The 'fit for purpose' of the built environment has been a focus of attention since classical times, both in the West and in the East. However, an explicit focus on 'sustainable buildings' is relatively new. The last two decades in particular have seen an explosion of published material on the design, construction and assessment of buildings purported to be 'sustainable.' Many governments and owners of buildings now routinely require their buildings be 'sustainable' and are certified to be so. In the case of sustainability certification, the recent growth in tools, techniques and assessment systems is phenomenal: even as early as 2005 there were over 600 such tools in different parts of the world! New ones sprout all the time and design guides attempt a losing battle to keep pace. This new title in Routledge's Major Works series brings together authoritative canonical and cutting edge reference work to establish a framework for easy comprehension of the vast and continually expanding subject matter. It is a four-volume reference work and an indispensable research tool for all interested researchers, students, building owners and policy-makers to gain a thorough understanding of the field. It showcases a variety of approaches to sustainable buildings from around the world and links these to on-site construction practices and assessment. Comprehensive introductions to each volume place the collected material in its historical, intellectual, and global practice context.

This ground-breaking book aims to take a new and innovative view on how disability and architecture might be connected. Rather than putting disability at the end of the design process, centred mainly on compliance, it sees disability - and ability - as creative starting points for the whole design process. It asks the intriguing question: can working from dis/ability actually generate an alternative kind of architectural avant-garde? To do this, Doing Disability Differently: explores how thinking about dis/ability opens up to critical and creative investigation our everyday social attitudes and practices about people, objects and space argues that design can help resist and transform underlying and unnoticed inequalities introduces architects to the emerging and important field of disability studies and considers what different kinds of design thinking and doing this can enable asks how designing for everyday life - in all its diversity - can be better embedded within contemporary architecture as a discipline offers examples of what doing disability differently can mean for architectural theory, education and professional practice aims to embed into architectural practice, attitudes and approaches that creatively and constructively refuse to perpetuate body 'norms' or the resulting inequalities in access to, and support from, built space. Ultimately, this book suggests that re-addressing architecture and disability involves nothing less than re-thinking how to design for the everyday occupation of space more generally.

London is a living architectural exhibition. This tried and trusted portable guide will help you to find your way around one of the world's most exciting cities, offering architectural experiences and insights into London's finest contemporary architecture. features more than 400 buildings including key venues from the 2012 Olympic Park provides a superb full colour photographic record of the capital aids navigation of the city's greatest architectural sights with a clear map-based format considers each district in turn, identifying the buildings most worthwhile visiting, and providing essential information and insights into each includes a large scale, portable, lightweight map, for use when walking the tours Jam packed with the author's intimate architectural experience and knowledge of London's buildings, the accompanying commentary is both lively and entertaining, providing all the information that any architectural explorer will need to appreciate and experience London's contemporary architecture.

This work includes a brief history of skyscrapers as well as chapters on elevators and communications, facades and facing, mechanical and electrical systems, forces of nature, and much more.

The Return of Nature asks you to critique your conception of nature and your approach to architectural sustainability and green design. What do the terms mean? Are they de facto design requirements? Or are they unintended design replacements? The book is divided into five parts giving you multiple viewpoints on the role of the relations between architecture, nature, technology, and culture. A detailed case study of a built project concludes each part to help you translate theory into practice. This holistic approach will allow you to formulate your own theory and to adjust your practice based on your findings. Will you provoke change, design architecture that responds to change, or both?

Coedited by an architect and a historian, the book features new essays by Robert Levit, Catherine Ingraham, Sylvia Lavin, Barry Bergdoll, K. Michael Hays, Diane Lewis, Andrew Payne, Mark Jarzombek, Jean-Francois Chevrier, Elizabeth Diller, Antoine Picon, and Jorge Silvetti. Five case studies document the work of MOS Architects, Michael Bell Architecture, Steven Holl Architects, George L. Legendre, and Preston Scott Cohen.

Leading architectural firms are now using in-house design simulation to help make more sustainable design decisions. Taking advantage of these new tools requires understanding of what can be done with simulation, how to do it, and how to interpret the results. This software-agnostic book, which is intended for you to use as a professional architect, shows you how to reduce the energy use of all buildings using simulation for shading, daylighting, airflow, and energy modeling. Written by a practicing architect who specializes in design simulation, the book includes 30 case studies of net-zero buildings, as well as of projects with less lofty goals, to demonstrate how energy simulation has helped designers make early decisions. Within each case study, author Kjell Anderson mentions the software used, how the simulation was set up, and how the project team used the simulation to make design decisions. Chapters and case studies are written so that you learn general concepts without being tied to particular software. Each chapter builds on the theory from previous chapters, includes a summary of concept-level hand calculations (if applicable), and gives comprehensive explanations with graphic examples. Additional topics include simulation basics, comfort, climate analysis, a discussion on how simulation is integrated into some firms, and an overview of some popular design simulation software.

*** Featuring a foreword by Pritzker Prize Winner Shigeru Ban ***

Bringing together experts from research and practice, Shell Structures for Architecture: Form Finding and Optimization presents contemporary design methods for shell and gridshell structures, covering form-finding and structural optimization techniques. It introduces architecture and engineering practitioners and students to structural shells and provides computational techniques to develop complex curved structural surfaces, in the form of mathematics, computer algorithms, and design case studies.

Part I introduces the topic of shells, tracing the ancient relationship between structural form and forces, the basics of shell behaviour, and the evolution of form-finding and structural optimization techniques.

Part II familiarizes the reader with form-finding techniques to explore expressive structural geometries, covering the force density method, thrust network analysis, dynamic relaxation and particle-spring systems.

Part III focuses on shell shape and topology optimization, and provides a deeper understanding of gradient-based methods and meta-heuristic techniques.

Part IV contains precedent studies of realised shells and gridshells describing their innovative design and construction methods."

Life Cycle Assessment addresses the dynamic and dialectic of building and ecology, presenting the key theories and techniques surrounding the use of life cycle assessment data and methods.

Architects and construction professionals must assume greater responsibility in helping building owners to understand the implications of making material, manufacturing, and assemblage decisions and therefore design to accommodate more ecological building. Life Cycle Assessment is a guide for architects, engineers, and builders, presenting the principles and art of performing life cycle impact assessments of materials and whole buildings, including the need to define meaningful goals and objectives and critically evaluate analysis assumptions.

As part of the PocketArchitecture Series, the book includes both fundamentals and advanced topics. The book is primarily focused on arming the design and construction professional with the tools necessary to make design decisions regarding life cycle, reuse, and sustainability. As such, the book is a practical text on the concepts and applications of life cycle techniques and environmental impact evaluation in architecture and is presented in language and depth appropriate for building industry professionals.

This book examines the interrelationship of representational methods and material systems as fundamental drivers of the design process. Identifying four primary categories of representational logics - point, line, surface, mass - each category is illustrated through four precedent projects that deploy iterative material sensibilities. As a collection, this text provides a comprehensive categorization of the architectural design process. Through the comprehensive definition of categorical typologies, it illustrates the collective capability of this conceptual methodology. By unpacking projects through their specific design devices, the collective analysis reveals the impact of material techniques and methods of representation as a generative tool. Broad in scope, it identifies and uniformly analyses some of the most significant projects from the last century, including: UK Pavilion Shanghai - Heatherwick Studio, Shanghai,China Gatehouse - Office dA, Beijing, China Maison Colonial - Jean Prouve, France/Africa de Young Museum - Herzog and de Meuron, California USA Montreal Expo 67 - Buckminster Fuller, Montreal, Canada Jean Marie Tjibou Cultural Center - RPBW, Noumea, Indonesia House III - Peter Eisenman, New York, USA Barcelona Pavilion - Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, Spain Tel Aviv - Scott Cohen, Tel Aviv, Israel Los Manantiales - Felix Candella, Mexico City, Mexico Yokahama Terminal - FOA, Yokahama, Japan Pantheon, Rome, Italy Tres Grand Bibliotheque - Rem Koolhaas, OMA, Paris, France Brother Claus Field Chapel - Peter Zumthor, Switzerland Embryonic House- Greg Lynn Richly illustrated with consistent, clear and precise line drawings, the book presents a series of iconic precedents through a unique analytical and graphic sensibility.

In the form of a critical anthology," " this book interlaces an ensemble of seminal articles by leading figures in the theory and practice of digital design with a series of original theoretical texts. It develops a meta-theory of the emerging interactions of media technologies and design in architecture. This theory is promoted as a foundation of transformations in design methods as well as a basis for the evolution of new forms of design thinking.

The development of an explication of emerging concepts in the form of a new taxonomy is an important contribution in any form of discourse analysis. "Theories of the Digital in Architecture" attempts to develop such a conceptual orientation for the growing impact of the integration of digital media technologies in design. It locates these conceptual structures within a historical perspective that identifies the coming into being of a new epistemology of the digital in architecture.

In a world increasingly concerned about the impact of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere on global climate, the A Carbon Primer for the Built Environment will provide an understanding of the science and the public policy and regulation intended to tackle climate change. It will spell out the essential information needed for navigating through the growing regulatory maze with confidence. The book will: Provide an explanation of climate change, why carbon has been targeted as the main culprit and how this will impact the working lives of architects Explain key concepts such as: carbon footprinting, contraction & convergence, concentration based targets, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, decarbonising supply and reducing energy demand as well as the relevance of relevant government targets and international agreements Suggest an overall framework for achieving the carbon reduction targets and the requirements that will place on building designers Outline requirements and common standards and codes - providing guidance on compliance mechanisms Suggest and examine likely models for future practice The book will be essential reading for anyone wanting to familiarise themselves with the new landscape of carbon reduction in the built environment, with a particular focus on building design. It will also provide an accessible reference volume for information on particular policies, terms and initiatives as well as key data and numbers that will assist initial carbon calculations.

As a building type, art museums are unparalleled for the opportunities they provide for architectural investigation and experimentation. They are frequently key components of urban revitalization and often push the limits of building technology. Art museums are places of pleasure, education and contemplation. They are remarkable by their prominence and sheer quantity, and their lessons are useful for all architects and for all building types. This book provides explicit and comprehensive coverage of the most important museums built in the first ten years of the 21st Century in the United States and Europe. By dissecting and analyzing each case, Ronnie Self allows the reader to get under the skin of each design and fully understand the process behind these remarkable buildings. Richly designed with full technical illustrations and sections the book includes the work of Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Peter Cook & Colin Fournier, Renzo Piano, Yoshi Taniguchi, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, SANAA, Daniel Libeskind, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, Steven Holl, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Bernard Tschumi, Sauerbruch Hutton, and Shigeru Ban & Jean de Gastines. Together these diverse projects provide a catalogue of design solutions for the contemporary museum and a snapshot of current architectural thought and culture. One of few books on this subject written by an architect, Self's analysis thoroughly and critically appraises each project from multiple aspects and crucially takes the reader from concept to building. This is an essential book for any professional engaged in designing a museum.

Population increases, advances in technology and the continued trend towards inner-city migration have transformed the traditional city of spaces into the modern city of objects. This has necessitated alternative spatial and technological solutions to replenish those environments that were once so intrinsic to society's day-to-day interactions and communal activities. This book considers skycourts and skygardens as 'alternative social spaces' that form part of a broader multi-level urban infrastructure - seeking to make good the loss of open space within the built environment. Jason Pomeroy begins the discussion with the decline of the public realm, and how the semi-public realm has been incorporated into a spatial hierarchy that supports the primary figurative spaces on the ground or, in their absence, creates them in the sky. He then considers skycourts and skygardens in terms of the social, cultural, economic, environmental, technological and spatial benefits that they provide to the urban habitat. Pomeroy concludes by advocating a new hybrid that can harness the social characteristics of the public domain, but be placed within buildings as an alternative communal space for the 21st century. Using graphics and full colour images throughout, the author explores 40 current and forthcoming skycourt and skygarden projects from around the world, including the Shard (London), Marina Bay Sands (Singapore), the Shanghai Tower (China) and the Lotte Tower (South Korea).

The first comprehensive account of how and why architects learned to communicate through color Architectural drawings of the Italian Renaissance were largely devoid of color, but from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth, polychromy in architectural representation grew and flourished. Basile Baudez argues that colors appeared on paper when architects adapted the pictorial tools of imitation, cartographers' natural signs, military engineers' conventions, and, finally, painters' affective goals in an attempt to communicate with a broad public. Inessential Colors traces the use of color in European architectural drawings and prints, revealing how this phenomenon reflected the professional anxieties of an emerging professional practice that was simultaneously art and science. Traversing national borders, the book addresses color as a key player in the long history of rivalry and exchange between European traditions in architectural representation and practice. Featuring a wealth of previously unpublished drawings, Inessential Colors challenges the long-standing misreading of architectural drawings as illustrations rather than representations, pointing instead to their inherent qualities as independent objects whose beauty paved the way for the visual system architects use today.

In a world increasingly concerned about the impact of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere on global climate, the A Carbon Primer for the Built Environment will provide an understanding of the science and the public policy and regulation intended to tackle climate change. It will spell out the essential information needed for navigating through the growing regulatory maze with confidence. The book will: Provide an explanation of climate change, why carbon has been targeted as the main culprit and how this will impact the working lives of architects Explain key concepts such as: carbon footprinting, contraction & convergence, concentration based targets, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, decarbonising supply and reducing energy demand as well as the relevance of relevant government targets and international agreements Suggest an overall framework for achieving the carbon reduction targets and the requirements that will place on building designers Outline requirements and common standards and codes - providing guidance on compliance mechanisms Suggest and examine likely models for future practice The book will be essential reading for anyone wanting to familiarise themselves with the new landscape of carbon reduction in the built environment, with a particular focus on building design. It will also provide an accessible reference volume for information on particular policies, terms and initiatives as well as key data and numbers that will assist initial carbon calculations.

Architectural discourse and practice are dominated by a false dichotomy between design and chance, and governed by the belief that the architect's role is to defend against the indeterminate. In Architectures of Chance Yeoryia Manolopoulou challenges this position, arguing for the need to develop a more creative understanding of chance as aesthetic experience and critical method, and as a design practice in its own right. Examining the role of experimental chance across film, psychoanalysis, philosophy, fine art and performance, this is the first book to comprehensively discuss the idea of chance in architecture and bring a rich array of innovative practices of chance to the attention of architects. Wide-ranging and through a symbiotic interplay of drawing and text, Architectures of Chance makes illuminating reading for those interested in the process and experience of design, and the poetics and ethics of chance and space in the overlapping fields of architecture and the aleatoric arts.

With a foreword from Paul King, Chief Executive, UK Green Building Council and Chairman, Zero Carbon Hub As concerns over climate change and resource constraints grow, many cities across the world are trying to achieve a low carbon transition. Although new zero carbon buildings are an important part of the story, in existing cities the transformation of the current building stock and urban infrastructure must inevitably form the main focus for transitioning to a low carbon and sustainable future by 2050. Urban Retrofitting for Sustainability brings together interdisciplinary research contributions from leading international experts to focus on key issues such as systems innovation, financing tools, governance, energy, and water management. The chapters consider not only the knowledge and technical tools available, but looks forward to how they can be implemented in real cities by 2050.

Design Games for Architecture teaches you how to create playful software tools based on your architectural design processes, whether or not you are familiar with game design technology. The book combines the fun and engaging aspects of video games to ease the sometimes complex process of learning software development. By working through exercises illustrated with screen shots and code, you acquire knowledge about each step required to build useful tools you can use to accomplish design tasks. Steps include analysing design processes to identify their logic, translating that logic into a collection of objects and functions, then encoding the design procedure into a working software tool. Examples presented in the book are design games---tools that a designer "plays" like video games---that span a wide range of design activities. These software tools are built using Unity, free, innovative, and industry-leading software for video game development. Unity speeds up the process of software creation, offers an interface that will be familiar to you, and includes very advanced tools for creating forms, effects, and interactivity. If you are looking to add cutting-edge skills to your repertoire, then Design Games will help you sharpen your design thinking and allow you to specialize in this new territory while you learn more about your own design processes.

Design Games for Architecture teaches you how to create playful software tools based on your architectural design processes, whether or not you are familiar with game design technology. The book combines the fun and engaging aspects of video games to ease the sometimes complex process of learning software development. By working through exercises illustrated with screen shots and code, you acquire knowledge about each step required to build useful tools you can use to accomplish design tasks. Steps include analysing design processes to identify their logic, translating that logic into a collection of objects and functions, then encoding the design procedure into a working software tool. Examples presented in the book are design games---tools that a designer "plays" like video games---that span a wide range of design activities. These software tools are built using Unity, free, innovative, and industry-leading software for video game development. Unity speeds up the process of software creation, offers an interface that will be familiar to you, and includes very advanced tools for creating forms, effects, and interactivity. If you are looking to add cutting-edge skills to your repertoire, then Design Games will help you sharpen your design thinking and allow you to specialize in this new territory while you learn more about your own design processes.

Observation and analysis are types of invention. They make things apparent which perhaps were invisible. By noticing, drawing and naming something we bring it into being. On the other hand, building and making can be thought of as analytical observations, pointing out what had not been so clear before and revealing the potential for other actions yet to occur. This book is a collection of urban research and architectural projects by award-winning architects Nigel Bertram / NMBW Architecture Studio, using observation as a design tool and design as an observational method. Through this process, a position on the making of architecture and on the role of architecture within the wider urban environment is established; embracing the full messy reality of the present, finding delight in the everyday and developing sensitivity to a range of found environments. By taking pre-existing conditions seriously, each project, architectural or analytical, large or small, becomes understood as the strategic renovation of a continuing state. This method of working operates by thinking simultaneously at different scales, from furniture to structure and infrastructure, searching for combinations of what might normally be separated into different categories, moving between the many small and ad-hoc actions of individuals to wider systems of collective organisation. Thinking about the effects of small moves on the larger urban field (and vice-versa), the role of unplanned or uncontrolled events in relation to the inward focus of design; thinking about the combinatory effect of what is newly made with what is already there, for example, enables architecture and the city to be understood in relative terms - in terms of relationships. Between people, groups of people, things, and parts of things, actions and groups of actions: urban architecture is the social arrangement of activity with the physical arrangement of large and small parts of its environment. But what people do also changes the place in which they do it. Considering different scales and types of relationships between individuals and groups, insiders and outsiders, expected and unexpected actions can be a way of crossing categories and establishing new relations. Breaking down components of a given situation or brief, before re-grouping, can be used to flatten and redistribute hierarchies embedded within. Similarly, finding ways of carefully observing things just as they are in the present, helps to see around the presuppositions of familiarity, without worrying about cause or effect. These aims, techniques and thoughts are presented through the discipline of the architectural project, where precise strategies must in the end be found to define an exact physical arrangement and materiality, usually at minimum cost. This collection of works researches the manner in which such precision can also generate openness and indeterminacy, allowing and provoking the engagement of others.

Integrate the best building envelope construction methods, materials science, and structural principles in your work using this book as a resource to help you... With more than seventy significant case studies located in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia from prehistory to the present, this book illuminates the theory and techniques of assembling exteriors. Six chapters organized by wall types, from hand-set monolithic walls to digitally fabricated curtain walls, each have a material focus section to help you understand their intrinsic properties so that you can decide which will best keep the weather out of your building. Examples from the ancient world, including the Pyramids and the Great Wall, through a range of renowned modern architects, such as Studio Gang, Sauerbruch Hutton, Herzog and deMeuron, and Rafael Moneo, illustrate how significant works in the history of architecture explored innovative use of materials - stone, brick, concrete, glass, and aluminium. Along the way, principles of construction from masonry and basic framing through ever more sophisticated envelope systems address classic problems presented by gravity, wind, rain, and sun with studies of lateral forces, building movements and materials that bridge the gaps in between them.

Gathering his most compelling essays and addresses from the last fifty years in one accessible volume, this book looks at the pioneering ideas that underpin Sim Van der Ryn's ecological design philosophy. It offers a unique decade-by-decade retrospective of the key issues in environmental design, beginning with the most recent years and looking back to the 1960s. With an introductory chapter and further recommended reading for each decade, this book is key reading for any architect or designer practising today, and students will find a wealth of knowledge with which to support their studies. The author's beautiful illustrations, painted in a corresponding timescale to the chapters, offer further insight into the way he understands the challenges of humanity's stewardship of our planet.

Well-being is now firmly established as an overarching theme of key concern to all professionals that work, manage or design the environment. However, well-being is a complex multi-dimensional issue rooted in the ways that we encounter, perceive and interpret the environment. No single discipline can claim to have sufficient knowledge to fully explain the types of interactions that occur, therefore there is a need to draw together a wide range of professions who are exploring the consequences of their actions upon the well-being of individuals and communities. This edited work addresses the above, consisting of a collection of studies which embrace different aspects of environment, landscape and well-being to consider current approaches to well-being research and practice that fall outside the traditional concepts of well-being as part of medical research, making links with architecture, landscape design, environmental perception, social interaction and environmental sustainability. The contributors originally presented at the international conference, 'Well-Being 2011' jointly hosted by Birmingham City University and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA); the chapters have been developed to present a coherent series of themes reviewing a wide range of literature, presenting case studies appropriate to diverse audiences.

Architecture in Formation is the first digital architecture manual that bridges multiple relationships between theory and practice, proposing a vital resource to structure the upcoming second digital revolution. Sixteen essays from practitioners, historians and theorists look at how information processing informs and is informed by architecture. Twenty-nine experimental projects propose radical means to inform the new upcoming digital architecture. Featuring essays by: Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa, Aaron Sprecher, Georges Teyssot, Mario Carpo, Patrik Schumacher, Bernard Cache, Mark Linder, David Theodore, Evan Douglis, Ingeborg Rocker and Christian Lange, Antoine Picon, Michael Wen-Sen Su, Chris Perry, Alexis Meier, Achim Menges and Martin Bressani. Interviews with: George Legendre, Alessandra Ponte, Karl Chu, CiroNajle, and Greg Lynn. Projects by: Diller Scofidio and Renfro; Mark Burry; Yehuda Kalay; Omar Khan; Jason Kelly Johnson, Future Cities Lab; Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Maider Llaguno Munitxa; Anna Dyson / Bess Krietemeyer, Peter Stark, Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE); Philippe Rahm; Lydia Kallipoliti and Alexandros Tsamis; Neeraj Bhatia, Infranet Lab; Jenny Sabin, Lab Studio; Luc Courschene, Society for Arts and Technology (SAT); Eisenman Architects; Preston Scott Cohen; Eiroa Architects; Michael Hansmeyer; Open Source Architecture; Andrew Saunders; Nader Tehrani, Office dA; Satoru Sugihara, ATLV and Thom Mayne, Morphosis; Reiser and Umemoto; Roland Snooks, Kokkugia; Philip Beesley; Matias del Campo and Sandra Manninger SPAN; Michael Young; Eric Goldemberg, Monad Studio; Francois Roche; Ruy Klein; Chandler Ahrens and John Carpenter.

You always aim to achieve that moment of insight that leads to ingenuity and novelty in your design, but sometimes it remains elusive. This book presents a variety of techniques for mapping and making hands-on design/build projects, and relates this work to real architecture. It helps you to learn new ways of seeing and making that will enhance your creative design process and enable you to experience moments that lead to ingenuity in design. Each of the book's two parts, "Seeing" and "Making," is organized according to technique, which ranges from quantitative analysis and abstraction to pattern and scale, to provide you with a framework for mapping and hands-on exercises. Interviews with architects Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Atelier Bow-Wow) and Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto (Reiser + Umemoto) give you perspective on using these exercises in practice.