The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice, 14th Ed.,   ISBN:9780470009574

Customer Rating: 

not the most exciting book out there, but when you need the Handbook of Professional Practice, nothing else will do. this has been updated to meet current AIA documents, and is a must in any professional office.

Customer Rating: 

We just received this the other day. At first glance it appears to be *slightly* more condensed than the previous full edition of the "Handbook", which, in my opinion is a good thing. Still very dense and an absolute must-have if you want or need to know anything about "mainstream" architectural practice at a fairly high level.

There is so much good information contained in this tome, I'm surprised the AIA hasn't created a certification program based on it, much like CSI has done with the PRM. It would seem to me such a program would have the potential to help fill a gaping hole in architectural education.

Of particular note regarding this edition: two CD-ROMs are included. The first includes sample 2007 AIA documents -- no surprises here. The second includes the entire text of the Handbook, BUT, in a locked-down proprietary format. You install an application and must activate it online or over the phone before you can use it. You can only install it on one machine at a time. There is no de-activation function; you must uninstall and then call customer support to get a new activation number if you need to change the machine on which it's installed. The electronic version allows searching, but does NOT allow printing or exporting. While the sample AIA documents are PDFs and thus cross-platform, the Handbook reader application is Windows only -- an unfortunate choice. While I understand the publisher's desire to protect their IP, a PDF file would have been so much more user-friendly.

I'll try to remember to post more when I've had a chance to wade through the new edition in its entirety. In the mean time, I thought I'd share what I knew.