Super House
Design Your Dream Home for Super Energy Efficiency, Total Comfort, Dazzling Beauty, Awesome Strength, and Economy
- 2015 INDIES Winner
- Silver, Home & Garden (Adult Nonfiction)
- 2015 INDIES Winner
- Honorable Mention, Architecture (Adult Nonfiction)
- 2015 INDIES Finalist
- Finalist, Ecology & Environment (Adult Nonfiction)
This book allows readers with little to no experience to design the optimal house for their location, community, and family needs.
Donald R. Wulfinghoff intends to maximize the relationship between our homes and our lives in his enormously helpful design guide, Super House: Design Your Dream Home for Super Energy Efficiency, Total Comfort, Dazzling Beauty, Awesome Strength, and Economy. Planning and building a house from scratch—or even undertaking a simple addition or renovation—can be daunting in scope. Yet through flow charts, checklists, worksheets, bulleted lists, and ample photographs, Super House breaks down big-picture issues such as architectural styles while also addressing nitty-gritty details such as the optimal placement of a toilet.
For ease of flipping, the eight design steps os Super House are color-coded on each right page. Wulfinghoff devotes the most coverage to creating a superstructure—that is, a house that is resilient to damage by nature, crime, and age. The second largest topic is arguably the most fun of the book: planning the home’s layout and style. Here Wulfinghoff provides plenty of visuals of well-executed style elements, such as groupings of windows.
Aesthetics, efficiency, and practicality are the foundations of Super House. For example, Wulfinghoff encourages those building a home to go stand on the land prior to construction to orient the layout and exploit the best views. He also suggests placing rarely used rooms like formal dining rooms and guest bedrooms toward the front of the house to serve as a buffer to a busy street. He likewise encourages placing rooms in clusters that streamline efficient heating and cooling throughout the day and night. In place of a locked safe, Wulfinghoff believes that every house should have a strong room with reinforced walls and doors in which to store valuables.
Wulfinghoff’s tone is genial and authoritative. He has worked in the construction field for years, and he quickly earns the readers’ trust through exhaustive detail. While the amount of detail may seem unwieldy for those not currently in the midst of construction dust, it will no doubt prove invaluable when hammers start to hit nails.
Reviewed by
Amanda McCorquodale
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
