Wow! eBook
Five Houses, Ten Details 2009th Edition
Author(s): Edward R. Ford (Author)
- Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
- Publication Date: July 14, 2009
- Edition: 2009th
- Language: English
- Print length: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 1568988265
- ISBN-13: 9781568988269
Book Description
Edward Ford’s forty years of practicing and teaching architecture have focused on one area: the architectural detail. Yet, despite two hugely influential books (The Details of Modern Architecture, volumes 1 and 2), numerous articles, and lectures given from Vancouver to Vienna, there are two questions Ford has, remarkably, never answered: “What is a detail?” and more importantly, “What is a good detail?” Ford is an architect as well as a writer, so it is notsurprising that rather than answering these questions in a third book, he spent six years on the design and construction of a house. Building it was not an exercise in the application of ideas about detail; it was, rather, a mechanism for answering those two simple questions.
Five Houses, Ten Details 2009th Edition presents five designsall by Ford, all for himself, all for the same siteonly one of which was built. Each unbuilt design evolved or was abandoned for a variety of reasons.Many simply cost too much; others were based on presumptions that proved inaccurate or unproductive. All, to some degree, are present in the final design. Each of the five designs explores a different aspect of architectural detail: how it acts to connect to or disconnect from a site; how it is expressive of material; how it acts to reveal structure; how itarticulates the act of construction; and how it can be inconsistent, in a beneficial way, with the remainder of the building. Detail for Ford is not an accessory to architecture but its essence. Each design in Five Houses, Ten Details 2009th Edition explores and articulates one aspectsite, structure, material, joinery, or furnitureat the expense of the others. Each architectural exploration leads to a larger understanding of construction and a larger understanding of how details communicate. Woven throughout with historical references and specific examples of his design process, Five Houses, Ten Details 2009th Edition is an accessible and at times personal account of one man’s exploration of architectural detail.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“An accessible, personal account of Edward Ford’s exploration of architectural detail. Part of the Writing Matters series.” –William Stout Architectural Books, June, 2009
“Every architect knows that God (or is it the Devil?) is in the detail, and Edward Ford, who has two previous substantial tomes on the subject, tells us why.
Five Houses, Ten Details 2009th Edition belongs to a Princeton Press Series `Writing Matters’, and it is this, and the fact that the author is a writer, teacher and architect, that sets the framework in which the book is presented. The aurhor is a patient man; he has taken six years and five designs in his exploration to find a satisfactory solution and build a house for his family; and at the same time to structure a set of lessons which he trusts leads to the ultimate definition, that `detail is not an accessory to architecture but its essence’.” –InDesign Magazine“Nevertheless,
Five Houses, Ten Details 2009th Edition succeeds on multiple levels. Ford has effectively crafted a fine study not only of an indispensable element of architectural practice that’s often misunderstood or overlooked, but also an engaging and illuminating look into the maturation of an individual designer’s process, and the influences and elements of personal history that led him to approach the way that he does.” –Architects Newspaper
