employee we work with) said that with the changes they are going through it's actually more reliable at this point to go through Amazon. Frustrating, to say the least...
If it helps, the authors have not been able to get additional copies either, other than one we got for free and others that we bought at a local retailer.
Bench
Aug 10, 22 9:22 am
Interesting. I had to buy through Amazon (for certain reasons), and received it in under 48 hours.
gibbost
Aug 10, 22 10:02 am
I placed my order on Amazon on 7/27 thru a third-party seller. I received notice over the weekend from Amazon that a shipping date has not yet been confirmed by the seller. I chalk it up to high demand and popularity. Looking forward to receiving it WG.
proto
Aug 10, 22 10:40 am
@wood guy, I’ll cancel Taunton then. I appreciate the feedback.
proto
Aug 11, 22 10:54 am
Fricken Amazon…didn’t even wait one full day & it was listed cheaper than either Bookstore.org or Taunton Press…amazing & ridiculous all at once…i don’t even have an acknowledgement of Taunton canceling yet
looking forward to sitting down with it!
Wood Guy
Sep 21, 22 9:25 am
In case anyone is interested, my Pretty Good House co-author Emily and I will be presenting at this conference in Austin, Nov. 1-3: https://entrearchitect.com/ann.... It's all about running small businesses, particularly design businesses, and is sure to be a good time. I don't know how many seats they have left; it's not sold out yet but probably will be soon.
The week after that is the first Texas Building Science Symposium: https://bsandbeerkc.org/texas. Emily and I were just in Kansas City for their third annual BS Symposium, an outgrowth of our BS + Beer show, and their first one in Chattanooga just sold out. Neither Emily or I will be able to make it to the one in Texas, since we'll be there the week before, but the speakers are all friends of ours and top-notch in the building/building science industry. The symposiums are very affordable, paid mostly by sponsors, relatively informal and intimate--a great way to learn building science basics. (And even though I've seen them all present before, I learned new things from every presenter.) I'm not sure who will replace Emily but wouldn't be surprised if it's our friend Christine Williamson, aka Building Science Fight Club.
Bench
Oct 13, 22 8:29 am
Hey WG - love the book, im slowly working my way through, currently about halfway.
I'm especially delighted in the recurring advice / celebration of reducing complexity in homes to design simple projects that retain effectiveness and beauty, but are high-performance and often based on historical forms/precedents. I studied at the east coast Canadian school just above you where this approach to design was pushed heavily, especially by a few relatively famous architects teaching there.
I have to admit though, you've often posted here that clients will get overly ambitious and blow up the budget ... have you been able to get much traction in trying to bring them back to the PGH approach? How do you square that circle of providing a great finish product, but likely without using the description of 'simple' due to its negative connotations?
(Hope the question makes sense, its a bit hard to describe)
Bench
Oct 13, 22 8:33 am
Maybe another way to put it is - since getting my license, i've started to be approach by friends/family about private work (which i've politely declined for a few reasons and passed off to friends who are happy to pick it up). Im quite sure that many of them would be enthralled with the PGH arguement ... but i know that fundamentally what they are looking for is a fairly complex, typically suburban home. I suspect many of your clients might be the same, despite the case studies presented in the book...
Wood Guy
Oct 13, 22 9:02 am
Bench, thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the book. One of the more selfish reasons for writing it was to help clients pre-screen themselves, so we get fewer people who don't align with the concept. I also wrote the content on the website and my architect friends and I have been sending potential clients there for years, saying, "read this, and if you agree with the principles, we can talk."
Maybe it's partly due to living in Maine, where there are few of the types of developments that have taken over elsewhere, but all of my clients say they want "simple." I do get baited-and-switched on occasion; I have two projects now that are large, complex and expensive, but better than they might be if someone else had designed them. The PGH approach encourages people to consider the things we think are important, but there are few if any hard-and-fast rules.
Our model was Sarah Susanka's Not So Big House book series, by the same editor and publisher. Their brilliance was to write primarily for the client, so they would ask their design professional for smaller, higher-quality and better-considered spaces. She is often criticized for still doing large homes and including larger homes in her books, but the homes would have been larger and not as well-designed if the client had not asked for a Not So Big House.
Wood Guy
Oct 13, 22 9:06 am
One tactic I have heard my colleagues do and I intend to start doing is determining what aesthetic styles appeal to clients early in the process, or before contract signing. They go through stacks of images and put them into piles--like, dislike, undecided. I generally think I can design to any style, but I'm thinking about pushing my own aesthetic more and this is one way to help screen out people who want something other than what I offer.
I'll start with, I got my copy of the book. So far, only done a quick skim through. I'll come back later to give a further detailed response or review. So far, it looks like a very well-prepared book.
Others, feel free to chime in on the book by Michael Maines, Dan Kolbert, Emily Mottram, and Christopher Briley.
I placed the thread in the category Sustainability but fits some of the other categories.
mine was expected to ship out today. Nothing yet. Shakes firsts at MM.
I have to wonder how much of the botched rollout is actually clever guerrilla marketing on the publisher’s part. They admit to nothing.
We’re doing a book release/signing party this afternoon; should be weird.
Don't know but it's apparently available in a book store 400m away from my office yet the amazon pre-order is still MIA.
Yep, got an email notice from Amazon yesterday that shipping was delayed. No reason given but that's ok, I can be patient.
Thanks Rick! I've found a few typos and it would be good to hear about others so we can fix them on reprints. And of course we expect critical feedback; we know we can't please everyone. But we hope that most people find it to be a good primer for high-quality residential building.
Will look for any typos and other critical feedback but that will probably be after the AIBD and other stuff during this week and weekend. Additionally, I'm also working on some web-related stuff however, that can take time so I'll probably work on sending you feedback to you before the web-related stuff is done. (No, I'm not talking about Archinect regarding web-related stuff).
When this goes to Audible, I'll narrate if you like. I'll even throw in a free Louis Kahn impersonation for free.
If you can do a good Louis Kahn impersonation, I'd love to hear it, perhaps.
Bumping this. I have need of an expert on residential energy efficiency renovations for a webinar I’m doing with the City of South Bend. Wood Guy, I’m sending you an email shortly…
MM. book came in 30min ago. looking forward to reading it with a beer in the sun soon.
still nada...
Did you order from Taunton, Amazon or somewhere else? Taunton's stash ran out quickly, and they are changing vendors so some people got a notice that basically means their order was cancelled and refunded. Maddening, but not in our control. The second printing is due in late August/early September. I don't know how many Amazon and other stores ordered but they seem to be more readily available, unless they have run out as well.
funnily enough, i canceled the bookshop.org order that i put in in late Jan when you first announced & swapped to Taunton in July because tintt got his copy there...(sigh)...i just emailed customer service last night to ask on status as it's been a month with no info -- haven't heard back yet.
looks like Amazon is saying mid August delivery as of today
Did your payment to Taunton get refunded? The publisher (as in the Taunton employee we work with) said that with the changes they are going through it's actually more reliable at this point to go through Amazon. Frustrating, to say the least...
If it helps, the authors have not been able to get additional copies either, other than one we got for free and others that we bought at a local retailer.
Interesting. I had to buy through Amazon (for certain reasons), and received it in under 48 hours.
I placed my order on Amazon on 7/27 thru a third-party seller. I received notice over the weekend from Amazon that a shipping date has not yet been confirmed by the seller. I chalk it up to high demand and popularity. Looking forward to receiving it WG.
@wood guy, I’ll cancel Taunton then. I appreciate the feedback.
Fricken Amazon…didn’t even wait one full day & it was listed cheaper than either Bookstore.org or Taunton Press…amazing & ridiculous all at once…i don’t even have an acknowledgement of Taunton canceling yet
looking forward to sitting down with it!
In case anyone is interested, my Pretty Good House co-author Emily and I will be presenting at this conference in Austin, Nov. 1-3: https://entrearchitect.com/ann.... It's all about running small businesses, particularly design businesses, and is sure to be a good time. I don't know how many seats they have left; it's not sold out yet but probably will be soon.
The week after that is the first Texas Building Science Symposium: https://bsandbeerkc.org/texas. Emily and I were just in Kansas City for their third annual BS Symposium, an outgrowth of our BS + Beer show, and their first one in Chattanooga just sold out. Neither Emily or I will be able to make it to the one in Texas, since we'll be there the week before, but the speakers are all friends of ours and top-notch in the building/building science industry. The symposiums are very affordable, paid mostly by sponsors, relatively informal and intimate--a great way to learn building science basics. (And even though I've seen them all present before, I learned new things from every presenter.) I'm not sure who will replace Emily but wouldn't be surprised if it's our friend Christine Williamson, aka Building Science Fight Club.
Hey WG - love the book, im slowly working my way through, currently about halfway.
I'm especially delighted in the recurring advice / celebration of reducing complexity in homes to design simple projects that retain effectiveness and beauty, but are high-performance and often based on historical forms/precedents. I studied at the east coast Canadian school just above you where this approach to design was pushed heavily, especially by a few relatively famous architects teaching there.
I have to admit though, you've often posted here that clients will get overly ambitious and blow up the budget ... have you been able to get much traction in trying to bring them back to the PGH approach? How do you square that circle of providing a great finish product, but likely without using the description of 'simple' due to its negative connotations?
(Hope the question makes sense, its a bit hard to describe)
Maybe another way to put it is - since getting my license, i've started to be approach by friends/family about private work (which i've politely declined for a few reasons and passed off to friends who are happy to pick it up). Im quite sure that many of them would be enthralled with the PGH arguement ... but i know that fundamentally what they are looking for is a fairly complex, typically suburban home. I suspect many of your clients might be the same, despite the case studies presented in the book...
Bench, thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the book. One of the more selfish reasons for writing it was to help clients pre-screen themselves, so we get fewer people who don't align with the concept. I also wrote the content on the website and my architect friends and I have been sending potential clients there for years, saying, "read this, and if you agree with the principles, we can talk."
Maybe it's partly due to living in Maine, where there are few of the types of developments that have taken over elsewhere, but all of my clients say they want "simple." I do get baited-and-switched on occasion; I have two projects now that are large, complex and expensive, but better than they might be if someone else had designed them. The PGH approach encourages people to consider the things we think are important, but there are few if any hard-and-fast rules.
Our model was Sarah Susanka's Not So Big House book series, by the same editor and publisher. Their brilliance was to write primarily for the client, so they would ask their design professional for smaller, higher-quality and better-considered spaces. She is often criticized for still doing large homes and including larger homes in her books, but the homes would have been larger and not as well-designed if the client had not asked for a Not So Big House.
One tactic I have heard my colleagues do and I intend to start doing is determining what aesthetic styles appeal to clients early in the process, or before contract signing. They go through stacks of images and put them into piles--like, dislike, undecided. I generally think I can design to any style, but I'm thinking about pushing my own aesthetic more and this is one way to help screen out people who want something other than what I offer.