Product Description

Saving the environment from continued devastation by our built environment is the single most important issue for our tomorrow, feeding into our post-millennial fears that this third millennium will indeed be our last.

Ken Yeang reconstructs and revisions how and why our current design approach and perception of architecture must radically change if we are to ensure a sustainable future. He argues forcefully that this can only be achieved by adopting the environmentalist’s view that, aesthetics apart, regards our environment simply as an assembly of materials (mostly transported over long distances), that are transciently concentrated on to a single locality and used for living, working and leisure whose footprints affect that locality’s ecology and whose eventual disposal has to be accommodated somewhere in the biosphere.

This manual offers clear instructions to designers on how to design, build and use a green sustainable architecture. The aim is 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, and contribute positively to biodiversity (as opposed to reducing it). The goal is 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 a (a cyclic process that mimics the way ecosystems recycle materials), 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.

Ecodesign provides designers with a comprehensive set of strategies for approaching ecological design and planning combined with in-depth analysis and research material not found elsewhere.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #471713 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 500 pages

Review
"Probably no individual is more important in the development of ecodesign's theory and practice than the London and Kuala-Lumpur-based architect Ken Yeang. Ecodesign is of great value as a manual for use in the design studio of both the practitioner and the student." (Architectural Record; 1/08)

"…incredibly useful for more persistent academics and all those people who seriously want to incorporate green ideas into ... working practices." (iDFX, September 2006)

"…a resource both theoretical and practical…" (Architectural Technology, October 2006)

"… lots of good information.... The chapter on building form is arguably the best and most in-depth and reflects Yeang’s passion…" (Building Design, October 2006)

 "…would provide a useful reference resource for ... designers of contemporary buildings and products ... in the initial concept stages of design…" (Architecture Today, November 2006)

"... provides everyone with a guiding framework for changing society’s present profligate, high-energy, environmentally destructive economy into ... sustainable and eco-based."(Environment UK, November 2006)

"A highly informative and comprehensive manual on ecological design…" (Buildiing Engineer, December 2006)

"…a comprehensive design primer for students…" (The Architectural Review, March 07)

From the Back Cover
Saving the environment from continued devastation by our built environment is the single most important issue for our tomorrow, feeding into our post-millennial fears that this third millennium will indeed be our last.

Ken Yeang reconstructs and revisions how and why our current design approach and perception of architecture must radically change if we are to ensure a sustainable future. He argues forcefully that this can only be achieved by adopting the environmentalist’s view that, aesthetics apart, regards our environment simply as an assembly of materials (mostly transported over long distances), that are transciently concentrated on to a single locality and used for living, working and leisure whose footprints affect that locality’s ecology and whose eventual disposal has to be accommodated somewhere in the biosphere.

The manual offers clear instructions to designers on how to design, build and use a green sustainable architecture. The aim is 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, and contribute positively to biodiversity (as opposed to reducing it). The goal is 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 a (a cyclic process that mimics the way ecosystems recycle materials), 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.

The manual provides designers with a comprehensive set of Strategies for approaching ecological design and planning combined with in-depth analysis and research material not found elsewhere. The book is not intended solely for design professionals but should also be of considerable interest and use to all those whose work impinges in one way or an other on the natural environment.

The book consolidates and advances the theoretical and technical work of Ken Yeang in a text illustrated with over 300 diagrams, drawings and design examples.

About the Author
Ken Yeang is an architect-planner, and one of the foremost ecodesigners, theoreticians and thinkers in the field of green design. After having studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London, his work on the green agenda started in the 70s with his doctoral dissertation for the University of Cambridge on ecological design and planning. Yeang is the author of several books on ecological design, including the Skyscraper, Bioclimatically Considered: A Design Primer (1996) published by Wiley-Academy, and The green Skyscraper: the basis for Designing Sustainable Intensive Buildings (1999) published by Prestel (Germany). He is the distinguished Plym Professor at the University of Illinois and Adjunct Professor at the University of Malaya and University of Hawaii (at Manoa) and recently received a D. Lit. (Hon) from the University of Sheffield. he is an Honorary FAIA and has served on the RIBA Council. A principal of Llewlleyn Davies Yeang (UK) and its sister firm, Hamzah & Yeang (Malaysia), Ken Yeang is well known for designing signature green high-performance buildings and master plans, and for his pursuit of an ecological aesthetic in his designs.

Customer Reviews

Designing and Planning by an Ecologist's point of view
The book begins presenting the overall idea that it is vital for any designer or builder to have a minimal ecological literacy in order for him/her to be aware of all the ecological consequences of the actions affected by his/hers design.
Concepts such as ecology, biological organisation, ecosystem development (processes, components) and all the interactions between the layers within the ecosystem are presented and explained in an objective way.
Ken Yeang's main goal with Ecodesign is to spread the overall perception of how our built environment and its influence on the natural scenario can become an integral and benign part of our life on the planet.
In those terms, a variety of instructions, illustations, diagrams, schemes and strategies for achieving such ecological approach to design are presented.
Do not expect to find all the answers for ecodesign on this manual. Expect, however, to find a theoretical framework that enables the designer to achieve an end product that recognizes and responds to a locality's ecosystem benignly and contributes to its biodiversity continuity.
The book's structure and organisation serves its premise of being a manual once the user can rearrange the reading sequence of the chapters as intended. It is a "must have" for all of those who seek to understand and apply green concepts into their practical work.

Where are the drawings?
I love ken's "rethinking the skyscraper" There is so much description in the diagrams and drawings etc. This book is difficult because there is so much to read and not as many diagrams to explain the ideas. THe ideas are complex and i just wish there was more information to clarify.

Good and technical
It is a good and very complete book on the subject. It looks at all the aspects of eco-architecture, but maybe a bit to dificult to read if you are not specialy interested in the subject. It has given me a lot of new thoughts and ideas. Very good indeed.