An in-depth look at the strategies employed in sustainable home design.

Do you want to have electricity and hot water at any time, no matter what's going on outside your property? Do you want to have more control over the things you eat and how they are processed? Do you want your family safe from the worries of a bad economy and crime?If you answered "yes" to these questions, then living off the grid may be for you. Although living off the grid takes some hard work, the benefits make it all worthwhile. This practical guide gives you all the i...

Ever wanted a cabin or little cottage in the woods but don’t know where to start? With Log Cabins, author William S. Wicks offers clear, practical instructions on how to build your own log cabin-and furnish it, too-while harmonizing the structure’s interior and exterior with the surrounding environment. Topics include: Location scouting and preparation Foundations, tools, and materials Roofs and shingles Floors, ceilings, and partitions Chi...

In daily life, we can take control of the resources and services we depend on. Electricity and energy don’t have to come off the public utility grid—alternatives abound in solar, wind, and water generated power. Design decisions can drastically affect power consumption, and bio-diesel and alternative fuels can help break the oil habit. Dave Black describes alternatives for eco-pimping your home and lifestyle for independence, economy, and a more integrated way of life. Equally valuable for...

Discover the best cabin for your lifestyle and location with this illustrated guide featuring sixty-two floor plans for under one,zero feet.Design and build the comfortable cabin that perfectly suits your every desire. The sixty-two plans in Compact Cabins feature innovative storage solutions, clever use of outdoor space, mix-and-match modular elements, and off-the-grid energy options to help you create the cabin of your dreams—all in less than one,zero sq...

Covering every aspect of drawing preparation, both manual and computer-aided, this comprehensive manual is an essential tool for students, architects and architectural technologists. Showing what information is required on each type of document, how drawings relate to specifications, and how to organize and document your work, this handbook presents a fully illustrated guide to all the key methods and techniques. Thoroughly revised and redesigned, this fourth edition has brand new computer...

Tony covers the process of visualising and designing a house through to the practical side of lifting the living roof, infilling the walls. laying out rooms and adding renewable, autonomous technology. He offers advice on roofs, floors, walls, compost toilets, wood stoves, kitchens, windows and on planning permissions. There are photographs of the dwelling and illustrations from the construction plans for this, one of the UK's most unique homes. Includes updates which bring the building and p...

Architecture and Adaptation discusses architectural projects that use computational technology to adapt to changing conditions and human needs. Topics include kinetic and transformable structures, digitally driven building parts, interactive installations, intelligent environments, early precedents and their historical context, socio-cultural aspects of adaptive architecture, the history and theory of artificial life, the theory of human-computer interaction, tangible computing,an...

Illustrated with hundreds of illuminating line drawings, this classic guide reveals virtually every secret of a building's function: how it stands up, keeps its occupants safe and comfortable, gets built, grows old, and dies--and why some buildings do this so much better than others. Drawing on things he's learned from the many buildings he himself designed (and in some cases built with his own hands), Edward Allen explains complex phenomena such as the role of the sun in heating buildings...

Papers presented at the First and Second IGT Symposium, Chicago, IL, USA, 26-28 August 1985 and 30 April-2 May 1986.

Continuing in the holistic philosophy of the Technologies of Architecture series, this volume examines the various layers of knowledge, skills and mechanisms that make up the many approaches to the essential function of technical design in the creation of successful buildings.Well-illustrated with case studies, the author draws on his extensive experience in architectural education to provide a detailed description of the development process, acknowledging traditional solu...

This unique tool provides a fresh approach to construction scheduling by focusing on ways in which the Critical Path Method (CPM) can be used to answer the important questions that arise on virtually every construction project.Critical Path Method (CPM) Tutor for Construction Planning and Scheduling helps commercial contractors meet today’s ever-increasing demands to improve operational efficiency and increase profitability. The construction schedule is heavily dependent...