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3-D Home Kit: All You Need to Construct a Model of Your Own Home or Addition (with Booklet "Architecture & Math Workshop Notes")
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List Price: $39.95
Our Price: $39.95
You Save: $ ( % )
Availability: In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served.
Manufacturer: Gardeners' Guide
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Misc. Supplies
Brand: Design World
Dewey Decimal Number: 643
EAN: 9781880301012
ISBN: 1880301016
Label: Gardeners' Guide
Manufacturer: Gardeners' Guide
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 21
Publication Date: 1998-09
Publisher: Gardeners' Guide
Studio: Gardeners' Guide
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: From the inventor of the 3D Home Kit
Comment: After reading some strongly positive and negative reviews, I felt that as the inventor of the 3D Home Kit, I should provide an overview.
I invented the 3D Home Kit in 1983, to help homeowners construct detailed, three-dimensional, scale models of their own new home, addition and remodeling projects. The kit is based on my experience at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, from which I graduated in 1971, where I learned that constructing a model is the best way to design and visualize your building project. One of the first things I did with the prototype kit was to build a model house and compare it with a professional built model, costing hundreds of dollars; and when I saw that the kit model was similar quality, I knew that I had accomplished my goal.
The 3D Home Kit was an immediate success and over two-hundred thousand have been sold. As part of its success, the kit has been used in schools to assist in teaching architectural design, as well as math, history, writing, and home economics. I have been interested in pursuing the educational use of the kit and worked ten summers developing and teaching an architecture and mathematics workshop for high school students. My students thoroughly enjoyed the kit and their work has been outstanding as they designed and built wonderful models of their own dream homes.
When I worked with students, one question I had was whether to make a new "student" version of the 3D Home Kit. I spoke with several teachers who used the kit and one of them gave me the key: students are clever and quick to respond, and if you give them a professional kit they will give you their best "professional" effort, whereas if you give them a "student kit" then they will give you a typical student effort. Therefore, this is not a "student" kit.
In response to input from hundreds of teachers and students, I've added to the kit step-by-step model building instructions and a design primer with extensive lessons on home design. A new worksheet includes lessons on basic home design, roof design, as well as a section on designer and builder problems and solutions.
If you are purchasing the 3D Home Kit for a student under 14 years old, he or she will probably need assistance, and this presents a wonderful opportunity to work together on a terrific project. Working with the kit, you will experience firsthand some of the work and fun of being an architect. There is almost no limit to type of house you can build with this kit. For example, see the model and house photos posted by one customer. Please post your own model photos. Thank you. Based on feedback I've received from many customers, I rate the kit, five-stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is not a toy, don't buy it for a child!!!!
Comment: I bought this for my 10 year old son last year. It was advertised as a toy for ages 9+. It consists of a pack of printed cardboard, period. There is no traced outlines, no punch out pieces, nothing. The idea is that you would make a model of your house using your own architectural plans and all sorts of geometric calculations (of course it assumes that we all have architectural plans of our houses lying around, and that we are all able to perform said geometric calculations - at the age of 9)It turns out the house pictured is just an example! Highly misleading, oh and by the way, unless you have a degree in engineering or architecture there is no way that you could ever make the house pictured....I know because I asked friends who are architects and even they say they would struggle to make anything as elaborate as the model shown. Definitely not a toy and definitely not for children but fine for anyone with masses of time on their hands, who's happy to pay a lot of money for some printed cardboard. A lot of the positive reviews seem to come from engineering lecturers/ professors - now, there's a hint!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not worth the price of a stamp
Comment: I bought this kit for my daughter's ten year birthday. It is nothing but a box full of large cardstock printed with brick and siding. There is nothing to show you how to draw anything from scale. This is NOT a toy or intended to be used by children; it is primarily for adults who already have professional floorplans and wish to build a model.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful gift for amateur designer
Comment: I have used the 3-D Home Kit for the past four years as the basis for teaching the Architecture and Mathematics Workshop at the SummerMath program at Mount Holyoke College. My students are high school girls and they come from economically and culturally diverse background--from everywhere throughout the U.S. to Europe, Asia and African. They have little or no prior architectural training. Each student gets a kit and the opportunity to design and construct a model of her own dream home.
Students mostly work independently, sometimes help each other, and get my assistance as needed. Using the kit, they learn about space planning, size, scale and proportion, as well as endless design details including where to put a bathroom or stairway, furniture layout, and how to design a kitchen and a roof. Some students work on landscape design adding pools, patios, trees and walks. The students also improve their hands on skills including how measure, cut and glue. The workshop is one-and-a-half hours per day for two weeks.
Some students jump into the kit's design process in a moment, others take most of the two weeks to understand that making a mistake is a valuable lesson. Problem solving is the name of the game. When one design doesn't work, the student can scrap that approach and quickly measure and cut another sheet of the kit's building materials to actually see another option. The kit provides a wonderful way for the student to try several designs. The 3-D Home Kit turns each student's efforts into a realistic three-dimensional house model--and they love it.
I highly recommend the kit, and have used it to plan several of my own design and fantasy projects: my own home, art studio from a tobacco shed, and vacation home designs such as a seashore cottage and mountain yurt.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Teaching Tool
Comment: This kit does a difficult task admirably – it offers novice designers a clear and understandable path through the complex processes of house design and paper model-building. As a K-12 design educator who uses 3-d Home Kits with my middle school (math and engineering) students, I can tell the creator of this kit has refined the process by teaching with the kit many times himself.
The wealth of information (text plus illustrations) in the “Hands-on Design + Math” section teaches a good introduction to the design process for students and homeowners alike: program (determining your needs); site considerations; interior spaces; how to work in scale; and roof design. The “Model Construction section, a concise step-by-step guide, wisely includes a sample room addition with which to practice.
Homeowners creating their own home design or remodel should be taking their time with process; I would suggest absorbing what this kit can teach, then doing drafts and rough study models using other paper and oak tag, then using the kit’s materials to create an attractive and useful final model.
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Editorial Reviews:
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3-D Home Kit (by Daniel K. Reif, author/inventor) The hardest part of planning a new home, addition or remodeling project is visualizing how the final results will actually look and work. The 3-D Home Kit includes complete poster-board building materials—from brick, stone, siding, roofing and decking to windows, doors, skylights, kitchen cabinets and appliances—to construct a detailed, 1/4-inch scale, three-dimensional model of your own building project. There are also poster-board materials for interior walls, stairs, scale people, a dog and a cat, plus an 18 by 24 inch floor plan grid, and Scale Ruler & Roof Slope Calculator. Each sheet is 12 by 18 inches and has an illustration of a building material on one side and a 1/4-inch grid on the other side; the grid makes it easier to construct your model and the illustrations give the model realistic detail. Step-by-step instructions and a design worksheet are provided. Whether you’re planning a real or dream home, the 3-D Home Kit will help you improve your design and experience first-hand how an architect works. Duke University’s "Gifted Letter" awarded the 3-D Home Kit (along with the Home Quick Planner, also by Daniel Reif) top honors. The editor wrote, "The planner and kit provide everything needed to design and build a model home…furniture, windows, stairways, and appliances, right down to the ironing board…and bring the user through the architectural process from idea to finished product."
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