important books

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Dubbed "America's Favorite Home Architect" by Fine Homebuilding magazine, where her "Drawing Board" column appears, Susanka here presents a small compilation of 31 essays from the column that offer a number of solutions to household design problems both big and small.

Not So Big House Collection

 by Sarah Susanka

Sarah Susanka's best-selling books, The Not So Big House and Creating the Not So Big House, are available for the first time in one slipcase set

Spirit and Place  by Christopher Day

Spirit & Place shows how to work towards a sustainable environment through socially inclusive processes of placemaking, and how to create places that are nourishing psychologically and physically, to soul and spirit as well as body

Why are some houses such a pleasure to visit or inhabit? This spin-off from A Pattern Language, which has been a design resource for decades, successfully answers that question 

by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L.Hunter Lovins

The short answer to the logical question (What is natural capitalism?) is that it is a way of thinking that seeks to apply market principles to all sources of material value, most importantly natural resources.

Energy-Efficient Building

Twenty-nine magazine articles discuss materials and techniques for making a home more energy efficient.

Reviews the way that planning policies, architectural trends & economic forces have undermined the viability of urban areas in Britain since the Industrial Revolution.

Real Goods Solar Living Source Book

    Includes products ranging from simple energy-saving devices like compact flourescent lights to home-scale energy-harvesting systems that utilize the sun, wind, and water to make electricity for people living "off-the-grid."

Sustainable Practices in the Built Environment  by Craig Langston

This book is an excellent primer for those in the construction industry who already have an interest in ecologically sustainable development and also for those who need to begin raising their awareness in this area

Building With Vision  by Dan Imhoff

Includes over 160 original color photographs and many up - an ideal resource for the early stages of research, conceptual planning and design, making it easy to at least try to specify materials that don't destroy forests or pollute the planet

  by Peter F. Smith  

With information from the leaders in their fields, this book is a comprehensive reference to the emerging technologies for this innovative approach to design.

A book that is essential reading, especially as it considers the 'why' as well as the 'what' of sustainable architecture, also very attractive to practitioners who seek a useful, easily digestible, “handbook” to this field

by Ali Hana & Pip Norris  .

Explores the ever-increasing range of natural products and methods, from the raw materials to how to integrate them into your home without losing comfort, efficiency or functionality. It explains the advantages of eco-friendly options over the mass-produced, the artificial and the processed, and delights in their unique and nurturing qualities.

 

Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World   

by J.R.McNeill

Our profligate, fossil fuel-based civilization is ecologically unsustainable and creates perpetual environmental disturbance, says Georgetown University history professor McNeill, but he remains undecided as to whether humanity has entered a genuine, full-blown ecological crisis.

Edited by Charles J. Kibert

This volume presents the thinking of leading academics and professionals in planning, civil engineering, economics, ecology, architecture, landscape architecture, construction, and related fields who are seeking to discover ways of creating a more sustainable built environment.

Eco-Economy -  Building an Economy for the Earth 

by Lester R. Brown

Logging delivers paychecks, but doesn't consider flood damage from tree loss. Eco-economists would say that the logger and the town, while temporarily profiting, pay more in the end in rising insurance costs, flood damage to homes and infrastructure, increased taxes and disaster relief funds. The goal, presented here in convincing detail, is to design a profitable economy that accurately reflects the social cost of abuse of resources.

The Natural House 

by Daniel D. Chivas

This sourcebook examines the options for building a house that is economical, energy-efficient, nontoxic, kind to the environment, and pleasurable to inhabit. Explores the pros and cons of 14 natural building methods, including straw bale, rammed earth, cob, cordwood, adobe, earthbags, papercrete, earthships, and others, all well- illustrated in black & white photos.

by Ray Oldenburg

This has been called a classic in the sociological literature on the social and cultural geography of American Culture. Taking it's place alongside The Road to Nowhere, much of Christopher Lasch's work and the writings of other distinguished students of the decline of place in America, Oldenburg's work is in many ways better than these precursors because he shows how and why we were on the way to creating a placeless culture even before the computer revolution exacerbated the tend.

by Michael Brower and Warren Leon

Brower and Leon, along with input from their colleagues, present statistics, describe solutions, and endorse steps for readers to take to live more ecologically based lifestyles as consumers of the Earth's resources. They encourage individuals to go beyond basic recycling and to look at changing the policies of government and large institutions, explain how negatively consumer choices can affect the environment, and present a quantitative analysis of which items most affect the environment.

by Kenneth S. Deffeyes

You have to wonder about the judgment of a man who writes, "As I drive by those smelly refineries on the New Jersey Turnpike, I want to roll the windows down and inhale deeply." But for Kenneth S. Deffeyes, that's the smell of home. The son of a petroleum engineer, he was born in Oklahoma, "grew up in the oil patch," became a geologist and worked for Shell Oil before becoming a professor at Princeton University. And he still knows how to wield a 36-inch-long pipe wrench.

by George A. Gonzalez

Environmental policy is broadly viewed as an oasis of democracy, unspoiled by crass capitalism and undominated by corporate interests.

This book counters that view. The focus of "Corporate Power and the Environment" focuses on how U.S. economic elites--corporate decisionmakers and other individuals of substantial wealth--shape the content and implementation of U.S. environmental policy to their economic and political benefit.

  The Ecology of Building Materials

Changing the Atmosphere: Expert...

Planet Earth Home

Cradle to Cradle  by William McDonough and Michael Braungart  

Environmentalists are normally the last people to be called shortsighted, yet that's essentially what architect McDonough and chemist Braungart contend in this clarion call for a new kind of ecological consciousness. The authors are partners in an industrial design firm that devises environmentally sound buildings, equipment and products.

Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings

Few books offer the potential to pay for themselves the way this one does.

Popular Mechanics

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