Ensuring current and future architecture is both successfully and sustainably produced is critical for cities and communities to not only survive but thrive. Additionally, improving built environment practices is necessary to protect the world as well as its various populations. Further study on the current challenges and future directions of sustainable architecture is required in order to create a stronger, healthier society. Contemporary Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities in Sustainable Architecture discusses the role of architecture and the built environment on communities, ecology, and society; relevant issues related to the production of sustainable built environments; and the socio-cultural integration aspects of innovative architectural designs in urban settings. The book also addresses heritage practices, responses to climate action, and technology applications. Covering key topics such as energy efficiency, urban green spaces, and sustainable solutions, this reference work is ideal for policymakers, architects, industry professionals, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Here is a comprehensive development plan written as if vital communities, indigenous peoples, women, and the environment really mattered. This alternative type of development planning goes beyond statistics to incorporate the interests of the people that live in the community. As an experiment in development education and planning, one of the authors led a group of the country's leading undergraduates into the field in Ecuador to complete an empirically based study and to prepare an alternative set of recommendations and models. A clearly written book that offers new insights for developmental specialists as well as educators and students in international development, anthropology, economics, public policy, planning, and Latin American studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

This book sheds new light on the current and future challenges faced by cities, and presents approaches, options and solutions enabled by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the smart city context. By focusing on sustainability objectives within a rapidly changing social, economic, environmental and technological setting, it explores a variety of planning challenges faced by contemporary cities and the power of smart city developments in terms of providing innovative tools, approaches, methodologies and technologies to help cities cope with these challenges. Key issues addressed include smart city (e-) planning and (e-)participation; smart data management to facilitate decision-making processes in cities and insular communities on a variety of topics; smart and sustainable management aspects of climate change, water scarcity, mobility, energy, infrastructure, tourism, blue growth, risk assessment; etc. The book presents current and potential pathways and applications for the evolution of smart cities and communities, taking into consideration the unique problems and opportunities emanating from their specific geographical location. The case study examples mainly concern small and medium-sized cities and communities as well as insular areas in the Mediterranean region, while also incorporating lessons learned from other parts of the world. Their focus is on the specific opportunities and threats emerging in these urban and insular environments, which are characterized by their role as globally known tourist destinations, their coastal or port character, and unique cultural resources, as well as the high rated vulnerability in very many sustainability respects (social, economic, biodiversity, urbanization, migration, poverty, etc.) to be found in the Mediterranean region at large

This three-book set is devoted to the prominent bays of the Western North America. The first volume describes San Francisco Bay - a shallow estuary surrounded by a large population center. The forces that built it began with plate tectonics and involved the collision of the Pacific and North American plates and the subduction of the Juan de Fuka plate. Gold mining during the California gold rush sent masses of slit into the Bay. The second volume is devoted to San Diego Bay, which is also a shallow estuary surrounded by a large human population center that influenced the Bay. The third volume describes Puget Sound - a different sort of bay - a complex fjord-estuary system, but also surrounded by several large population centers. The watershed is enormous, covering nearly 43,000 square kilometers with thousands of rivers and streams. Geological forces, volcanos, Ice Ages, and changes in sea levels make the Sound a biologically dynamic and fascinating environment, as well as a productive ecosystem. Key Features Summarizes a complex geological, geographical, and ecological history Reviews how the San Diego Bay has changed and will likely change in the future Examines the different roles of various drivers of Bay ecosystem function Includes the role of humans-both first people and modern populations-on the Bay Explores San Diego Bay as an example of general bay ecological and environmental issues

This book presents innovations for sustainable building design and refurbishment developed and tested through feasibility studies undertaken by researchers at Scottish universities in collaboration with small to medium size enterprises in Scotland during the CIC Start Online project that ran from September 2009 to February 2013. The project was led by Glasgow Caledonian University in collaboration with Edinburgh Napier University, Glasgow School of Art, Heriot-Watt University, the Robert Gordon University, University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde Glasgow. The book includes chapters on Context and Policies, Planning, Building Design, Technologies, Construction, Refurbishment and Performance.

The contents of each chapter are based on 63 completed studies that were initiated by businesses operating in the construction sector or providing services to the sector, indicating the scope of research required to assist the industry to develop more sustainable products and processes. The book informs the reader about the range of innovations that were tested and highlight potential future research areas. Readers can find in-depth information by accessing the project website www.cicstart.org, where full reports on most studies and the video recordings of interactive online seminars that presented the outcomes of the studies are available.

Along with the new knowledge on how innovations for sustainable building design and refurbishment can be applied in practice, the book demonstrates how joint projects of several universities can be successfully managed and how an immediate knowledge transfer can be organized by using web tools to reach over 2,200 current members nationally and internationally (in UK and 53 other countries).

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A Companion to the Renaissance in Southern Italy will provide readers unfamiliar with Southern Italy with an introduction to different aspects of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century history and culture of this vast and significant area of Europe, situated at the centre of the Mediterranean. Commonly regarded as a backward, rural region untouched by the Italian Renaissance, a team of specialists presents a general survey of the most recent research on the centers of southern Italy, as well as insights into the ground-breaking debates on wider themes, such as the definition of the city and continuity and discontinuity at the turn of the sixteenth century, and the effects of dynastic changes from the Angevin and Aragonese Kingdom to the Spanish Viceroyalty. Contributors: Giancarlo Abbamonte, David Abulafia, Guido Cappelli, Chiara De Caprio, Bianca de Divitiis, Fulvio Delle Donne, Teresa D'Urso, Dinko Fabris, Guido Giglioni, Antonietta Iacono, Fulvio Lenzo, Lorenzo Miletti, Francesco Montuori, Pasquale Palmieri, Eleni Sakellariou, Francesco Senatore, Francesco Storti, Pierluigi Terenzi, Carlo Vecce, Giuliana Vitale, and Andrea Zezza.

The Baroque is back in contemporary culture. The ten essays authored by international scholars, and three interventions by artists, examine the return of the baroque as Neo-Baroque through interdisciplinary perspectives. Understanding the Neo-Baroque as transcultural (between different cultures) and transhistorical (between historical moments) the contributors to this volume offer diverse perspectives that suggest the slipperiness of the Neo-Baroque may best be served by the term 'Neo-Baroques'. Case studies analysed reflect this plurality and include: the productions of Belgian theatre company Abattoir Ferme; Claire Denis' French New Extremist film Trouble Every Day; the novel Lujuria tropical by exiled El Salvadorian Quijada Urias; the science fiction blockbuster spectacles The Matrix and eXistenZ; and the spectacular grandeur of early Hollywood movie palaces and the contemporary Las Vegas Strip. Contributors: Jens Baumgarten, Marjan Colletti, Bolivar Echeverria, Rita Eder, Hugh Hazelton, Monika Kaup, Peter Krieger, Patrick Mahon, Walter Moser, Angela Ndalianis, Richard Reddaway, Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Saige Walton.

In Glorious Temples or Babylonic Whores, Anne-Francoise Morel offers an account of the intellectual and cultural history of places of worship in Stuart England. Official documents issued by the Church of England rarely addressed issues regarding the status, function, use, and design of churches; but consecration sermons turn time and again to the conditions and qualities befitting a place of worship in Post-Reformation England. Placing the church building directly in the midst of the heated discussions on the polity and ceremonies of the Church of England, this book recovers a vital lost area of architectural discourse. It demonstrates that the religious principles of church building were enhanced by, and contributed to, scientific developments in fields outside the realm of religion, such as epistemology, the theory of sense perception, aesthetics, rhetoric, antiquarianism, and architecture.

This innovative urban history of Dublin explores the symbols and spaces of the Irish capital between the Restoration in 1660 and the advent of neoclassical public architecture in the 1770s. The meanings ascribed to statues, churches, houses, and public buildings are traced in detail, using a wide range of visual and written sources.

Neoclassicism refers to the revival of classical art and architecture beginning in Europe in the 1750s and lasting until around 1830, with late Neoclassicism lingering through the 1870s. Neoclassicism is a highly complex movement that brought together seemingly disparate issues into a new and culturally rich era, one that was, however, remarkably unified under the banner of classicism. This movement was born in Italy and France and then spread across Europe to Russia and across the ocean to the United States. The Historical Dictionary of Neoclassical Art and Architecture provides an overview of Neoclassicism, focusing on its major artists, architects, stylistic subcategories, ideas, and historical framework of the 18th century style found mainly in Europe and the United States. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 200 dictionary entries on famous artists, sculptors, architects, patrons, and other historical figures and events.

This book brings a variety of fresh perspectives to bear on the diverse people and settlements of the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century southern backcountry. Reflecting the growth of interdisciplinary studies in addressing the backcountry, the volume specifically points to the use of history, archaeology, geography, and material culture studies in examining communities on the southern frontier. Through a series of case studies and overviews, the contributors use cross-disciplinary analysis to look at community formation and maintenance in the backcountry areas of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. These essays demonstrate how various combinations of research strategies, conceptual frameworks, and data can afford a new look at a geographical area and its settlement. The contributors offer views on the evolution of backcountry communities by addressing such topics as migration, kinship, public institutions, transportation and communications networks, land markets and real estate claims, and the role of agricultural development in the emergence of a regional economy. In their discussions of individuals in the backcountry, they also explore the multiracial and multiethnic character of southern frontier society. Yielding new insights unlikely to emerge under a single disciplinary analysis, The Southern Colonial Backcountry is a unique volume that highlights the need for interdisciplinary approaches to the backcountry while identifying common research problems in the field. The Editors: David Colin Crass is the archaeological services unit manager at the Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Steven D. Smith is the head of the Cultural Resources Consulting Division of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Antrhopology. Martha A. Zierden is curator of historical archaeology at The Charleston Museum. Richard D. Brooks is the administrative manager of the Savannah River Archeological Research Program, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Antrhopology. The Contributors: Monica L. Beck, Edward Cashin, Charles H. Faulkner, Elizabeth Arnett Fields, Warren R. Hofstra, David C. Hsiung, Kenneth E. Lewis, Donald W. Linebaugh, Turk McCleskey, Robert D. Mitchell, Michael J. Puglisi, Daniel B. Thorp. "

The only comprehensive treatment of American library architecture, this work details the evolution of the modern public library from 1850 to the present. Donald E. Oehlerts provides a broad, historical perspective of the field of library architecture, examining the influences on the professions of public architecture and librarianship that shaped America's library buildings. Oehlerts examines the planning and construction of the largest public library buildings from 1850 through 1989, presenting the contributions that architects, librarians, and others have made to improvements in design and arrangement. He also explores the development of public architecture and librarianship to determine the sources of influence on these two emerging professions in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This work, which features illustrations of several important buildings, is valuable to professionals, students, and scholars of architecture and library management and facilities.

This study is a portrayal of the political, economic, and cultural history and present of community gardens in a New York City neighborhood, the Lower East Side of Manhattan. An ethnographic study of a particular instance of urban history, it provides a basis for an understanding of urban community gardens in the United States. Beginning with a historical overview of urban community gardening in the United States and other countries, the author concentrates on the last two decades of the 20th century in this portrayal of a social movement that seeks to impact urban environments both in social and economic terms and in terms of ecological dynamics. The last decade in particular has been critical with regard to the development of a broad network of community-based coalitions acting on behalf of urban community gardens.

The author considers internal dynamics and organization of individual gardens within the specific social, political, and economic context of the Lower East Side and analyzes the political struggle on behalf of community gardens in that neighborhood and the entire city. The author also addresses the diverse ways in which community gardens on the Lower East Side have become critical components in the daily life of urban gardeners, predominantly poor and low-income people.

In Europe, the building sector accounts for 40% of energy consumption which has a strong influence on greenhouse gas emissions. The book deals with efficient methodologies aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector. This includes analyses of the building envelopes, the heating systems, the use of solar energy and the assessment of the environmental and energy sustainability of the proposed solutions. After a brief introduction to the physical fundamentals involved in the study, results are presented to support cost-effective technical strategies to promote actions for energy saving, in the most critical fields and with the most economic advantage.

This book aims at capitalizing and transmitting know-how about the design of Augmented Environments (AE) from some of the most prominent laboratories in the field worldwide. The authors belong to the RUFAE network (Research on User- Friendly Augmented Environments, founded in 2002) who meet in research seminars to share experience; Writing this book was perceived as an opportunity to look back over the last few years to sum up important findings; and formalize their approach and experience, which they never had the time or opportunity to do. Although the authors of this book have very different backgrounds, striking similarities emerge in their approach and design principles: never-endingness, activity-orientedness, continuous design, realism are some of the pillars of this approach; enabling to deal with the complex, heterogeneous, multi-user and mul- purpose constructions which AE designers have to face. The book illustrates how these principles enabled them to construct robust, ef- cient, and user-friendly Augmented Environments in spite of the many challenges to make these operational. We hope their experience will help the reader. Primary audience: Academics, Students and Professionals involved in the CHI, CSCW, Ubicomp, Cooperative Building communities. Computer Scientists int- ested by end-users and applications, Social Scientists operating in the IT domain, IT & Organization Consultants. Secondary audience: Developers of office and conferencing applications or middleware, Architects of office buildings, Space Planners, Designers; Facility Managers; IT, furniture & building Business Communities.