COMPUTERS IN ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE by B. Guttridge and J.R. Wainwright, Crosby Lockwood Staples, London, 1973, 121 pp. I t is not uncommon to find books which lack e i t h e r l i t e r a c y or technical rigour. Thankfully, books which are neither l i t e r a t e nor t e c h n i c a l l y In t h i s l i t t l e o f f e r i n g , however, we have a rigorous are extremely rare. real c o l l e c t o r ' s item. The f i r s t paragraph of the book reveals that: There are two types of computer: (a) Analogue (b) Digital From there the t e x t becomes marginally less r e v e l a t i o n a r y and s i g n i f i c a n t l y less accurate. Did you know, f or instance, that "In order to produce an Did you f u r t h e r know that "In order You d i d n ' t ? No wonder the e f f i c i e n t design acceptable to the c l i e n t , the a r c h i t e c t must have access to s u f f i c i e n t data to make this possible?" to u t i l i s e f u l l y the resources of an o f f i c e , the a r c h i t e c t is obliged to seek methods by which his e f f i c i e n c y can be increased?" ".... I t w i l l calculate the heat loss. Clearly; gosh~ b u i l t environment's a mess. But wait, here comes the computer to the rescue: I t could even estimate the area of I f a l l of this overwhelms the reader, "Off-line:Description of a method r a d i a t o r panels i f asked. computer to handle". Clearly t h i s is a very imaginative program f o r a he can turn f o r help to the glossary. of working where units are connected to the central processor of the computer." I wonder, then, what " o n - l i n e " means; p i t y i t doesn't appear in the glossary. Or what about "Memory:Computer store", presumably the shop in which you can buy a computer which w i l l handle a l l those imaginative-type programs. The chapters - which one has to acknowledge are numbered in the r i g h t order purport to cover such topics as Design and Job Management (two programs are described); Applications to System Building (which, although i t does not deal with applications to system b u i l d i n g , does contain the l i t e r a r y h i g h l i g h t of the opus - " I t would appear that system building does have good p o t e n t i a l f o r computer a i d i n g " . ) Case Study I (which is not a case study but mainly Case Study I I : a comprises a large volume of poorly explained p r i n t - o u t ) ; computer a p p l i c a t i o n ) ; general or s p e c i f i c ) . Practise Not Using Computer Application (which is about a practice not using and General Conclusions (which contains no conclusions, The opening chapter claims to be a General Synopsis ( is t h i s includes a summary of the there such a thing as a specific synopsis?); work of one University Department ( i n c o r r e c t l y reproduced from a standard handout) and what would appear to be a lengthy e p i s t l e from someone in the U.S.A. The whole e f f o r t would be derisory were i t not f o r the fact that i t w i l l do p o s i t i v e harm in the profession. computer is a high-speed moron; In the preface, the authors state that the at the time of w r i t i n g this review, the computer was not a v a i l a b l e f o r i t s opinion of the authors. T . MAVER

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