The book presents Slovenia’s contemporary timber architecture. Thanks to its abundant forests, Slovenia has preserved the tradition of wood construction. As much as 60% of its surface is covered by forests. Slovenia is also the third most forested country in Europe. The high share of forest-covered surface allows for a sustainable production of high-quality wood. In the past, wood was used primarily in the construction of farm buildings, but now timber architecture is used for everything from residences and office buildings to public buildings such as community centres and schools. Timber construction is becoming increasingly popular. Apart from larger companies taking this approach, a great number of wooden houses have sprung up, built either on personal initiative or with the support of carpenter workshops. Slovenian timber architecture has taken a new approach to environmental and energy-efficiency problems and received great international recognition. The book discusses over fifty projects built over a ten-year period, and includes descriptions, photographs and plans. The projects include residential areas, administration, and office as well as tourist, educational and industrial buildings. Timber architecture is presented as an integral part of the Slovenian landscape. The monograph will be useful to designers and future experts in their planning of optimal timber buildings and will highlight the main benefits of using timber construction.

This book includes details on the environmental implications of recycling, modeling of recycling, processing of recycled materials, recycling potential of materials, characterisation of recycled materials, reverse logistics, case studies of recycling various materials etc.

This book provides a comprehensive description of traditional and innovative forest-based bioproducts, from pulp and paper, wood-based composites and wood fuels to chemicals and fiber-based composites. The descriptions of different types of forest-based bioproducts are supplemented by the environmental impacts involved in their processing, use, and end-of-life phase. Further, the possibility of reusing, recycling and upgrading bioproducts at the end of their projected life cycle is discussed. As the intensity of demand for forest biomass is currently changing, forest-based industries need to respond with innovative products, business models, marketing and management. As such, the book concludes with a chapter on the bioproducts business and these products’ role in bioeconomies.

The open access book discusses human health and wellbeing within the context of built environments. It provides a comprehensive overview of relevant sources of literature and user complaints that clearly demonstrate the consequences of lack of attention to health in current building design and planning. Current designing of energy-efficient buildings is mainly focused on looking at energy problems and not on addressing health. Therefore, even green buildings that place environmental aspects above health issues can be uncomfortable and unhealthy, and can lead to public health problems. The authors identify many health risk factors and their parameters, and the interactions among risk factors and building design elements. They point to the need for public health specialists, engineers and planners to come together and review built environments for human wellbeing and environmental sustainability. The authors therefore present a tool for holistic decision-making processes, leading to short- and long-term benefits for people and their environment.

In a continuously changing world, there has been a growing interest in the protection of vernacular heritage and earthen architecture. The need to protect and enhance this fragile heritage via intelligent responses to threats from nature and the environment has become evident.Historically, vernacular heritage research focussed on philosophical aspe

Vernacular architecture in general and earthen architecture in particular, with their rich variety of forms worldwide, are custodians of the material culture and identity of the peoples who built them. In addition, they are widely recognized as ancestral examples of sustainability in all their variants and interpretations, and the architecture of the present ought to learn from these when designing the sustainable architecture of the future. The conservation of these architectures – seemingly simple yet full of wisdom – is to be undertaken now given their intrinsic value and their status as genuine examples of sustainability to be learnt from and interpreted in contemporary architecture. Vernacular and earthen architecture: Conservation and Sustainability will be a valuable source of information for academics and professionals in the fields of Environmental Science, Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Engineering and Architecture.

Developing and maintaining a disciplined management system provides any organization with a blueprint for exceptional performance and success. Indeed, for larger multinational corporations, a management system is a critical component for sustainable growth and performance management. In this book, the authors discuss a series of fundamentals for creating an operationally excellent management system (OEMS). The book also examines the business performance impact of an OEMS across leading gas and oil organizations, such as Exxon Mobil, BP, Suncor, and Chevron. In 7 Fundamentals of an Operationally Excellent Management System, the authors discuss each fundamental in detail and provide the supporting training and workshop materials that are essential for integrating these fundamentals into the business processes of the organization. The seven fundamentals identified by the authors provide a sequential approach for developing and executing an OEMS across any organization. Integrating sound organizational and business practices with personnel and process safety management principles, the book is an invaluable resource for organizations seeking operational discipline and excellence. Well-supported with graphics and practical examples, the book provides a simple pathway for an organization to evolve its management system into an OEMS designed to reduce workplace incidents and improve business performance on a sustainable basis. The management system principles discussed in the book are intended for the business leader who is motivated to transition his or her organization from ordinary, through best in class, to an organization of world-class stature and performance.

This book contains papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Timber Structures, which was held in collaboration with the Technical Centre of Wood Industry in Belgium. It explores the latest developments in wood products and their application as structural components. The focus of the included works is to draw attention to new research and real applications from both researchers and practitioners, and to present new and innovative ideas in this significant field. Rapid advances have recently been made in the development and processing of innovative ecologically friendly wood products. A variation of new structural shapes can now be fabricated and used to construct buildings and bridges which have minimal impact on the environment. Wood is particularly appealing since it is renewable and has no carbon footprint when it is harvested in a sustainable way. Timber structures are ecologically sound and comparatively low cost. The material lends itself to ground-breaking designs and new types of composites offer reliable, robust and safe materials. The content of this book comprises a range of topics: Material properties of wood; Durability aspects, service life modelling; Fire safety of timber structures; Protection against decay; Non-destructive inspection and monitoring; Glued, laminated structures, Xlam and CLT; Timber joints and connections; Vernacular wood and heritage timber structures; Timber housing and eco-architecture; Timber bridges; Large span timber roof structures; Shell structures in timber; Mixed, composite and hybrid structures; Computational analysis and experimental methods; Structural engineering and design; Seismic behaviour of timber structures; Protection of timber; Repaired timber structures; Rapidly assembled and transferable timber structures; Guidelines, codes and regulations; Structural failures; Art and craftsmanship.

Contemporary architecture, and the culture it reflects dependent as it is on fossil fuels, has contributed to the cause and necessity of a burgeoning green process that emerged over the past half century. This text is the first to offer a comprehensive critical history and analysis of the greening of architecture through accumulative reduction of negative environmental effects caused by buildings, urban designs and settlements. Describing the progressive development of green architecture from 1960 to 2010, it illustrates how it is ever evolving and ameliorated through alterations in form, technology, materials and use and it examines different places worldwide that represent a diversity of cultural and climatic contexts. The book is divided into seven chapters: with an overview of the environmental issues and the nature of green architecture in response to them, followed by an historic perspective of the pioneering evolution of green technology and architectural integration over the past five decades, and finally, providing the intransigent and culturally pervasive current examples within a wide range of geographic territories. The greening of architecture is seen as an evolutionary process that is informed by significant world events, climate change, environmental theories, movements in architecture, technological innovations, and seminal works in architecture and planning throughout each decade over the past fifty years. This time period is bounded on one end by the awareness of environmental problems beginning in the 1960's, the influential texts by Rachel Carson, E.F. Schumacher, Buckminster Fuller and Steward Brand, and the impact of the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973, and on the other end the pervasiveness of the necessary greening of architecture that includes, systemic reforms in architectural and urban design, land use planning, transportation, agriculture, and energy production found in the 2000's. The greening process moves from remediation to holistic models of architecture. Geographical landscapes give a global account of the greening process where some examples are parallel and sympathetic, and others are in clear contrast to one another with very individuated approaches. Certain events, like the Rio Summit in 1992 and Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and themes, such as the Hannover Principles in 2000, provide a dynamic ideological critique as well as a formal and technical discussion of the embodied and accumulative content of greening principles in architecture.