Because of the profound effects of the built environment on the availability of natural resources for future generations, those involved with designing, creating, operating, renovating, and demolishing human structures have a vital role to play in working to put society on a path toward sustainability. 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. Contributors address the broad range of issues involved, offering both insights and practical examples. In the book: Stephen Kellert describes the scope of the looming ecological crisis Herman Daly explains the unsustainability of the world's economic system and the dangers inherent in the current movement toward globalization John Todd describes the evolution of wastewater processing systems inspired by natural systems John Tillman Lyle discusses the importance of landscape in the creation of the human environment Randall Arendt argues for a fundamental shift in land development patterns that would not only provide for more green space in new developments, but would also increase the profitability of developers and the quality of life for new home owners Thomas E. Graedel proposes the application of lessons learned from the emerging science of industrial ecology to the creation of "green" building. While the transition to sustainability will not be easy, natural systems provide abundant models of architecture, engineering, production, and waste conversion that can be used in rethinking the human habitat and its interconnections. This volume provides insights that can light the way to a new era in which a reshaped built environment will not only provide improved human living conditions, but will also protect and respect the earth's essential natural life-support systems and resources.

Providing a source of vision for the revitalisation of ground and envelope as spatial elements that can inform the search for embedded locally specific architectures, this book collects essays and projects that each contributes a particular element to what might constitute an integrated and richly nuanced approach to spatial organisation. Projects include: Paulo Mendes da Rocha; Brazilian Pavilion, Osaka World Expo 1970, Osaka, Japan RCR Arquitectes: Marquee at Les Cols Restaurant, Olot, Girona, Spain Weiss / Manfredi; Seattle Art Museum: Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, Washington, USA Peter Eisenman; City of Culture of Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain Plasma Studio and Groundlab; Xi’an Horticultural Expo, Longgang, China Foreign Office Architects; Yokohama International Ferry Terminal, Yokohama, Japan Nekton Design; Turf City, Reykjavik, Iceland Alvaro Siza; Swimming Pool, Leça da Palmeira, Portugal Eduardo Souto de Moura; Braga Municipal Stadium, Braga Portugal MVRDV; Villa VPRO, Hilversum, Netherlands Bernard Tschumi; Le Fresnoy Art Centre, Tourcoing, France OCEAN; World Centre for Human Concerns, New York City, USA R&Sie(n); Spidernethewood, Nîmes, France Toyo Ito; Serpentine Pavilion, London, England Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós; Olympic Archery Range, Barcelona, Spain Kengo Kuma; GC Prostho Museum Research Centre, Aichi Prefecture, Japan Cloud 9; MediaTic, Barcelona, Spain Diller, Scofidio and Renfro; Blur Building, Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, Swiss National Expo With an abundance of built and un-built key projects available, it is now possible to outline the contours of a new discourse. This book initiates a new beginning in this direction so that architecture can partake in the creation of heterogeneous space and culturally, socially and environmentally sustainable built environments.

This book takes a sweeping view of the ways we build things, beginning at the scale of products and interiors, to that of regions and global systems. In doing so, it answers questions on how we effect and are affected by our environment and explores how components of what we make—from products, buildings, and cities—are interrelated, and why designers and planners must consider these connections.

This reprint explores the landscape of the Built Environment, an area undergoing transformative shifts in response to contemporary challenges. The collective insights presented stem from a wide array of disciplines, offering forward-looking perspectives on urban climate mitigation, adaptive planning, and the integration of nature-based solutions, reflecting on the imperatives of resilience, sustainability, and inclusivity in urban planning and development in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. This issue comprises pioneering visions on how to construct our urban spaces, from site-specific interventions to broader urban infrastructural planning, addressing key themes such as green infrastructure, sustainable communities, and environmental justice while aiming to redefine the Built Environment in terms of property, construction, and open spaces. Through trans-disciplinary contributions from leading experts, this reprint aims to chart a path from the current status quo towards a more equitable, livable, and resilient future, acting as a call to action for urban planners, architects, policymakers, and environmental advocates alike. It encourages a collaborative approach to reshaping our Built Environment, making it an essential read for anyone committed to fostering sustainable, just and healthy cities.

The Speculative City explores property speculation as a key aspect of financialization and its role in reshaping the contemporary built environment. The book offers a series of case studies that encompass a range of cities whose urban fabrics have undergone significant transformation in recent years. While the forms of these developments shared many similarities, their trajectories and social outcomes were contingent upon existing planning and policy frameworks and the historical roles assumed by the state and the private sector in housing and welfare provision. By paying close attention to the forces and actors involved in property development, this book underscores that the built environment has played an integral part in the shaping of new values and collective aspirations while facilitating the spread of financial logics in urban governance. It also shows that these dynamics represent a larger shift of politics and culture in the ongoing production of urban space and prompts reflections on future trajectories of finance-led property speculation.

Society seems to be tied irrevocably to long-term patterns of resource use, and to producing unassimilatable waste, emissions, and ongoing environmental degradation. There also are seemingly irresolvable dilemmas between humanity and nature, society and ecology, and utility and beauty, where each decision we make seems to cause some harm. To change from our present path and resolve these, we must have the courage to break from traditions and use our knowhow to progressively and creatively enhance the existing built form so a new built reality emerges, one that enriches people and possibly enables a sustainable future. This alternate path necessitates a holistic approach, one that can more effectively merge and better utilise the disciplines of architecture, engineering, art, sciences and business to integrate the many different parts within the built environment, and produce a vibrant, viable new whole. With this approach, we could begin to transform the built environment into an entity that virtually replicates and functions as a natural sustainable system. Every decision we make is important. What practices, processes, technologies are applied, to how built elements are designed, placed, structured, configured and interfaced, are all important. These determine what eventuates; the built form, architecture, and the ultimate ‘appropriateness’ of the resulting outcome. By determining what is ‘appropriate’, this book provides a retrospective view of the semi-static present built environment with its many in-place processes, issues, constraints, and opportunities, and postulates what is required by visualising the possible alternatives for the always growing built environment. These provide a useful insight into how the built form and urban life can be enhanced, and thereby also how humanity can use architecture to live in a more equitable balance, possibly in harmony and sustainably with nature.

Ecological Public Health demonstrates that although public health medicine is useful and honourable, a radical rethink is required and is, indeed, starting to emerge. It aims to revitalize thinking about public health in terms of ecology, and calls for a concerted combined effort from existing disciplines to bring about reform.

Now in its second volume, Regreening the Built Environment provides an overview of physical and social environmental challenges that the planet is facing and presents solutions that restore ecological processes, reclaim open space, foster social equity, and facilitate a green economy. Healing the planet requires a combination of strategies networked across multiple scales of development, including buildings, sites, communities, and regions. Case studies from a range of locations in the United States, Denmark, Vietnam, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom, among others, demonstrate how existing gray infrastructure can be retrofitted with green infrastructure and low-impact development techniques. From this, the author shows how a building can be designed that creates greenspace or generates energy; likewise, a roadway can be a parkway, an alley can be a wildlife corridor, and a parking surface can be a garden. This new edition also includes case studies that have successfully reconnected communities that were fragmented by unjust planning practices and irresponsible patterns of development, resilient design solutions in response to natural disasters, passive design strategies that can make interior spaces more efficient and healthier, and expanded discussions on capturing carbon, renewable energy, agriculture, waste, public transit, and adaptive reuse, including innovative ideas on how to reimagine the shopping mall in the era of e-commerce. The strategies presented in this book will stimulate discussions within the design profession and will be of great interest to students and practitioners of environmental studies, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.

Sustainable Design for the Built Environment marks the transition of sustainable design from a specialty service to the mainstream approach for creating a healthy and resilient built environment. This groundbreaking and transformative approach introduces sustainable design in a clear, concise, easy-to-read format. This book takes the reader deep into the foundations of sustainable design, and creates a holistic and integrative approach addressing the social, cultural, ecological, and aesthetic aspects in addition to the typical performance-driven goals. The first section of the book is themed around the origins, principles, and frameworks of sustainable design aimed at inspiring a deeper, broader, and more inclusive view of sustainability. The second section examines strategies such as biophilia and biomimicry, adaptation and resilience, health and well-being. The third section examines the application of sustainability principles from the global, urban, district, building, and human scale, illustrating how a systems thinking approach allows sustainable design to span the context of time, space, and varied perspectives. This textbook is intended to inspire a new vision for the future that unites human activity with natural processes to form a regenerative, coevolutionary model for sustainable design. By allowing the reader an insightful look into the history, motivations, and values of sustainable design, they begin to see sustainable design, not only as a way to deliver green buildings, but as a comprehensive and transformative meta-framework that is so needed in every sector of society. Supported by extensive online resources including videos and PowerPoints for each chapter, this book will be essential reading for students of sustainability and sustainable design.