About the Author

After graduating from the Cornell School of Architecture in 1964, the author returned to his native Atlanta, Georgia, to work for several prominent architects during the next two years. In 1966–7 he spent a year traveling through western North America visiting more than a hundred Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and other notable architecture, and settled in Big Sur, California. Between 1967 and 1973 he worked as a carpenter there and in Aspen, Colorado. In 1973 he moved to Mahopac, New York, where since he has worked somewhat chronologically as a carpenter, building contractor, and registered architect.

Down through the years Mr. Butler has received a variety of honors for his creative work. Since the early 1960s his paintings, sculptures, and other artwork have appeared in numerous public exhibitions. In the late 1970s he received two federal grants for his innovative environmental architectural designs. From 1978 to 1980 he taught architectural drafting and environmental design at B.O.C.E.S., a college in Westchester County. In 1986 and 1989 he received two U.S. Patents for architectural inventions.

In 1981 Mr. Butler published his first book, The Ecological House, which introduced many ideas that are further refined in this volume. In 1984 he authored the Architectural and Engineering Calculations Manual, published by McGraw-Hill, which was the first book of its kind whose algebraic formulas were formatted for easy use by computers. In 1998, after ten years of labor, he authored McGraw-Hill’s Standard Handbook of Architectural Engineering, a massive 1070-page volume for the general architect which includes an interactive disk of the book’s 1,000 equations that allows each to be solved quickly and error-free by computer; again the first book of its kind. In 2001 he published two books for professional engineers, totaling 1,540 pages, titled Architectural Engineering Design: Structural Systems and Architectural Engineering Design: Mechanical Systems, that also include computerized disks of the book’s equations. In 2002 Mr. Butler authored the Architectural Formulas Pocket Reference, a scaled version of his two professional engineering books that includes “the formulas and nothing but the formulas” plus introductory text.

In early 2012 Mr. Butler published his seventh book on architecture, a reference for laymen titled Architecture Laid Bare!.