Building evaluation for adaptive reuse and preservation /

Combining the skills of an architect/structural engineer and a mechanical engineer, Rabun and Kelso (both, Univ. of Tennessee) have together produced a thorough, useful, widely applicable book that is well grounded in professional practice. Chapters on surveying existing conditions; electrical systems; mechanical systems; plumbing, bathrooms, accessibility, and fire systems; sustainability; pro forma analysis; and testing provide readers with a clearly defined and practical method both for surveying architectural fabric and for evaluating the results of that survey. Building Evaluation provides a framework for ordered observation and analysis that will be accessible to students and beginning practitioners, and a useful tool for experienced professionals. Of particular note is its integration of architecture and engineering, disciplines that are too often separated in literature and in practice. The almost seamless melding of the two in Rabun and Kelso's book is reflective both of the importance of cooperation between the disciplines and of the authors' obvious success in merging their skills, perspectives, and points of focus. Building Evaluation deserves to be on the bookshelves of graduate students of architecture, historic preservation, engineering, and adaptive reuse, and in the hands of practitioners of the same. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and professionals. B. C. Green independent scholar