Author(s): Laura and Alex Sanchez

Publisher: Sunstone Press; Revised edition (April 9, 2008)

Paperback: 230 pages

ISBN-10: 0865346623

ISBN-13: 978-0865346628

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Since Adobe Houses for Today first appeared, interest in energy efficiency has exploded. Showing the pathway to smaller, solar tempered, easy-to-heat homes using adobe, one of the world’s most energy efficient building materials, makes this book about adobe houses not only for today, but also for tomorrow. Adobe Houses for Today features 12 plans for compact, beautifully proportioned adobe homes in modern and traditional styles. The richly illustrated text shows how the basic houses, designed for today’s smaller families, can be expanded and adapted to fit readers’ own budgets, family sizes, style preferences, and building sites. After a brief look at adobe’s rich history, Adobe Houses for Today surveys adobe’s advantages as a building material, illustrates adobe construction, and gives an eye-opening tour through the facts and fantasies of energy conservation. The heart of the book details the plans, using them as examples of design techniques that increase livability and control costs in any house. The book and its minimal-cost construction drawings are valuable, enjoyable tools for those buying, building, or remodeling a house. With this new edition, which includes an additional chapter with stories from people who have built the houses, construction drawings are now available for some of the expanded versions.

Adobe Houses for Today features 12 plans for compact, beautifully-proportioned adobe homes in modern and traditional styles. Yet the book offers much more. The richly-illustrated text shows how the basic houses, designed for today’s smaller families, can be as flexible as a set of building blocks. Intriguing drawings demonstrate how readers can expand and adapt the plans to fit their own budgets, family sizes, style preferences, and building sites.

After a brief look at adobe’s rich history, Adobe Houses for Today surveys adobe’s advantages as a building material. Next, readers take an eye-opening tour through the facts and fantasies of energy conservation. Then, the heart of the book illustrates the basic and expanded versions of the plans, using them as examples of design techniques that increase livability and control costs in any house. The book also explains site requirements, adobe construction, and estimating basics with an adobe house that “assembles itself.” Adobe Houses for Today and its associated construction drawings are valuable, enjoyable tools not only for those buying, building, or remodeling a house, but also for contractors, drafters, drafting teachers, and real estate professionals.

Award-winning author Laura Sanchez previously ran a drafting business that specialized in adobe houses. She called it quits sometime after the 250th set of plans, but maintains an abiding interest in designing the very best, most cost-effective houses possible. Alex Sanchez, who grew up building houses, has taught courses in adobe construction and solar energy. He founded and currently heads the renowned computer-aided drafting program at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus. The authors’ previous books and CDs concern architectural computer graphics.