The argument for low-cost, zero-energy, zero-waste architecture has never been timelier, while the mainstream has largely abandoned or neglected this agenda: in the UK the recent mandatory zero-carbon performance targets for new homes have been postponed or forgotten at a time when thousands of new homes will be built, and there is already a shortage of electric generating capacity. This book offers a forceful challenge to the current addiction to overconsumption of natural capital and energy, and provides workable, sustainable solutions for zero-carbon, zero-waste design.
An inside view of how one of the world's leading architecture and engineering practice does business Sustainable Built Environments: Principles and Practice offers detailed, environmentally sound design solutions to a wide range of building engineering challenges. The text uses case examples and project data provided by engineers and designers at Arup Associates. It covers a broad range of relevant issues, with focused commentaries and explanations presented in an accessible format for use by students, busy practitioners and informed clients. Whilst this book stresses the importance of a unified approach to design, the text is divided into six principal chapters, each addressing an important aspect of sustainable architecture and engineering. These chapters (Master Planning, Transport, Energy, The Building Envelope, Environmental Services, and Materials) may be read on their own or in sequence as part of a narrative. Throughout the book, photographs, architectural and engineering drawings and diagrams, examples, and other data illustrate the case studies. Numerous web links are provided to additional information. This inspirational book: Focuses on the work of Arup Associates, the award winning architectural and engineering practice Uses real-life examples of functioning buildings and structures to provide information and guidance on the development of sustainable solutions Is packed with informative illustrations Sustainable Built Environments: Principles and Practice is a unique text that will inform and inspire architects and engineers, as well as students of those disciplines, around the globe.
Zed, a bright but troubled fifteen-year-old orphan subject to disturbing but revealing dream-visions, along with a small group of dissident families, must contend with the oppressive, prophecy-driven ways of their clan, as they attempt to overcome long odds to achieve his murdered parents' dream: a world without cruelty, ignorance, or greed. The three-part saga tracks multidimensional characters as they navigate their primitive environment, searching for the twelve magnificent emeralds needed to fulfill the prophecy at the heart of the clan's ritual-bound culture. At the helm is Lunix, the cunning shaman, and Lerk, the headman, a woman-hater who jumps at Lunixs command. Zed's enemies also include Atur, a deeply disturbed man, who is the leader of Lunixs goon squad, and Atok, Aturs son, a bully who walks with anger rather than pride because he fathered a female child. Buela, the medicine woman, is at the center of the progressive group that began with Zeds parents, along with Sani, Buelas daughter and medicine woman-in-training, who possesses sharp wit and astounding sensory acuity. Paramount among Zed's supporters is Zhiaban, an altruistic yet enigmatic, music-loving tree-goddess, whose magical powers come to his aid, as he and his friends first must flee and then find a way to return to their homeland and share their new ways with the clan. Rife with adventure, intrigue, magic, love, humor, triumph, revelation, and disappointment, THE ZEDLAND CHRONICLES/ORPHAN RUNNING examines, with no apologies, controversial subjects such as faith, patricide, parenting, and altered consciousness.
The confluence of global climate change, growing levels of energy consumption and rapid urbanization has led the international policy community to regard urban responses to climate change as ‘an urgent agenda’ (World Bank 2010). The contribution of cities to rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions coupled with concerns about the vulnerability of urban places and communities to the impacts of climate change have led to a relatively recent and rapidly proliferating interest amongst both academic and policy communities in how cities might be able to respond to mitigation and adaptation. Attention has focused on the potential for municipal authorities to develop policy and plans that can address these twin issues, and the challenges of capacity, resource and politics that have been encountered. While this literature has captured some of the essential means through which the urban response to climate change is being forged, is that it has failed to take account of the multiple sites and spaces of climate change response that are emerging in cities ‘off-plan’. An Urban Politics of Climate Change provides the first account of urban responses to climate change that moves beyond the boundary of municipal institutions to critically examine the governing of climate change in the city as a matter of both public and private authority, and to engage with the ways in which this is bound up with the politics and practices of urban infrastructure. The book draws on cases from multiple cities in both developed and emerging economies to providing new insight into the potential and limitations of urban responses to climate change, as well as new conceptual direction for our understanding of the politics of environmental governance.
