Product Description

There is no "one-size-fits-all" plan for so-called "green" homes; rather, there are universal principles of design that can be applied to individual tastes and needs. Architect Angela Dean offers a variety of ways to incorporate green building into your home, including using healthy building materials such as straw bales and natural flooring, taking advantage of local materials and resources, reusing gray water for landscaping, and incorporating passive solar design. Her goal is to teach people how to think about building sustainable homes.

Green by Design provides a thorough analysis of what it means to build green and offers advice on what to consider when designing a sustainable home. Green by Design features full-color photographs and line drawings of floor plans show different examples of successful sustainable homes. It also includes in-depth case studies of more than a dozen homes so readers planning a green home can see what worked for others. By providing people with knowledge, inspiration, and the ability to ask the right questions (and understand the answers) Green by Design puts home builders and owners on a path to creating beautiful, environmentally responsible homes that they can be proud to live in.

Angela Dean, AIA, is principal architect of AMD Architecture in Salt Lake City. She specializes in environmentally responsible designs to create healthy, comfortable buildings that are in harmony with the environment

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #266983 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From the Inside Flap
"Dare to dream," says architect Angela M. Dean, who specializes in green home design. In this book, she tells you the best way to achieve your dream of a sustainable home, including how to plan, pitfalls to avoid, and the numerous ways you can take advantage of natural resources and materials. There is no one-size-fits-all plan for designing a home, and this book includes plans and full-color photographs of more than a dozen case studies to show you how varied the solutions for successful sustainable homes can be.

You'll also learn about the many materials and systems you can incorporate into your home so that it has less impact on the environment and provides a healthier living space for you and your family. The book provides information on:

o Natural building materials

o Renewable flooring

o Gray water for landscaping

o Local materials and labor

o Energy-efficient systems

o Passive solar design

o Indoor air quality

Packed with information and resources, Green by Design is the perfect book for anyone interested in creating a home for sustainable living.

From the Back Cover
Author and architect Angela M. Dean offers specific, hands-on advice for creating your sustainable home. Inside you'll find a wealth of information on:

o Reasons for building green

o Choosing a design team

o Hiring an architect

o Managing your budget

o Meeting building codes

o Siting to take advantage of natural resources

o Incorporating healthy building materials

o Using energy-efficient systems

With floor plans and full-color photographs of over a dozen successful green homes, this book will inspire you and give you the information you need to create a home for sustainable living.

About the Author
"Green is not a menu of add-on options," says architect Angela Dean, "but a design aspect that is integral to aesthetics, budget, function, health, and enjoyment." In Green by Design: Creating a Home for Sustainable Living Dean shares the environmentally responsible design principles she holds dear. Her goal, in the book and in life, is to make green building and healthy living accessible for everyone. With this in mind, she founded sustainable architecture firm, AMD Architecture, in 1997. AMD Architecture is dedicated to promoting sustainable design through site planning, building design, energy and water efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality and alternative energy systems. Her projects span single-family remodels and new homes to commercial and retail buildings.

A well-respected member of the American Institute of Architects, Dean received her masters of Architecture from the University of Utah in 1994. She served as Chair of the AIA’s Utah Committee on the Environment from 1998 to 2000, and is a current member of Architects, Designers, and Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) and the US Green Building Council. Dean is also actively involved with the Sierra Club, Habitat for Humanity, Hawkwatch, TreeUtah, and is a founding member of the Great Basin Earth Institute, a not-for-profit grassroots organization whose mission is to motivate individuals to act responsibly in regards to the environment.

In 1999 the Environmental Protection Agency honored Dean with the Environmental Achievement Award for educating the public about environmental issues through The Web, the Utah Society for Environmental Education Newsletter. She has received numerous other awards and grants, including the AIA Research Award in 1994 for the program, Life Cycle Wheel for Construction and Demolition Debris, which she developed in conjunction with Wesley Groesbeck of Environmental Resources, Inc.

Most recently, Dean has been working as the Sustainability Architect for The Utah House, an earth-friendly demonstration house built in conjunction with Utah State University to educate the public about new ways of building homes and creating landscapes that advocates principles of sustainability, energy and water efficiency, healthy indoor environments, universal design, and economic development. She lives with her family in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Customer Reviews

Green by Design
Although I am very much a supporter of green products and design, I found this book a little too outdated. Most of the ideas in this book I have heard before. I found that this book was similar to most of the other books I have read concerning green building. I just picked up "Green Remodeling" recently by David Johnston and Kim Master, and find the ideas much more updated and applicable to modern home design

Enjoyable, but not comprehensive.
This book is a very nice primer for green building and has lovely pictures, but it is not really suited as an exhaustive resource for the would be home builder.

I bought this book as an enhancement to my collection of books on the topic of green building. The ideas presented are sound and I especially like the pictures and descriptions of the various approaches people have taken with their homes.

Outdated Book
I agree with Bill below - this book is outdated. The author seems to miss the concept of ecological footprint. The first two houses she features in her book are 3,300 sq ft (for three people) and 3,000 sq ft (for two people). Another house is 4,175 sq ft.

Even if people use green materials and building practices, the houses aren't green if they're using excessive materials and space.

There are a number of better green books, but one that specifically focuses on minimizing environmental impact is Little House on a Small Planet by Shay Salomon.