Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets
Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets

Author: Barry B. LePatner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0226472701

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Across the nation, construction projects large and small—from hospitals to schools to simple home improvements—are spiraling out of control. Delays and cost overruns have come to seem “normal,” even as they drain our wallets and send our blood pressure skyrocketing. In Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets, prominent construction attorney Barry B. LePatner builds a powerful case for change in America’s sole remaining “mom and pop” industry—an industry that consumes $1.23 trillion and wastes at least $120 billion each year. With three decades of experience representing clients that include eminent architects and engineers, as well as corporations, institutions, and developers, LePatner has firsthand knowledge of the bad management, ineffective supervision, and insufficient investment in technology that plagues the risk-averse construction industry. In an engaging and direct style, he here pinpoints the issues that underlie the industry’s woes while providing practical tips for anyone in the business of building, including advice on the precise language owners should use during contract negotiations. Armed with Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets, everyone involved in the purchase or renovation of a building or any structure—from homeowners seeking to remodel to civic developers embarking on large-scale projects—has the information they need to change this antiquated industry, one project at a time. “LePatner describes what is wrong with the current system and suggests ways that architects can help—by retaking their rightful place as master builders.”—Fred A. Bernstein, Architect Magazine “Every now and then, a major construction project is completed on time and on budget. Everyone is amazed. . . . Barry LePatner thinks this exception should become the rule. . . . A swift kick to the construction industry.”—James R. Hagerty, Wall Street Journal

The Recovering
The Recovering

Author: Leslie Jamison

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2018-04-03

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 0316259624

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From the New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams comes this transformative work showing that sometimes the recovery is more gripping than the addiction. With its deeply personal and seamless blend of memoir, cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage, The Recovering turns our understanding of the traditional addiction narrative on its head, demonstrating that the story of recovery can be every bit as electrifying as the train wreck itself. Leslie Jamison deftly excavates the stories we tell about addiction -- both her own and others' -- and examines what we want these stories to do and what happens when they fail us. All the while, she offers a fascinating look at the larger history of the recovery movement, and at the complicated bearing that race and class have on our understanding of who is criminal and who is ill. At the heart of the book is Jamison's ongoing conversation with literary and artistic geniuses whose lives and works were shaped by alcoholism and substance dependence, including John Berryman, Jean Rhys, Billie Holiday, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, and David Foster Wallace, as well as brilliant lesser-known figures such as George Cain, lost to obscurity but newly illuminated here. Through its unvarnished relation of Jamison's own ordeals, The Recovering also becomes a book about a different kind of dependency: the way our desires can make us all, as she puts it, "broken spigots of need." It's about the particular loneliness of the human experience-the craving for love that both devours us and shapes who we are. For her striking language and piercing observations, Jamison has been compared to such iconic writers as Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, yet her utterly singular voice also offers something new. With enormous empathy and wisdom, Jamison has given us nothing less than the story of addiction and recovery in America writ large, a definitive and revelatory account that will resonate for years to come.

The Work of Cepezed
The Work of Cepezed

Author: Architectenbureau Cepezed

Publisher: 010 Publishers

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 9064505330

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In the past few decades, cepezed has gained renown with transparent, sustainable and technologically progressive architecture that is remarkably usable and humane. Unaffected design, sober but stylish materialization, and careful finishing are just as characteristic of Cepezed's oeuvre as the integration of spatial and construction-technical aspects. The design and building processes at cepezed are also integrated: the use of prefab components and the application of industrial building methods guarantee an optimum alignment of design and realization, in which time, quality, and costs are meticulously planned and controlled. Prototypes documents a large number of key projects and deals extensively with the various aspects of product development, building process and architecture. The layout and form of the book make it very similar to a cepezed design: celar, logical and efficient. It offers very incisive insight into the office philosophy that cepezed has drawn straight through architectural history. In addition to the timeless aesthetic pleasure that can be experienced in the designs and the craftmanship displayed at detail level, the much-discussed role of the architect in the design process today is examined in the book. A must read for every architect who wrestles with the threatened depreciation of the discipline.