One kind of a book that I always love to read is a “Manual”. I found it very mystically that you can find new ideas every times you opened. Some new recipe in a cooking book that you never see when you browsed last week or even yesterday. In architectural, I find “Neufert, Architects’ Data” is very interesting and I suggested all architectural students should read it from the first page ‘till the end.

In Thailand, where I studied architecture, most students or even young architect not really buy an architecture book, especially the one that has a lot of text like Neufert. I believed because of those books are expensive compared to salary and living cost in Bangkok, another is a cheap photocopy service. However, Neufert is the first architectural book that I bought after I graduated. To be an architect, this book considered a basis tool that I should have, rather than a collection of famous architects’ work or a greatest philosophy.

Recently, I have a chance to browse it to find a standard for chicken cage after a year in the AA (I’m working on a farm house in Liverpool, not that I tried to invent avant-garde cottage). I still find it has decent informations which keep me read for awhile. … I think nobody can finish read these kind of books, don’t you think? Similarly to “Eric Owen Moss Construction Manual” which I promised to myself that I will buy… someday. I have been fancy by his works when I was an architectural student. His drawings kept my imagination of those academic projects running. Although I had no single understanding what he was talking about. Then, this is a good time to recall those energetic energy and become more conscious in those complicated lines.