Design Outlaws on the Ecological Frontier


Book Description

In Design Outlaws, Christopher Zelov, Phil Cousineau and Brian Danitz have gathered together the interviews of over twenty of the leading designers and architects from their award winning documentary film: Ecological Design: Inventing the Future. This far reaching collection is lavishly illustrated and will inspire both the professional and the general reader alike.




Sustainable Construction


Book Description

It has taken a very long time for sustainable development to be recognised as a justified restraint on inappropriate development and a primary driver of improving quality of life for all. For designers, clients and project managers this means we have to create healthy buildings and places which support communities, enhance biodiversity and contribute to reversing unsustainable trends in pollution and resource consumption. It is a very positive agenda. This groundbreaking book will help all building design, management and cost professionals to understand sustainable design and provide the technical skills needed to implement the most up-to-date concepts. Based on a hugely successful series of workshops for professionals in construction, the book covers the history of ideas, materials, measurement - both cost and benchmarking performance - environmental services, and the building design and delivery process through to post-occupancy evaluation. It covers individual buildings and the urban scale. Sustainable Construction is a master-class in how to achieve practical, affordable, replicable, sustainable design. It has something new and often surprising in it for everybody in the construction industry. For the Architect and Engineer it gives chapter and verse to the basic design issues at all scales and through the whole of the plan of work For Quantity Surveyors and cost professionals it challenges current conventions with researched case study evidence" For clients and project managers it outlines the drivers and the justification for a sustainable approach and outlines the legislative framework; and it gives guidance on procurement and project and site management issues For contractors and developers it contains a wealth of case study material, rooted in practical experience and economic reality. For teachers and students it will bust myths, liberate thinking and inform design




From Bauhaus to Ecohouse


Book Description

Debates about environmentally sensitive architecture have been ongoing for nearly a century. From Bauhaus to Eco-House examines key moments of inspiration and exchange between designers and ecologists from the Bauhaus projects of the interwar period to the eco-arks of the late 1980s. From Bauhaus to Eco-House provides new insight into a critical period in the evolution of environmental awareness and design.




Ecological Engineering


Book Description

Less expensive and more environmentally appropriate than conventional engineering approaches, constructed ecosystems are a promising technology for environmental problem solving. Undergraduates, graduate students, and working professionals need an introductory text that details the biology and ecology of this rapidly developing discipline, known as




The Culture of Nature in the History of Design


Book Description

The Culture of Nature in the History of Design confronts the dilemma caused by design’s pertinent yet precarious position in environmental discourse through interdisciplinary conversations about the design of nature and the nature of design. Demonstrating that the deep entanglements of design and nature have a deeper and broader history than contemporary discourse on sustainable design and ecological design might imply, this book presents case studies ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and from Singapore to Mexico. It gathers scholarship on a broad range of fields/practices, from urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture, to engineering design, industrial design, furniture design and graphic design. From adobe architecture to the atomic bomb, from the bonsai tree to Biosphere 2, from pesticides to photovoltaics, from rust to recycling – the culture of nature permeates the history of design. As an activity and a profession always operating in the borderlands between human and non-human environments, design has always been part of the environmental problem, whilst also being an indispensable part of the solution. The book ventures into domains as diverse as design theory, research, pedagogy, politics, activism, organizations, exhibitions, and fiction and trade literature to explore how design is constantly making and unmaking the environment and, conversely, how the environment is both making and unmaking design. This book will be of great interest to a range of scholarly fields, from design education and design history to environmental policy and environmental history.




Eco-architecture III


Book Description

This book contains most of the papers presented in the Eco-Architecture 2010 conference, which was the third edition of the International Conference on Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature. Previous editions, that were very successful were held previously in the New Forest, UK, in 2006 and the Algarve, Portugal in 2008 and demonstrated the importance of a forum like this to discuss the characteristics and challenges of such architectural vision. Eco-Architecture implies a new approach to the design process intended to harmonise its products with nature. This involves ideas such as minimum use of energy at each stage of the building process, taking into account the amount required during the extraction and transportation of materials, their fabrication, assembly, building erection, maintenance and eventual future recycling. Presentations in the conference were related to topics like building technologies, design by passive systems, design with nature, ecological and cultural sensitivity, life cycle assessment, quantifying sustainability in architecture, resources and rehabilitation, and issues from education, research and practice. Case studies from different places around the world were also presented.




The Future of Consumer Society


Book Description

Shows how consumer society is changing due to demographic ageing, rising income inequality, political paralysis, resource scarcity, and steady jobs being replaced by freelancing. It examines how people are striving to find new ways to ensure livelihoods and the role that the role that worker-consumer cooperatives could play.




A Companion to American Environmental History


Book Description

A Companion to American Environmental History gatherstogether a comprehensive collection of over 30 essays that examinethe evolving and diverse field of American environmental history. Provides a complete historiography of American environmentalhistory Brings the field up-to-date to reflect the latest trends andencourages new directions for the field Includes the work of path-breaking environmental historians,from the founders of the field, to contributions frominnovative young scholars Takes stock of the discipline through five topically themedparts, with essays ranging from American Indian EnvironmentalRelations to Cities and Suburbs




The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture


Book Description

The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture collects thirty essays from a transdisciplinary array of experts on biology in art and architecture. The book presents a diversity of hybrid art-and-science thinking, revealing how science and culture are interwoven. The book situates bioart and bioarchitecture within an expanded field of biology in art, architecture, and design. It proposes an emergent field of biocreativity and outlines its historical and theoretical foundations from the perspective of artists, architects, designers, scientists, historians, and theoreticians. Includes over 150 black and white images.




Ecopolis


Book Description

From 2008, for the first time in human history, half of the world’s population now live in cities. Yet despite a wealth of literature on green architecture and planning, there is to date no single book which draws together theory from the full range of disciplines - from architecture, planning and ecology - which we must come to grips with if we are to design future cities which are genuinely sustainable. Paul Downton’s Ecopolis takes a major step along this path. It highlights the urgent need to understand the role of cities as both agents of change and means of survival, at a time when climate change has finally grabbed world attention, and it provides a framework for designing cities that integrates knowledge - both academic and practical - from a range of relevant disciplines. Identifying key theorists, practitioners, places and philosophies, the book provides a solid theoretical context which introduces the concept of urban fractals, and goes on to present a series of design and planning tools for achieving Sustainable Human Ecological Development (SHED). Combining knowledge from diverse fields to present a synthesis of urban ecology, the book will provide a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners in architecture, construction, planning, geography and the traditional life sciences.