Sustainability In A Clean Well Lighted Place To Read

By: Jon Dougal

There are a whole host of new books on the market lately. Coming out as fast as the green revolution is going mainstream. More and more information is sought by more and more potentially green advocates seeking enlightenment. Here are a few touching on varying subjects:

HEATING, COOLING, LIGHTING – Sustainable Design Methods For Architects
Norbert Lechner
Published December, 2008
ISBN-978—0-47004809-2

Many new topics like: cool coatings, passive sustainability, LED lighting, vacuum insulation smart facades, heat bridges, and 1400 photographs which is usually the thinner segment of a book. Photographs are expensive this book is full of them. One important point that I find unusual is there is an accompanying website that offers an image bank. Wow! Also endorsed by EBN.

PACKAGING SUSTAINABILITY – Innovative Packaging Design
Wendy Jedlicka
ISBN 978-0-24669-6 $50

Dear to my heart are the issues of trash from packaging. All types, want to see an enormous source? Just go to your local fast food restaurant and watch the trashcan fill up before your very eyes.
Consumers are not very hip when it comes to the “whys” of packaging. Packaging is all about marketing. Getting the brand in front of the consumer on the shelf to connect with the branded image of the manufacturer’s advertising image.
This book discusses the various alternatives to how goods can be housed in more sustainable alternatives using less embodied energy and less stuff in the delivery. She discusses the materials and processes currently in use and and helps the reader understand the various interconnecting points.
This is an important subject in the overall act of reducing the carbon footprint of a product. Good essential reading.

URBAN DESIGN – for an Urban Century – Placemaking for People
Lance jay Brown, David Dixon, and Oliver Gillham
ISBN- 978-0-470-08782-4

Ever since Rome laid out its master plan cities have taken various shapes and designs – some great and memorable, some a memory to fade as fast as possible.
The age of new urbanism has happened and more planners, city managers, majors and transportation agencies are all trying to build more friendly cities. A vital, vibrant city is essential to quality of life issues. Traffic speed, birds, transportation, the lungs or parks of the city all play to property values and locating of families that lend a tax base.
The authors seem to understand the future course of cities will be of necessity more dense, more compact and higher. These authors are well qualified to and their plume to the discussion so needed as to the growth and rebuilding of Americas Cities. Or cities anywhere for that matter – China should read this book.

RETROFITTING SUBURBIA – Urban Design Solutions For Redesigning Suburbs
Ellen Dunahm Jones and June Williamson
ISBN – 978-0-470-04123-9

These authors have essentially compiled a tomb on “anti-sprawl” the disease we have infected ourselves with that destroys families, increases crime rates, early school drop outs, lowered civic participation as well as asthma in kids.
These ladies cover the gamut of retrofitting amalls, shopping centers, and office parks as well as issues like “adaptive reuse “ of big box retailers. And how do you urbanize suburban developments? They can show you in this well done package on making improvements in what we take for granted as evil in our need to escape the urban centers.