Material Intelligence, simulations, sensors, actuators, as well as the bio-mimetic and digital manufacturing innovations provide revolutionary ideas on growth, adaptability, repair, sensitivity, replication and energy savings in architecture. Should we continue constructing rigid and fixed structures? Or can our habitats begin to think?

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Internet has changed our lives but it has not yet changed our cities. Any technological revolution takes paired radical transformations in the life styles. If the age of the car and the oil shaped the cities of the 20th century, the society of the information will form those of the 21st century. It is an unstoppable evolution that, nevertheless, it is necessary to be able to lead with criterion. It is a question of taking advantage of the urban experiences accumulated for centuries by the human beings and having present that the growth cannot be unlimited and the energetic resources that our planet offers have expiry date. Vicente Guallart exposes this fascinating process in a book loaded with ideas, information and proposals. As observer, thinker and pioneer of the architecture of the future, Guallart proposes the regeneration of the cities (from the housing to the metropolis) to stimulate a new economy of the urban innovation. A path with destined to the self-sufficiency local resources, and to the global connectivity as knowledge and information. Because the connected self-sufficiency get the cities and the persons who inhabit them been stronger, free and independent.

This book addresses a central dilemma of the urban age: how to make the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis. The authors argue that degrowth, a planned contraction of economic overshoot, is the only feasible principle for suburban renewal. They depart from the anti-suburban sentiment of much environmentalism to show that existing suburbia can be the centre-ground of transition to a new social dispensation based on the principle of self-limitation. The book offers a radical new urban imaginary, that of degrowth suburbia, which can arise Phoenix like from the increasingly stressed cities of the affluent Global North and guide urbanisation in a world at risk. This means dispensing with much contemporary green thinking, including blind faith in electric vehicles and high-density urbanism, and accepting the inevitability and the benefits of planned energy descent. A radical but necessary vision for the times.

Sustainability is a concept that has monopolised a large number of the scientific debates in a wide range of spheres connected not only with architecture, urban planning and construction, but also with the product market, tourism, culture, etc. However, sustainability is indissolubly linked to vernacular architecture and the lessons this architectu

"I've seen many books on this subject, but none so well documented and honest."—Whole Earth

Embrace off-grid green living with the bestselling classic guide to a more sustainable way of life, now with a brand new foreword from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. John Seymour has inspired thousands to make more responsible, enriching, and eco-friendly choices with his advice on living sustainably. The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency offers step-by-step instructions on everything from chopping trees to harnessing solar power; from growing fruit and vegetables, and preserving and pickling your harvest, to baking bread, brewing beer, and making cheese. Seymour shows you how to live off the land, running your own smallholding or homestead, keeping chickens, and raising (and butchering) livestock. In a world of mass production, intensive farming, and food miles, Seymour's words offer an alternative: a celebration of the joy of investing time, labour, and love into the things we need. While we aren't all be able to move to the countryside, we can appreciate the need to eat food that has been grown ethically or create things we can cherish, using skills that have been handed down through generations. With refreshed, retro-style illustrations and a brand-new foreword by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, this new edition of Seymour's classic title is a balm for anyone who has ever sought solace away from the madness of modern life.

This title was first published in 2003. Seven years after Habitat II culminated with the Istanbul agreement on Sustainable Urban Development, this book brings together many of the world's leading experts from the fields of architecture, urban planning, economics, sociology, politics, environment and geography to assess the successes and failures in fulfilling the objectives decided upon at this historic meeting. Illustrated with a wide range of case studies, this volume is divided into three main sections; firstly examining the challenges, secondly, the approaches, and finally, the practices. The book represents a critical appraisal not only of the issues related to urban development but also of the modalities to face these issues from real examples, these in return can be used as starting points to construct new 'real utopias' or at least, to future 'best practices'.