or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
30 used & new from £8.79
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Compact Houses
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Compact Houses (Paperback)

by Marta Serrats (Author)
2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £18.95
Price: £13.27 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £5.68 (30%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Friday, November 13? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
20 new from £11.77 10 used from £8.79

Frequently Bought Together

Compact Houses + Big Book of Small House Designs + 500 Ideas for Small Spaces (Evergreen Series)
Price For All Three: £26.93

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Big Book of Small House Designs

Big Book of Small House Designs

by Don Metz
2.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £7.67
Small Eco Houses (Evergreen Series)

Small Eco Houses (Evergreen Series)

by Taschen Publishing
3.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £7.19
Design Strategies in Architecture: An Approach to the Analysis of Form

Design Strategies in Architecture: An Approach to the Analysis of Form

by Geoffrey H. Baker
£32.67
500 Ideas for Small Spaces (Evergreen Series)

500 Ideas for Small Spaces (Evergreen Series)

by Daniela Santos Quartino
2.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £5.99
Mini House Now

Mini House Now

by Agata Losantos
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 420 pages
  • Publisher: Universe Publishing (Incorporated, Div. of Rizzoli; illustrated edition edition (25 Aug 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0789313499
  • ISBN-13: 978-0789313492
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 19.8 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 359,409 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   mini houses opens new browser window
SHOP.COM  -  Buy mini houses on SHOP.COM Find Exceptional Value Every Day! 
   Small Houses opens new browser window
Gumtree.com  -  View Desirable Houses Now. Loads of Local Listings & Photos! 
   UK Home Automation opens new browser window
www.letsautomate.com  -  UK's biggest supplier. Huge stock Fast delivery, quality service 
  
 

Product Description

Synopsis

Compact homes are a counter-trend to McMansions. A contributor to European architecture and design publications presents an international survey showing that smaller dwellings (less than 1,300 square feet) in urban and non-urban areas can be attractive and functional as well as environmentally responsible. The 51 featured projects include color pho

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
small houses
small house design
compact houses
little house
small home
design
green 3
small house
residential
good for the environment
ecological living

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Compact Houses
34% buy the item featured on this page:
Compact Houses 2.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£13.27
Space: Japanese Design Solutions
19% buy
Space: Japanese Design Solutions 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£12.97
Small Eco Houses (Evergreen Series)
16% buy
Small Eco Houses (Evergreen Series) 3.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£7.19
The Very Small Home: Japanese Ideas for Living Well in Limited Space
15% buy
The Very Small Home: Japanese Ideas for Living Well in Limited Space 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£13.68
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:    (0)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
2.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting subject - shame about the book, 31 Dec 2007
By A. Butterfield (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
I had high hopes for this book. I've always found tiny houses fascinating, especially Japanese ones, and here's a book about that very subject, with many Japanese houses.
Superficially, it seems fine: the book feels nice, and a flick through reveals plenty of colour photos of minimalist house interiors. It ought to be good. So how did they mess up?
First, the houses in question aren't always all that compact, though some certainly are. The criteria is that they should be no more than 1300 square feet in terms of floor space. Measure your own house - it would probably qualify for this book. But okay, some of the houses are a more challenging sub-500 square feet, so we'll let that go.
The book is laid out in quite a rigid format. Each house gets about seven or eight pages to itself. There's a brief text intro, then a few pages of photos. The graphic design is the same all the way through and a bit unadventurous. Each house has accompanying plans and elevation drawings.
Which sounds fine. But let's start with the text. The one page of blurb for each house is frankly badly written, and pretty much the same for each house. You soon tire of the phrase 'floods the building with light', which is a typically overused and not very enlightening phrase. That's what windows do isn't it? Mostly you get the most uninteresting description of basic shapes and materials. There's never a whiff of insight into the architects' thought processes. Worse, the text is often banal and cliched, like it's written by a teenager. And there are mistakes.
There are also a couple of lines of text with the third page of photos, but these are to the same standard as the main text. What you soon notice is missing are captions to the photos, and this is a serious problem. Why? Because the photos aren't especially good at revealing the buildings. You really need them explained. At least there plans, you may say, but these too are poor: they're too small and hard to fathom, too technical. You will need a magnifying glass and a good imagination.
I have my suspicions that despite a couple of famous arhitects' names on the cover, most of the houses in the book are quite ordinary. Some are presented with no furniture at all and it's like browsing through a shed catalogue. Without the evidence that somebody lives in a building you get no idea of how somebody might use the space.
So the book's supposed to be about the cleverness of small buildings, about ingenuity. But it's really hard to see what these stark little houses are all about. Most of them don't seem clever at all, just rather bleak.
I really think you should see this book in person before you buy it because it is not what it seems.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 

   

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject























i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.