Product Description

The story of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center at Oberlin College—the first substantially green building to be built on a college campus—encompasses more than the particulars of one building. In Design on the Edge, David Orr writes about the planning and design of Oberlin's environmental studies building as part of a larger story about the art and science of ecological design and the ability of institutions of higher learning themselves to learn.

The Lewis Center, which has attracted worldwide attention as a model of ecological design, operates according to environmental principles. It is powered entirely by solar energy, features landscaping with fruit trees and vegetable gardens, and houses a Living Machine, which processes all wastewater for reuse in the building or landscape. Orr puts the Lewis Center into historical design context and describes the obstacles and successes he encountered in obtaining funds and college approval, interweaving the particulars of the center with thoughts on the larger environmental and societal issues the building process illustrates.

Equal parts analysis, personal reflection, and call to action, Design on the Edge illustrates the process of institutional change, institutional learning, and the political economy of design. It describes how the idea of the Lewis Center originated and was translated into reality with the help of such environmental visionaries as William McDonough and John Todd, and how the building has performed since its completion.

College and university administrators will spend 17 billion dollars on new buildings over the next few years. Design on the Edge is essential reading for architects, planners, and environmentalists who need to sell the innovations of ecological design to wary institutions, and for educators and students whose profession is undermined by the very buildings they work in—and for anyone who has ever tried to change an organization for the better.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #374061 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Review
"Design on the Edge is an original, powerful, and inspiring book. David Orr has been on the cutting edge of sustainability issues for decades, and few academics can tell the truth with the humor, insight, and graceful style he brings. Here he challenges higher education to rise to the challenge of addressing the critical issues that threaten our survival, a task that requires moral courage and passion, as well as science and reason."
—Sim Van der Ryn, author of Ecological Design and Design for Life, and Director, Center for Regenerative Design, College of Marin

"David Orr writes with verve, wit, and wisdom about the most pressing issue of our time: 'How are we to live sustainably?' There are few who have reflected on this question in a more comprehensive and engaging manner. Moreover, as this book demonstrates, Orr is a leading voice in articulating and building a revolutionary response."
—Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University

"Is it possible to change the world with one small building? David Orr gives us the story of the Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, a building that makes us think differently about the spaces we inhabit. If we are too succeed in addressing global warming and the degradation of the environment, we need beacons of hope, and this is one."
—Bill Browning, Principal, Browning + Bannon LLC, Washington, DC

"Just as the Lewis Center raised the standard for academic architecture, so Orr once again raises the bar for those of us pondering the multiple intersections of architecture, environment, and politics. His book is one of the liveliest and more important books on architecture you could ever read."
— William L. Fox, Orion

"The Lewis Center is a seminal green building, and David Orr has written a thoroughly engaging account of how the project tested the will of its design and delivery team. By illuminating the process and politics behind the construction, he offers clues to success for similar ventures. His wide-ranging story, providing us with moments of both humor and anguish, is well worth the read."
—Peter Busby, C.M., architect, Vancouver

"This is a story about one particular building's design and construction. In other respects, its is a provocative theoretical treatise on ecological design and its implications. Quite remarkable.... Highly recommended."
— Choice

"With the wisdom of Wendell Berry and the fervor of Ian McHarg, Orr challenges architecture and higher education to repair the breach between the built and natural environments and between institutional rhetoric and behavior. His is a compelling argument for both designers and educators to get their houses in better ecological order."
—Douglas Kelbaugh, Dean, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan

"With this bold and insightful book, Orr has provided the design and construction industry exactly what we need: a candid, detailed account of the actions and results of the Lewis Center, one of the most ambitious projects of our time. It's an essential read for anyone interested in creating buildings or communities that increase health and vitality."
—Bob Berkebile, BNIM Architects

About the Author
David W. Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College and the author of The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention, The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, and Ecological Literacy.

Customer Reviews

A Babbled of Green Fields
Who could dispute David Orr's central contention that we need to continue making buildings that can sustain themselves, so called "green architecture," and that there's no better place to start than at home. His is an impassioned voice that occasionally reaches the oratorical heights of a Thoreau or a Lewis Mumford, and his account of the events leading to the opening of Adam Joseph Lewis Center at Oberlin (Ohio) is worth reading from the viewpoint of agitprop alone: it is the green equivalent of THE CRADLE WILL ROCK.

Alas, it lacks music altogether, and some of its purpler passages should have gotten the red pencil. And while they had the pencil out, they might also have marked up some of the endless and dull passages about persuading this one, selling the idea to that one, many Ohio and government worthies who seem to have stepped out of an early Sinclair Lewis novel. In most cases Orr doesn't mind giving himself the heroic role, but he's the man and we might as well acknowledge it. He's not only the hero, he's the Jeremiah of his own legend. His writing style is accessible: not for Orr the theoretical flourishes of his kinsmen. In fact he harbors a certain contempt for the jargonheads, even ones who share his preoccupation with the green. He has a telling anecdote in which a San Francisco cosmopolitan, invited to give a speech, turns place into an abstraction and bewilders a room full of hardworking Ozark peasant women who give her a grim glare of blankness. These were women who lived, as opposed to the San Francisco woman who could only speak. He quotes Lao Tzu with a certain wry approval: "One who knows does not say and one who says does not know."

In that case he knows and says everything that needs to be said. With the Lewis Center slated to open shortly, we will see the first colleege built building capable to sustaining itself since the original Oneida Foundation in upstate New York during the Transcendental years commemorated by Hawthorne in his BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. Yes, the cost of making such a building is higher than your ordinary strip mall, but in the long run it's the strip mall that's going to cost us more, and as Orr points out, costs decline geometrically as more and more buildings go green and the technology is shared by many. Plus he prevailed upon numerous foundations who were swayed by his appeal and his honesty. His book ends up paraphrasing Wendell Berry to the effect that "to live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creeation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament." I wouldn't put it that way myself, but at the heart of the matter, Orr's on the side of the Lord.