Edward Allen thanks his longtime colleague Joseph Iano, who collaborated on the first edition of this book. His comments and ideas have strengthened the book in many important ways. Edward is very grateful for the wisdom, experience, and fresh point of view of Patrick Rand, who joined him again as coauthor with this third edition. He has long regarded Pat as one of the finest teachers of architectural technology in the world today.

At John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Paul Drougas, senior editor, guided all phases of the preparation and publication of the previous edition of this book with wisdom, patience, and good humor. Margaret Cummins, executive editor, provided valuable guidance and judgment in this new edition. Karin Kincheloe applied her limitless talent and resourcefulness to the design of the original edition. Many thanks to Doug Salvemini, who was the production editor for this book.

Lu Wendel Lyndon, Maynard Hale Lyndon, and Mary M. Allen were informal advisors throughout the writing and illustrating of the book. To all these friends and coworkers, the author extends sincere thanks. He also expresses his profound gratitude to his many students in detailing classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University, who helped sharpen the focus of this book.

EDWARD ALLEN

South Natick, MA

Patrick Rand thanks Edward Allen, generous mentor to a generation of architectural educators, for this opportunity to collaborate again. Ed shows us all how to make the most important aspects of our craft vivid and accessible, empowering countless young designers to make architecture that is functional, constructible, and aesthetically pleasing.

Pat is also grateful to his many students, whose ambitious designs and probing questions helped him grow. Students in his graduate detailing seminars probed the breadth and depth of the principles in this book as they used them to analyze existing buildings and to design their own new projects. Work by these students provoked revisions of nearly all of the patterns in this edition, and the creation of several new patterns. He also thanks Christine Nalepa for her patience, support, and candid critiques of word and image.

Both authors acknowledge the perspective of landscape architect and educator Tom R. Ryan, who collaborated with them on a related book, Detailing for Landscape Architects (John Wiley & Sons, 2011). A number of the drawings in this book are based on illustrations in Allen and Iano, Fundamentals of Building Construction: Materials and Methods, 6th ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 2014). They have been adapted for this volume with the permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

PATRICK RAND

Raleigh, NC

The transition from architectural idea to built reality is composed of countless decisions that are made amid a landscape of ever-changing circumstances. Architects design and draw for each building a set of details that show how it will be put together. Architects have primary responsibility for the detailing in buildings, a fact that architectural curricula often underappreciate. Detailing should be at least as prominent in architecture curricula as structures and mechanical systems: two areas in which consulting engineers often have primary responsibility. This book is intended to help students and young professionals become proficient with architectural detailing.

How does the architect know if these details will achieve the desired result? Will the building that they represent go together easily and economically? Will it shed water? Will it be easy to heat and cool? Will the details look good with one another and with the overall form and space of the building? Will the building grow old gracefully, and will it last for the requisite period of time? There are many more questions of similar importance.

The experienced architect does not leave the answers to chance. Each detail, no matter how special or unprecedented, is designed in conformance with universal, timeless patterns that, given competent execution on the construction site, virtually guarantee satisfactory building performance. These detail patterns are the subject of this book.

Detail patterns are elemental principles that are present in all successful building details. They represent an accumulation of centuries of wisdom about what works in building construction and what does not. Many of the patterns are firmly grounded in scientific fact. Others are based just as solidly on common sense and the realities of human performance. The experienced architect employs all these patterns automatically, as if by instinct, when designing details.

Good detailing is an opportunity to advance the concepts and aesthetic themes of the basic design. The detail patterns can be used to edit the schematic design, celebrating its strengths and eliminating features that are not contributing to the central ideas.

The patterns clarify the issues relevant to a particular detail but avoid stating what the solution should be. They are meant to provoke the designer to discover many possible solutions and to provide a clear process through which each can be assessed.

Details are rarely designed from scratch, as a pure response to a situation, as if it had never existed before. More often, we build upon precedents. The architect uses the detail patterns as a reliable means of analyzing and understanding existing details. They are helpful in reviewing one's own work, in checking the work of other detailers in the office, in judging the quality of manufactured building components, and in diagnosing problems in existing buildings. The absence of attention to a particular detail pattern, or the presence of a feature that contradicts a pattern, usually indicates a problem or a potential problem that should be corrected.

The detail patterns are straightforward and easy to learn. There are slightly more than 100 of them. Each is irreducibly simple.

The first portion of this book introduces each of the patterns in turn, explains it, and illustrates several instances of its use. Each pattern is given a simple descriptive name and a graphical icon to assist in the memorization of it.

The patterns are arranged in three main groups: Function, Constructibility, and Aesthetics, corresponding to the three major concerns of the detailer. The order of presentation of these groups is not intended to imply their hierarchy or their sequence in the design process. Under each of these groupings, the patterns are further categorized by similarity of intent. The first category of patterns under Function, for example, is Controlling Water Leakage, comprising 13 detail patterns that offer a complete strategy for accomplishing this important task.

The second portion of the book demonstrates the use of the detail patterns during the process of designing the details of three different hypothetical buildings: one in wood, one in architectural concrete, and one in brick veneer over a reinforced concrete frame.

The book closes with an annotated listing of publications recommended for the detailer's own reference shelf and a list of websites of particular interest. Exercises for self-study or classroom use are also provided.

The almost 500 original sketches and drawings by the authors are intended to be illustrative of the building elements and natural phenomena being addressed. They are not working drawings. Almost all are freehand sketches, because this remains the primary means that designers use to begin creating details. Some information has been intentionally deleted or added to make the drawings effective instructional tools. For instance, anchors securing a masonry veneer to the backup are drawn in these sections, whereas they might be identified only in specifications or in a large-scale detail in a set of working drawings produced in an office. By including them in the sketches, readers will engage the visual reality in more complete terms.

It is assumed that the reader has a general background in the materials and methods of building construction and is familiar with the conventions of architectural drawing. In the detail drawings throughout the book, outdoors is always to the left or top of the drawing.

For a building to function well, its details must function well. When designing details for a building, the detailer has countless choices to make and no prescribed path toward the best solution. This portion of the book guides the detailer along this path by describing factors that affect the functional performance of details.

In architecture, function certainly includes the technical performance of the details that contribute to making a building safe and secure for its occupants. But function also includes features that affect the qualities of the forms, surfaces, and spaces that compose the building. A space that is firm and dry but that has an aggravating echo or glaring light does not function as well as it could.

The detailer is challenged to address the function needs of the building when it is new, but also long into the future and sometimes beyond the lifetime of those who designed or constructed it. Buildings constantly change in response to natural forces, such as the daily cycles of temperature and light, as well as in response to seasonal changes. A basic grasp of physics and of biological and chemical processes is part of the detailing process. Other functions concern the people who engage with the building every day, altering it internally and externally through countless actions.

The detail patterns that relate to function address the breadth of these topics. They are organized into thematic groups to focus the detailer's attention on each topic individually. Each pattern builds awareness of the issue and includes directions toward possible solutions. The patterns describe the natural processes involved, as well as the codes, standards, and conventional practices that are relevant to discovering appropriate detailing solutions.