[Alissa Salmore]

Here’s my two cents on some of the reading list books from CLARB as well as other recommendations from bloggers studying for the LARE. I’m working on the LARE for the first time this year (passed A/B/D, studying for C/E this summer). This is just *my opinion* – no data to back up my statements except that I did read the books.

I think TSS seems more specific, while LAGS gives more descriptive background info (and I agree with Mr. Freeman’s post) – but both do cover a lot of the same construction details and calculation-y stuff. Yes, I think both are useful…but I wouldn’t panic if you can only afford/get a hold of one or the other. For example, you can always bulk up your planning reading with LaGro or other sources if you have TSS and not LAGS. I think I studied more from TSS, but to be fair I had that book longer than LAGS. The Portable Handbook I liked, but I’m not sure I absolutely needed it and didn’t focus on studying from it. I referenced it when I wanted another explanation for something. It, of course, covers the same as TSS and LAGS, but it has nice chapter summaries and very concise info.

I think Site Engineering for LA is a worthwhile primer and most recent LA grads should, conveniently, already have this in their textbook library. By the way, Site Engineering for LA covers all (and probably more) that either the hard-to-find old Untermann books (‘Grade Easy’ and ‘Principles and Practice of Grading…’) or the LARCH ‘software’ (electronic text) do. The Untermann books are brief and if you have Site Engineering then don’t bother with those. The LARCH e-text has good step-by-step explanations for a couple of grading problems but otherwise parses much of what’s in TSS/LAGS/Site Engineering; it does have a thorough surveying chapter and dedicates a fair amount of time to watershed hydrology calculations, but it is even with or not as strong on most topics than the above references.

Two books not on the CLARB list that I found helpful for the multi-choice tests (despite their older pub dates) were “Construction Administration in Architectural Practice” by O’Leary (1992) and “Professional Liability for Architects and Engineers” by Streeter (1988), both of which I found at my local college library. These were much more comprehensive on contracts and project management than either “Ready, Set Practice” or “Prof’l Practice for LAs”. These books were a good LARE prep for me, and just had good info to know in general. They do overlap a bit content-wise, mostly on who-is-responsible-for-what kind of contract stuff. I don’t know how they compare to the Hinze or Ramroth books listed by CLARB, which may be equivalents – I just didn’t read those since they weren’t in the library I was using.

Motloch has a basic LA intro text with clear diagram-type illustrations, if you don’t have Booth’s, I guess. No real opinion on either there, except that I certainly didn’t spend my study time reading through the whole book – that’s what LA school was for, right? Using a basic text to revisit a few design concepts and look at some plans, etc as a question occurred to me while I was studying was helpful, I guess.

Notably, the ULI ‘Dimensions of Parking’ seems too general to be of any help on C/E at all. I guess if you don’t know ANYTHING about parking lots or ADA requirements, then a couple of the chapters might be helpful. Most of the book is really on parking structures, not surface lots. I would not pay $50 to buy it just for the LARE – I borrowed a copy from the library and am returning it without spending much time with it.

Hope that helps.
Well, here’s to another bout of diversionary productivity.

Cheers,
Al

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