More and more people are flocking to the warm, sunny states of the American South, but the hot, humid climate presents a unique set of challenges to those building or renovating a home. Fortunately, veteran architects Jane and Michael Frederick are sharing the knowledge they've accumulated through nearly four decades of designing homes in the Coastal South, offering accessible guidance to anyone looking to create their dream home.Key Features:• Displays how the precepts of S...

See the world around you in a whole new way with this inspiring guide to nature drawing, urban sketching, travel drawing, drawing from memory or photos, and sketch journaling.In Draw Your World, Samantha Dion Baker gives you everything you need to begin a new art practice or enliven an existing one. She shares her favorite tools and materials, simple technical lessons such as composition, shadows and light, symmetry, and perspective, plus fun motivational ...

"P ractical advice . . . from the farm field to foraging in the forest . . . a must-have for anyone looking to transition from homeowner to homesteader. "— Scott Mann, host of The Permaculture PodcastBuild your homesteading dreams with all the affordable DIY innovations, tips, and stories you need to...

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

"A great book with wonderful designs for smaller homes. Just the inspiration you need to find the right design for a small home for your future needs" (Kent Griswold, TinyHouseBlog.com).Imagine a home that contains everything you need in no more than one,400 square feet. Thoughtfully designed for maximum comfort efficiency, Gerald Rowan's floor plans offer innovative options for building or retrofitting an affordable home that is easy to maintain and environmentall...

Make Your Green Home a Reality!Building the right-sized green home involves making eco-smart decisions. In Building Today's Green Home, you will learn:• How to choose the correct location of your building lot and what is the optimum placement of your house to take advantage of solar energy• How to design the right-sized home for your needs now and in the future• What are the best sustainable construction materials to...

Here is a revolutionary approach for heating rooms and generating hot water. Author Gaelan Brown has worked with engineers and compost scientists to refine methods of composting that can heat greenhouses, barns, buildings, and hot water, all without combustion.It seems almost too good to be true: make high-value organic compost while generating reliable combustion-free heat. But it works, and this book is your practical introduction. With detailed case studies of l...

Passive House Details introduces the concepts, principles, and design processes of building ultralow-energy buildings. The objective of this book is to provide design goals, research, analysis, systems, details, and inspiring images of some of the most energy-efficient, carbon-neutral, healthy, and satisfying buildings currently built in the region. Other topics included: heat transfer, moisture management, performance targets, and climatic zones. Illustrated with more than 375 co...

Sustainable Preservation takes a nuanced look at the hundreds of choices that adaptive reuse requires architects to make—from ingenious ways to redeploy existing structural elements to time-honored techniques for natural ventilation to creation of wetlands that restore a site's natural biological functions. In addition, Sustainable Preservation presents 50 case studies of projects—schools, houses, offices, stores, museums, and government buildings—that set new standards f...

Unfetter and unclutter your life by learning how and why to transition to a tiny homeDo you feel as though you're living in an expensive and ill-fitting home filled with too much stuff? Do you have too much space filled with too many things, constantly dealing with house maintenance and financial upkeep? Living in a tiny home could be the solution. But how do you know?Tiny house guru Pat Foreman examines the hows and whys of tiny-home living, to help you as...

A Complete Guide to Building and Maintaining Green RoofsWritten by an industry expert in green roof design and installation, this GreenSource book presents all of the information you need to skillfully design, construct, and maintain green roofs. You will find a wealth of practical details gathered through real-world implementations and independent research.Green Roof Construction and Maintenance explains how to design a green roof, plan f...

In the United States alone, the annual construction of over one million new homes causes a very substantial drain on natural resources. Today, approximately 60 percent of the timber cut down in our country is used for building homes. This book shows you how to identify, locate, and effectively use alternative building materials. You will learn about straw bale, cordwood, cob, adobe, rammed earth, light clay, pisé, earthbag, bamboo, earth-rammed tires, cork, wool carpeting, and sod.