Best Structural Engineering Books of 2025

Best-Selling 1-Story Home Plans, 5th Edition is the perfect guide for those seeking to build their own one-story dream home. The book features over 360 home plans, including a wide variety of styles and sizes suited for any budget, from Traditional Ranch style to Country Craftsman cottages. With complete construction blueprints and CAD files available for each house plan, readers can customize their homes to fit their needs. The book also includes special sections on outdoor living trends, kitchen design ideas, and maximizing living space. With plans from top architects and designers, this book is a must-have for anyone looking to build their dream one-story home.

The Ultimate Book of Modern Farmhouse Plans is a comprehensive guide for finding the perfect modern farmhouse design. With a collection of 350 popular designs and expert articles on design and decorating, this book provides everything needed to build the ideal farmhouse. The book offers ready-to-purchase plans, so builders can save time and start building right away. The construction blueprints are available in both print and digital formats, making it easy to find the perfect plan. The Ultimate Book of Modern Farmhouse Plans is a must-have for anyone looking to build a modern farmhouse.

Cozy Cottage & Cabin Designs, Updated 2nd Edition is a comprehensive catalog of over 200 functional floor plans for cabins, cottages, A-frames, vacation homes, sheds, and apartment garages. It includes construction blueprints and CAD packages to bring your future home to life. The book also features 35 new house plans and insightful articles on downsizing, decor ideas, and more. This essential guide is perfect for anyone looking to customize and plan their ideal small home. Overall, Cozy Cottage & Cabin Designs, Updated 2nd Edition is a must-have for those seeking to make their dream of owning a tranquil cabin or sunny cottage a reality.

The Big Book of Small Home Plans, 2nd Edition is a comprehensive guide for building small homes, including cabins, cottages, and tiny houses. With over 360 expertly prepared plans, this book provides easy-to-follow construction blueprints and materials lists for each project. The book also includes advice on maximizing living space with organization, decorating, and storage solutions. This practical do-it-yourself guide is ideal for those looking to save money and reduce their ecological impact. Overall, this book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in building a small home.

The two-book set of ASCE Standard - ASCE/SEI 7-16 is an essential guide for general structural design. It provides updated and coordinated loading standards for determining design loads, including dead, live, soil, flood, tsunami, snow, rain, atmospheric ice, earthquake, wind, and fire, as well as assessing load combinations. The new seismic and wind speed maps reflect the updated National Seismic Hazard Maps and Hawaii maps, respectively, resulting in reduced wind speeds for much of the United States. This book set is a must-have for structural engineers and architects who want to design safe and resilient structures.

The book "Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down" by J.E. Gordon is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the basic forces that hold together the ordinary and essential things of this world. Gordon strips engineering of its confusing technical terms, communicating its founding principles in accessible, witty prose. The book offers clear and cogent explanations of the concepts of stress, shear, torsion, fracture, and compression, making it a handy tool for anyone building anything from a house to a sailboat. The book's humorous insights and encyclopedic range of reference make it an enjoyable read. Overall, it is an excellent primer on structural design."

This comprehensive guide, titled "Shipping Container Homes for Beginners," provides step-by-step instructions and illustrations for transforming a simple shipping container into a dream home. The guide covers everything from planning and designing to building and decorating, making it the perfect solution for anyone looking to build a stylish, modern container home on a budget. It also includes expert advice on choosing the perfect shipping container and obtaining necessary permits. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in sustainable living and creating a custom, off-the-grid paradise.

The PPI PE Structural Reference Manual, 10th Edition, is a must-have for anyone preparing for the NCEES PE Structural Engineering (SE) exam. This comprehensive guide covers all exam topics and provides a thorough review of structural analysis and design methods. With new content covering the design of slender and shear walls and up-to-date codes for the October 2021 exams, this book offers 270 example problems and 52 end-of-book practice problems to strengthen your problem-solving skills. The inclusion of both ASD and LRFD/SD solutions and explanations for masonry problems makes this book unique. Overall, this book is an excellent resource for anyone looking to pass the PE Structural exam the first time.

The book "Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs" by Christopher Dunn provides an in-depth analysis of the engineering and tools used to create the ancient Egyptian monuments. The author presents a stone-by-stone examination of key Egyptian monuments, revealing the highly refined tools and mega-machines used in prehistoric times. With over 280 photographs and modern digital technology, Dunn's research provides never-before-seen evidence of the extreme precision and advanced manufacturing expertise required to produce these famous monuments. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in ancient Egyptian history and technology.

The Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures (ASCE Standard - ASCE/SEI 7-22) Provisions and Commentary 2-book set is a comprehensive guide for structural design, providing up-to-date loading provisions for all hazards, including seismic, wind, and fire. It also covers how to evaluate load combinations. The 2022 edition includes significant technical changes such as new target reliability tables for tsunami and extraordinary loads, updated tsunami data for Hawaii and populous locations in California, and new provisions for lateral force resisting systems. This book set is a must-have for structural engineers and architects seeking to design safe and reliable buildings and structures.