Publisher's Synopsis
A highly informative and comprehensive manual on ecological design, Ecodesign demonstrates why our current approach to design and perception of architecture must now change radically if our planet is to have a sustainable future. All our artifacts, from buildings to everyday household products, have some environmental impact and can be viewed as potential waste. Ken Yeang argues for a design that seamlessly and benignly integrates with the natural environment – and shows how this can be achieved. The ultimate aim being, artifacts that can have positive consequences for the environment. The book gives easy–to–follow instructions, accompanied by numerous illustrations, on how to design, build, manufacture and use green sustainable architecture and products. The goal is a built environment that is a low consumer of non–renewable resources, built with green materials, constructed with minimal negative consequences on the site’s ecology and designed to facilitate disassembly, continuous reuse, recycling and eventual benign reintegration into the ecosystems at the end of its useful life. Ecodesign emphasises the ecologist’s concept of the ecosystem and how this can impact design and planning. Yeang’s theories, ideas and solutions rank him among the foremost up–to–date thinkers on the subject worldwide. Aside from designers, Ecodesign is intended as a resource, both theoretical and practical, for academics and students in the discipline and for all those engaged in allied trades and construction who seek to understand and to incorporate green ideas into their working practices. The book provides everyone with a vital guiding framework for changing society’s present profligate, high–energy, environmentally destructive economy into one that is sustainable and eco–based.
