#000074
How Buildings Work: The Natural Order of Architecture
Edward Allen
Signed / inscribed
How Buildings Work is Edward Allen's beloved illustrated explanation of exactly what its title promises: how a building stands up, stays warm or cool, keeps the rain out, gets built, and eventually wears out. Allen, an architect and teacher who has designed and even hand-built structures himself, treats the building as a working system, walking through structure, heat, light, air, water, and sound in plain language paired with his own clear line drawings. His organizing idea is that good architecture works with natural forces—sun, gravity, air movement—rather than against them, which gives the book a quietly green sensibility well ahead of its time. It's aimed at students, architects, and curious homeowners alike, and it assumes no engineering background. Warm, lucid, and genuinely useful, it's the kind of book that makes you notice how the rooms around you actually function. For anyone interested in architecture or building, it's a classic starting point.
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The author
Edward Allen is an American architect, teacher, and writer who has taught at MIT, Yale, and the University of Oregon and received the AIA's Topaz Medal for architectural education. He is known for explaining building technology through words and his own drawings.
The book
First published in 1980 and revised in later editions, How Buildings Work: The Natural Order of Architecture treats a building as a system that must manage structure, heat, light, air, water, sound, and fire. Allen's premise is that the best buildings cooperate with natural forces, and he illustrates the principles with clear diagrams throughout.
How it has aged
Very well. Later editions added emphasis on "green" design, but the core physics never dates, and the book remains a standard introduction for students and a satisfying read for laypeople.
For more context
Read alongside Allen's more technical Fundamentals of Building Construction and Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Edward Allen
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Place of publication
- New York
- Year
- 1995
- Edition
- Second edition
- ISBN
- 0-19-509100-0
- Shelf
- Science
- Location
- Maine
To Roy and Jean Perkinson, good friends, with best regards. — Edward Allen, July 20, 1996