Book Awards Australia & International
James Aronson and Jelte van Andel (eds.). Restoration Ecology: The New Frontier, Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2005, 063205834X, -This book challenges ecologists to explore the applicability of current theories and concepts, recognizing that these have not been developed with such applications in mind. The academic foundations of restoration ecology are revisited for this purpose, to pave the way towards a review of the causes of successes and failures and to identify the perspectives of ecological restoration in different ecosystem types. These are dealt with biome-by-biome and considered from the historical perspective of land use. More
Michelle Betsill. Cities and Climate Change (Routledge Studies in Physical Geography and Environment), Routledge, 2005, 0415359163, -Climate change is one of the most challenging issues of our time. As key sites in the production and management of emissions of greenhouse gases, cities will be crucial for the implementation of international agreements and national policies on climate change. This book provides a critical analysis of the role of cities in addressing climate change and the prospects for urban sustainability. In the post-Rio era, international organizations and transnational networks have promoted the need for local action on global environmental issues. Part I considers the implications of these developments for understanding global environmental governance and urban sustainability. It outlines international and national responses to climate change, and documents the evidence to date on local responses to climate change, examining in detail the international Cities for Climate Protection programme. More
Ian Burton, Elizabeth Malone and Saleemul Huq. Adaptation Policy Frameworks for Climate Change, Developing Strategies, Policies and Measures, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 052161760X, Adaptation is a process by which individuals, communities and countries seek to cope with the consequences of climate change. The process of adaptation is not new; the idea of incorporating future climate risk into policy-making is. While our understanding of climate change and its potential impacts has become clearer, the availability of practical guidance on adaptation has not kept pace. The development of the Adaptation Policy Framework (APF) is intended to help provide the rapidly evolving process of adaptation policy-making with a much-needed roadmap. Ultimately, the purpose of the APF is to support adaptation processes to protect - and enhance - human well-being in the face of climate change. This volume will be invaluable for everyone working on climate change adaptation and policy-making. More
Herbert Girardet. Cities, People, Planet: Liveable Cities for a Sustainable World, Wiley-Academy, 2004, 0470852844, There is a huge amount of interest in the future of the planet and how architecture and design can contribute to this.
This book considers the ecological design of the city and includes ideas and best practice examples of ecological architectural and urban design around the world.
The tone of the book is extremely accessible as it demonstrates how small changes in one area of the world can have impacts elsewhere. It gives an optimistic view and leaves the reader fascinated at the intricacies of the planet's ecosystems and how architecture and urban design can affect it.
Herbert Girardet. Creating Sustainable Cities (Schumacher Briefing no. 2), Green Books, 2003, 1870098773, -Modern cities make a huge impact on their environments, but if they were to dramatically reduce their consumption of resources and energy, they would still prosper. Waste recycling can reduce urban use of resources whilst creating many new jobs; new materials and architectural designs can greatly improve the environmental performance of urban buildings. Cities can also adopt imaginative new approaches to transport planning and management, and the use of urban space. We can dramatically improve the experience of urban life by the creation of new urban villages, reducing the peoples' desire to escape from the pressures of city life. More
Baruch Givoni. Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design, Wiley, 1998, 0471291773, -Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design Baruch Givoni Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design is the most comprehensive, up-to-date reference available on building and urban climatology. Written in clear, common-sense language by Baruch Givoni, the leading authority in the field, this book is a far-reaching look at a variety of climatic influences and their effects on individuals, buildings, and communities. Aimed at architecture and urban planning professionals and students alike, Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design offers real-life solutions to climatological site planning and design issues, helping to settle disputes about site orientation, site organization, and the assembly of building materials. Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design is organized into three parts. The first, Building Climatology, analyzes human thermal comfort and the effect of architectural and structural design features including layout, window orientation, and shading, and ventilation conditions on the indoor climate. Then, Urban Climatology explores the ways in which the climate in densely built areas can differ from surrounding regional climactic conditions, for example, in temperature, wind speed, and humidity. More
Sally M. Kane and Gary Wynn Yohe (eds). Societal Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000, 0792363841,- Changes in climate and climate variability have an effect on people's behaviour around the world, and public institutions have an important part to play in influencing our ability to respond to and plan for climate risk. We may be able to reduce climate risk by seeking to mitigate the threat on the one hand, and by adapting to a changed climate on the other. Another theme of the book is the integrated role of adaptation and mitigation in framing issues and performing analyses. Adaptation costs fall most heavily on the poor and special attention needs to be paid to adaptation by the poorest populations. An integrating framework is also presented to provide the context for an expansive typology of terms to apply to adaptation. The 12 papers collected here use methods from a variety of disciplines and focus on different time frames for decision making, from short term to the very long term. Readership: Technically trained readers familiar with the policy issues surrounding climate change and interested in learning the scientific underpinnings of issues related to societal adaptation. More
Alcira Kreimer, Margaret Arnold, Anne Carlin (eds). Building Safer Cities: The Future of Disaster Risk, World Bank Publications, 2003, 0821354973, -Vulnerability to disaster impacts is an increasingly important aspect of urban development, and a number of ongoing trends have the potential to cause even more severe and broader disaster impacts, including increased environmental degradation, the impacts of climate change, population growth in cities, and the effects of globalisation. The effects of disasters are particularly severe in developing countries, causing problems for economic and social development, inflicting massive casualties, and leading to the diversion of funds from development to emergency relief and recovery. This publication contains a number of background papers prepared for a World Bank conference on disaster risk management, held in Washington in December 2002. The papers discuss a number of case studies and papers which consider disaster risk reduction strategies designed to enable local communities and authorities in developing countries to be better prepared to protect their lives, homes, livelihoods and assets in an emergency situation. More
Sue Roaf, David Crichton, Fergus Nicol. Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change: A 21st century Survival Guide, Architectural Press, Elsevier, 2005, 0750659114, -The book is based on the premise that climate change is going to happen and its impacts on our lives are going to be far worse than generally expected. Sue Roaf argues that many modern buildings are not only 'unsustainable' in themselves but are also having a catastrophic effect on the global climate. In a unique argument, she illustrates that the only way we can hope to survive the following century in tact is if we not only begin to radically reduce CO2 emissions from our buildings and stop building climatically disastrous building types but also build only the buildings that can survive in the changed climates of the future. More
C. P. Underwood, Francis Yik. Modelling Methods for Energy in Buildings, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, 0632059362, -Climate change mitigation and sustainable practices are now at the top of political and technical agendas. Environmental system modelling provides a way of appraising options and this book will make a significant contribution to the uptake of such systems. It provides knowledge of the principles involved in modelling systems, builds confidence amongst designers and offers a broad perspective of the potential of these new technologies.
The aim of the book is to provide an understanding of the concepts and principles behind predictive modelling methods; review progress in the development of the modelling software available; and explore modelling in building design through international case studies based on real design problems More
Peggy F. Barlett and Geoffrey W. Chase (eds). Sustainability on campus: Stories and Strategies for Change, The MIT Press, 2004, 9780262524223 -Environmental awareness on college and university campuses began with the celebratory consciousness-raising of Earth Day, 1970. Since then environmental action on campus has been both global (in research and policy formation) and local (in efforts to make specific environmental improvements on campuses). The stories in this book show that achieving environmental sustainability is not a matter of applying the formulas of risk management or engineering technology but part of what the editors call "the messy reality of participatory engagement in cultural transformation." More
Michael M’Gonigle and Justine Stark. Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University, New Society Publishers, 2006, 9780865715578, -This book places the university at the forefront of the sustainability movement. Questioning the university's ability to equip society to deal with today's serious challenges such as economic growth, democratic citizenship and planetary survival, it calls for a new social movement to take a lead in reforming the university. The book reviews the university's 900-year history from medieval religious philosopher, to Renaissance nation-builder, to its modern function as training grounds for the world's managerial class and the world's largest industry. It examines diverse campus initiatives across North America and Europe and their traditional concerns of green buildings, renewable energy and transportation demand management. But it also demonstrates the promise for social and ecological progress open to the "planetary university" once the university takes its place seriously More
Richard Rogers. Cities for a Small Planet (Reith Lectures), Faber and Faber, 1997, 9780571179930, -Nothing else damages the earth’s environment more than our cities. As the world’s population has grown, our cities have burgeoned, and their impact on the environment worsened. Meanwhile, from the isolated, gated communities within Houston and Los Angeles, to the millions of residents of Bombay living in squalor, the city has failed to serve its ideal function—as the cradle of civilization, the engine of culture, and the inspiration for community and citizenship. In Cities for a Small Planet, Sir Richard Rogers, one of the world’s leading architects and the designer of the Pompidou Center in Paris, demonstrates how future cities could provide the springboard for restoring humanity’s harmony with its environment.Rogers outlines the disastrous impact cities have had and will continue to have on our world, from waste-saturated Tokyo Bay, to the massive plumes of pollution caused by London’s traffic, to the depleted water resources of Mexico City. More
Richard Rogers and Anne Power. Cities for a Small Country, Faber and Faber, 2000, 9780571206520, -On average, from 2000 to 2025, Britain will need almost four million additional households. How can these be provided without the endless "development" of the countryside, or stretching already strained urban resources? This work tackles these issues. More
Randall Thomas (ed). Sustainable Urban Design, Spon Press, 2002, 9780415281232, - The writers focus on the physical aspects of the urban environment - the buildings and their engineering systems, landscaping, transport systems, energy, water and waste systems and successfully cover all the key elements in one volume together with fully illustrated examples of best practice. The contributors, drawn from architectural and planning practices, are recognised experts in this field. More
Steven L. Cantor. Green Roofs In Sustainable Landscape Design, W. W. Norton & Co, 2008, £38.00, 9780393731682 - A popular design trend, green roofs make private and public buildings inviting and environmentally friendly. Green roofs offer many aesthetic benefits as well as environmental ones. Landscape architect Steven Cantor gives the basic terminology of green roof design, defines the green roof types, reviews materials of construction and methods of installation, and explores sixty projects in detail, identifying the design process, the program for the project, and the specific application of green roof design and technology. He gives design professionals and students a thorough introduction to the applications and impacts of green roofs on the built environment and shows how they can be integrated into contemporary buildings as well as existing structures. Green roofs can be considered as integral elements of the potential design vocabulary that any designer might use—like water features, paving patterns or retaining walls—in the right setting with an appropriate budget and the support of a client More
Matthew Klingle. Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle, Yale University Press, 2009, $15.00, 9780300143195 -"Emerald City has been eagerly awaited by historians of cities, the environment, and the North American West. Klingle addresses many of the traditional topics of urban history and reframes them as environmental questions."-Carl Abbott, Portland State University (Carl Abbott )
"This book shifts the debate, mapping out new terrain that other historians will spend years exploring. Emerald City is one of the most thoughtful books published in recent years."-Jeremi Suri, University of Wisconsin, Madison (Jeremi Suri )
"Seattle is not only among the loveliest of cities, it''s also, as Matthew Klingle demonstrates here, one of the most interesting. Not everything in this history will please the boosters, but those who love the great city of the Northwest will find here a new sense of both the city''s roots and its possibilities."-Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy (Bill McKibben ) More
Wangari Maathai. Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience. Lantern Books (US), 2004 (revised edition), 9781590560402 -Africa's future is the subject of fierce debate, with the media full of warnings about environmental and economic collapse. Development workers continue to create supposed solutions to the problems they see, with little effect and much controversy. While these outsiders haggle over projections and prophecies, Africans are working on a variety of small, grassroots projects that may change the course of their future. More
The Green Belt Movement is an internationally acclaimed tree-planting movement founded by Kenyans and run by and for Kenyans. The organization, which has planted millions of trees throughout East Africa in order to provide sources of fuel, food and a way to stop soil erosion and environmental degradation, is one example of an indigenous movement working to influence Africa's future. Many of its workers are women.
Ken Yeang. Ecodesign: A Manual for Ecological Design, Wiley, 2008, 9780470997789 - You'll find clear instructions on how to design, build and use a green sustainable architecture in Ecodesign. Author Ken Yeang will show you how to produce and maintain ecosystem-like structures and systems whose content and outputs not only integrate benignly with the natural environment, but whose built form and systems function with sensitivity to the locality's ecology as well in relation to global biospheric processes. He will help you learn to develop structures and systems that are low consumers of non-renewable resources, built with materials that have low ecological consequences and are designed to facilitate disassembly, continuous reuse and recycling, and that at the end of their useful lives can be reintegrated seamlessly back into the natural environment. Each of these aspects, and other attendant ones, is examined in detail with regards to how they influence design and planning. More
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