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Essential Media for your Research  / Design Library

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NEW! The Barefoot Architect: A Handbook for Green Building
by Johan van Lengen
720 pp, 2008, $18

The first English translation of the international bestseller dripping with easy-to-understand drawings.

A former UN worker and prominent architect, Johan van Lengen has seen firsthand the desperate need for a "greener" approach to housing in impoverished tropical climates. This comprehensive book clearly explains every aspect of this endeavor, including design (siting, orientation, climate consideration), materials (sisal, cactus, bamboo, earth), and implementation. The author emphasizes throughout the book what is inexpensive and sustainable. Included are sections discussing urban planning, small-scale energy production, cleaning and storing drinking water, and dealing with septic

waste, and all information is applied to three distinct tropical regions: humid areas, temporate areas, and desert climates. Hundreds of explanatory drawings by van Lengen allow even novice builders to get started.Basic design, climate, and site planning for humid and dry climates. Includes info on Adobe, rammed earth, bamboo, plaster, wood, concrete and ferro-cement; Foundations, roofs, floors, walls, doors, windows, and eco-techniques; Solar heating, water-powered electricity, natural cooling and ventilation; Water purification, pumps, cisterns, septic tanks, composting toilets

This book is for people who dream of building a simple home. It is also for those in the building trades: carpenters, masons, plumbers, and artisans, as well as for urban planners, rural technicians, and small community designers.

It covers basic design, use of a great variety of natural materials, construction details, natural heating and cooling, and water and sanitation techniques. Although many of the methods shown are traditional, more modern techniques are shown as well.

NEW! The Solar House:
Passive Heating and Cooling
by Daniel D. Chiras
286pp, 2002, $30

Passive solar heating and passive cooling—approaches known as natural conditioning—provide comfort throughout the year by reducing, or eliminating, the need for fossil fuel. Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.

Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book "The Natural House," brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts.

In "The Solar House," Chiras sets the record straight on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, he highlights certain egregious erros and shows how to avoid them. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today’s home builders can succeed with solar designs.

Readers will learn:
- How to select a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly backup heating system.
- how to preserve indoor air quality in an airtight, energy-efficient home.
- ways of employing green building materials in a naturally conditioned home.

We know how to prepare our homes for each seasonal change, but do we know how to prepare for climate change? Violent weather events like floods, tornadoes, ice storms and hurricanes only tell part of the story. Climate change is frequently more subtle but its effects on our homes and properties can still be devastating.

Nearly 50 percent of North America has a potential for structural damage from shifting moisture in expansive clay soils; a condition that is already costing billions of dollars each year. Humidity is projected to increase, trapping moisture in wall cavities and resulting in deterioration. As the climate changes and moisture levels adjust, there are a number of proactive steps that can be taken to prevent or lessen expensive repairs.

Extreme Weather is the only book of its kind that shows how to protect your home or business from climate change, by focusing on the following areas:

* Risk and causal assessment, due to region and soil
* Extreme weather’s rapid and slow effects
* Site, foundation, wall, and roof considerations and modifications
* Insurance options
* Anticipated changes for the United States, Canada and Mexico

Our homes are one of the most expensive investments we will ever make. They are also our refuge from the elements, and we must protect them so they can protect us. This book is a valuable resource for all property owners.
John C. Banta is a senior indoor environmental consultant for Restorations Consultants, Inc.

Snell and Callahan, whose popular Good House Book helped environmentally-minded readers create an earth-friendly home, have returned with a photo-packed, amazingly complete, start-to-finish guide to "green" house-building.

This absolutely groundbreaking manual doesn't just talk about eco-friendly building techniques, but actually shows every step!

New! Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House:
Bringing Your Home Into Harmony with Nature
by Carol Venolia & Kelly Lerner $25, 2006, 280pp

You don't have to build from scratch to live in a house that's good for you and the earth. This unique guide teaches the basics of ecological renovation, planning your project, choosing materials, and making your home more energy efficient. It presents simple ideas you can do right away to more advanced moves you can make after careful planning. You'll have the tools you need to create a beautiful green haven that's uniquely your own.

Carol Venolia specializes in the field of eco-healthy building. Her first book, Healing Environments, has enjoyed international success, and her home designs have been featured in The Natural House Catalog, Earth to Spirit, The Healthy House and Environ magazine. Carol currently writes the "Design for Life" column for Natural Home & Garden magazine.

Kelly Lerner is an award-winning architect and innovator in the fields of sustainable development, straw-bale construction, and earthen plasters. She spearheaded an internationally recognized project responsible for building more than 600 passive-solar-heated straw-bale houses in China. Her designs have been featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, The Straw Bale House, Serious Straw Bale, The New Straw Bale House, and Green by Design

Building with Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home
DVD & Guidebook
by Ted Owens $39, 2006,152pp + DVD

The award winning DVD video, Building With Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home, now has a full-color book companion. Follow the construction of one straw bale solar house, from start to finish. Learn where to place windows for passive heating and cooling, how rubble trench foundations can save on the cost of concrete, post-and-beam framing for straw bale walls, how to notch and stack straw bales, how to build interior thermal mass walls, how to generate electricity from the sun, how to make and apply earth plasters, and much more.

Cob has been a traditional building process for millennia in Europe, even in rainy and windy climates like the British Isles, where many cob buildings still serve as family homes after hundreds of years. The technique is newly arrived to the Americas, and, as with so many social trends, the early adopters are in the Pacific Northwest.

Cob houses (or cottages, since they are always efficiently small by American construction standards) are not only compatible with their surroundings, they ARE their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth. They are full of light, energy-efficient, and cozy, with curved walls and built-in, whimsical touches. They are delightful. They are ecstatic.

The Hand-Sculpted House is theoretical and philosophical, but intensely practical as well. You will get all the how-to information to undertake a cob building project. As the modern world rediscovers the importance of living in sustainable harmony with the environment, this book is a bible of radical simplicity.

Ianto Evans is an applied ecologist, landscape architect, inventor, and teacher with building experience on six continents. Cob is traditional in his homeland, Wales. In addition to teaching ecological building, Ianto has consulted with USAID, the World Bank, the Peace Corps, and several national governments.

Michael G. Smith teaches practical workshops and consults on cob construction, natural building, and permaculture. He is the author of The Cobber's Companion: How to Build Your Own Earthen Home and co-editor of The Art of Natural Building: Design, Construction, Resources.

Linda Smiley teaches workshops on cob, sculpting sacred spaces, intuitive design, and natural plasters and finishes. With a background as a recreational therapist, she specializes in helping people use natural building as a tool for personal transformation and healing.

New! Rain Gardens
Managing Water Sustainably in the Garden and Designed Landscape
By Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden
188pp, 157 color photos, 41 line drawings, 2007, $35

Rain gardens encompass all possible elements that can be used to capture, channel, divert and make the most of the rain and snow that fall on a property. Using the innovative and attractive approaches described here, it is possible to enhance outdoor spaces and minimize the damaging effects of drought, stormwater runoff, and other environmental challenges. Nigel Dunnett & Andy Clayden have created a comprehensive guide to water management techniques for the garden and built environment.

Filled with practical, manageable solutions for small and large-scale implementations and utilizing authoritative research with state-of-the-art case studies from all over the world, Rain Gardens is the first book on sustainable water management schemes suitable for students and professionals.

"Every bit as appealing as its title, Rain Gardens tells us what to do as we find ourselves in a built environment where much of the earth is paved over and our supply of cheap water is diminishing. An educational, practical, timely, and inspiring book."—Katherine Cook, Pacific Horticulture

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