Airport
ISBN 1 84138 024 5
Keyword Airports, Technology, Children, Education
Hospital
ISBN 1 84138 025 3
Keyword Hospitals
Until we have cause to consider the details (or until something goes wrong) we rarely appreciate how complex a machine the modern building is. Our houses can illustrate this at one extreme, but at the other are such complex buildings as hospitals and airports: designed to perform, or to support, particular functions and containing a mass of elaborate technology to enable these functions, all integrated and designed to practical ends. The same, of course, applies to our library buildings, from Carnegie structures to today’s high‐tech information centres.
These complexities of function and technology, and their design implications, are indicated in these first two volumes of a valuable new series aimed at children of nine‐ to 12‐years‐old. Cutaway diagrams, close‐up illustrations and text all combine to show what happens and why it happens thus in modern buildings. The story is taken from the emergency room to the children’s ward and laundry in a hospital, and from check‐in to traffic control at the airport.
As well as the details, each volume has a large double‐page fold‐out (thus four‐page) cutaway diagram of the whole building, suitably detailed and labelled. Each also has a time chart, glossary, and index. The use of commissioned colour illustrations throughout, rather than photographs, helps consistency and clarity of the presentation, and makes these admirably informative introductions (or references) to their complex building types. We look forward to a volume on the modern library building.
