New Books - May 2008
Architectural Forensics
By: Sam A. A. Kubba
From the publisher: Architectural Forensics clearly defines the role, responsibilities, and essential work of forensic architects. This unique resource offers comprehensive coverage of building defects and failures, types of failure mechanisms, and job-critical tasks such as fieldwork, lab testing, formulating opinions, and providing expert testimony.
Building the Body Politic: Power and Urban Space in Washington, D.C.
By: Margaret E. Farrar
From the publisher: Building the Body Politic demonstrates how the language of urban planning shapes political imagination, and limits the possibilities for change available to cities and citizens. The book represents three key moments in Washington, D.C., planning history that offer rich insight into changing ideas about cities, citizens, and politics.
Conservation and Biodiversity Banking: a Guide to Setting up and Running Biodiversity Credit Trading Systems
Edited by: Nathaniel Carroll, Jessica Fox and Ricardo Bayon
From the publisher: This handbook is a comprehensive guide to conservation banking explaining what it is, and how it works. The book covers the origins of conservation banking, the pros and cons of this approach to conservation, how conservation banking works in reality, the legal, practical and financial aspects of setting up and running a conservation bank and how biodiversity off-sets can be internationalized.
Conservation and Sustainable Use: a Handbook of Techniques
Edited by: E.J. Milner-Gulland and J. Marcus Rowcliffe
From the publisher: Conservation and Sustainable Use provides a practical and integrated approach to carrying out research on the conservation of exploited species. It is relevant to both tropical and temperate biomes and is applicable to all exploited species, including mammals, fish and plants. It describes both the practical (field) and theoretical (modelling) techniques for obtaining and interpreting information, integrating biological, social, economic and institutional analyses. It also demonstrates how to translate information into effective action through appropriate interventions, from legislation to changing people's attitudes. This is the first time that all these issues have been covered together in a single, practically-orientated volume.
Energy Use Worldwide: a Reference Handbook
By: Jaina L Moan and Zachary A. Smith
From the publisher: This book examines the most recent energy use trends and their potential consequences for the global population.
Finding a Good Fit: the Life & Work of Architect Rand Iredale
By: Kathryn Iredale with Sheila Martineau
From the publisher: Vancouver is one of the most architecturally striking cities in the world, but it is impossible to understand a city without understanding its builders. The city owes much of its unique beauty to the creative vision of architect Rand Iredale.
Mobility Without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship
By: Jeremy Packer
From Publisher's Weekly: In his dense cultural history of the car in post-WWII society, Packer logically distills the complex relationship between Americans, their automobiles and their love and fear of driving. North Carolina State University professor Packer examines a variety of issues, including the evolution of the station wagon from outdoorsy sport vehicle to family car, the explosion of CB radio use among truckers in the 1970s and the significance of Cadillacs to African-Americans
Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City's Landmarks
By: Anthony C. Wood
From the publisher: Landmarks is the largely unknown inspiring story of the origins of New York City's nationally acclaimed landmarks law. The decades of struggle behind the law, its intellectual origins, the men and women who fought for it, the forces that shaped it, and the buildings lost and saved on the way to its ultimate passage, span from 1913 to 1965.
Representing Landscape Architecture
Edited by: Marc Treib
From the publisher: Representing Landscape Architecture offers a broad investigation of how the designed landscape is and has been represented: for design study, for criticism and even for its realization.
Sprawling Places
By: David Kolb
From the publisher: Engaging with the work of such writers and critics as Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells, Karsten Harries, and Christian Norberg-Schulz, Kolb seeks to move discussions about sprawl away from the idea that we must "choose between being rooted in the local Black Forest soil or wandering in directionless space." By increasing our awareness of complexity and other issues, Kolb hopes to broaden and deepen people's thinking about the contemporary built environment and to encourage better designs in the future.
Urban and Regional Policies for Metropolitan Livability
Edited by: David K. Hamilton and Patricia S. Atkins
From the publisher: Urban and Regional Policies for Metropolitan Livability provides a concise, up-to-date, and systematic treatment of the problems and issues involved in urban and regional policy concerns. Each policy chapter is written by a respected expert in the area, and the book covers all the key policy issues that confront contemporary metropolitan areas, including transportation, the environment, affordable housing, crime, employment, poverty, education, and regional governance.
Urban Brazil: Visions, Afflictions, and Governance Lessons
By: Ivani Vassoler
From the publisher: Many urban areas around the world suffer from similar problems: heavily congested traffic, lack of effective public transportation, exploding populations, insufficient housing, overwhelming pollution, rampant corruption, and other issues. Ineffective government exacerbates these problems. The city of Curitiba, in the Parana State of Brazil, found creative ways to transform a small town into a thriving metropolis.
Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities
Edited by: Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa
From the publisher: Urban Machinery investigates the technological dimension of modern European cities, vividly describing the most dramatic changes in the urban environment over the last century and a half. Written by leading scholars from the history of technology, urban history, sociology and science, technology, and society, the book views the European city as a complex construct entangled with technology.
The Zedbook: Solutions for a Shrinking World
By: Bill Dunster, Craig Simmons and Bobby Gilbert
From the publisher: Though few now doubt the severity of the environmental problems faced by humanity there is still resistance from businesses, developers, architects, planners and government when it comes to making the step changes necessary to make our lifestyles sustainable. Based on the experience gained from their involvement in the pioneering Beddington Zero Emission Development (or BedZED) in London, and subsequent innovative schemes, The ZEDbook authors present a bold, coherent and refreshing vision of a low carbon future.
American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity
By: Angela L. Miller, et al
From the publisher: American Encounters is a long-awaited dynamic new narrative of the history of American art that focuses on historical encounters among diverse cultures, upon broad structural transformations such as the rise of the middle classes and the emergence of consumer and mass culture, and on the fluid exchanges between "high" art and vernacular expression. The text emphasizes the intersections among cultures and populations, as well as the influences, borrowings, and appropriations that have enriched and vitalized our collective cultural heritage.
The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 B.C. to A.D. 700
By: Judith McKenzie
From the publisher: This masterful history of the monumental architecture of Alexandria, as well as of the rest of Egypt, encompasses an entire millennium—from the city's founding by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. to the years just after the Islamic conquest of A.D. 642. Long considered lost beyond recall, the architecture of ancient Alexandria has until now remained mysterious. But here Judith McKenzie shows that it is indeed possible to reconstruct the city and many of its buildings by means of meticulous exploration of archaeological remains, written sources, and an array of other fragmentary evidence.
Aspects of Building Design Management
Edited by: Stephen Emmitt
From the publisher: Written by international experts in the field, the core themes of this book include the modeling, coordination and management of design information; the definition and realization of architectural value; digital outsourcing of architectural services; knowledge capital in architectural education; and the importance of cultural issues. Design management is addressed from the perspective of consultants and contractors, which helps to illustrate the dynamic interrelationships between people, technologies and management.
Bioclimatic Housing: Innovative Designs for Warm Climates
Edited by: Richard Hyde
From the publisher: Focusing on countries in which houses require cooling for a significant part of the year, this book covers creative, low-energy architecture backed up by practical and applied good science. Having set out clear definitions on how to define a sustainable house, the book interweaves the themes of social progress, technological fixes, and industry transformation within a discussion of global and country trends, climate types, solution sets, and relevant low-energy technologies.
CN: Architecture in China
By: Philip Jodidio
From the publisher: The past five years have seen a revolution in Chinese architecture: the emergence of independent designers, and a number of new stars, and above all new and interesting buildings that are not the product of direct Western influence. These developments have laid the groundwork for an indigenous modernity that differentiates itself from outside schools as well as eschewing the temptation to put a "Chinese-style" roof on ordinary office blocks.
Designing Sustainable Forest Landscapes
By: Simon Bell and Dean Apostol
From the publisher: Designing Sustainable Forest Landscapes is a definitive guide to the design and management of forest landscapes, covering the theory and principles of forest design as well as providing practical guidance on methods and tools. Including a variety of international case studies the book focuses on ecosystem regeneration, the management of natural forests and the management of plantation forests. Using visualization techniques, design processes and evaluation techniques it looks at promoting landscapes which are designed to optimize the balance between human intervention and natural evolution.
Enhancing Urban Safety and Security: Global Report on Human Settlements 2007
By: United Nations Human Settlements Programme
From the publisher: Enhancing Urban Safety and Security addresses three major threats to the safety and security of cities: crime and violence; insecurity of tenure and forced evictions; and natural and human-made disasters. It analyses worldwide trends with respect to each of these threats, paying particular attention to their underlying causes and impacts, as well as to the good policies and best practices that have been adopted at the city, national and international levels in order to address these threats.
The Intercultural City: Planning for Diversity Advantage
By: Phil Wood and Charles Landry
From the publisher: The Intercultural City, based on numerous case studies worldwide, analyses the links between urban change and cultural diversity. It draws on original research in the US, Europe, Australasia and the UK. It critiques past and current policy and introduces new conceptual frameworks. It provides significant and practical advice for readers, with new insights and tools for practitioners such as the 'intercultural lens', 'indicators of openness', 'urban cultural literacy' and 'ten steps to an Intercultural City'.
Roof Cooling Techniques: a Design Handbook
By: Simos Yannas, Evyatar Erell, and Jose Luis Molina
From the publisher: Natural heating and cooling of buildings helps to improve energy efficiency in the built environment. This book considers the principles of roof design and specific systems and cooling techniques.
Scaling Urban Environmental Challenges: From Local to Global and Back
Edited by: Peter J. Marcotullio and Gordon McGranahan
From the publisher: "Think globally, act locally" emphasizes the importance of scale in dealing with environmental challenges, but not how to factor it in. This major new book focuses on the spatial dimensions of urban environmental burdens, and shows how important it is to take these into account when pursuing environmental justice and good governance--whether in the context of the sanitary risks of slum living, the pollution of uncontrolled industrialization and motorization, or the enormous ecological footprints of affluent urban lifestyles.
The Sustainability Handbook: the Complete Management Guide to Achieving Social, Economic and Environmental Responsibility
By: William R. Blackburn
From the publisher: The Sustainability Handbook covers all the challenges, complexities and benefits of sustainability for businesses, governments and organizations. It provides a blueprint for how organizations can reach or exceed economic, social and environmental excellence. It offers a host of practical approaches and tools including a model sustainability policy for organizations, summaries, tips on selecting sustainability codes, an extensive collection of metrics and a wealth of supplementary reference material.
Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice
By: Stuart Walker
From the publisher: Sustainable by Design offers a compelling, innovative, and design-centered approach that explores both the meaning and practice of sustainable design. Walker explores the design process in the context of sustainability, and challenges conventional ways of defining, designing, and producing functional objects.
Sustainable Energy Technologies: Options and Prospects
Edited by: K. Hanjalic, Roel van de Krol, and Alija Lekic
From the publisher: This book provides an up-to-date review of the status and prospects of different options in energy conversion and storage technologies, as seen by a panel of world leading experts. It offers a platform for readers engaged in planning and undertaking new energy solutions or retrofitting and redesigning the existing installations to confront and to compare the pros and cons of various novel technology options.
Tadao Ando. 1, Houses & Housing
By: Tadao Ando
From the publisher: Self educated as an architect, Ando has forged a distinct style which rests heavily on his preference for the use of concrete in his designs. This volume collates a selection of housing projects chosen by the architect himself which he considers to be significant turning points in his career. A total of 19 projects, some unrealized, are comprehensively surveyed through full page colour photographs and sketches, plans and details.
Teaching and Learning Building Design and Construction
Edited by: Dino Bouchlaghem
From the publisher: This special issue of the Architectural Engineering and Design Management (AEDM) international journal covers key themes in this arena, including student-centered learning, practice-based learning, good practice and evaluation, and instructional systems design (ISD). Also included are contributions on e-pedagogy, standardization of e-learning and learning objects, e-learning to bridge the gap between industry and academia and Virtual Learning Environments.
The Theory and Practice of Strategic Environmental Assessment: Towards a More Systematic Approach
By: Thomas B. Fischer
From the publisher: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a fast-growing and rapidly evolving professional field driven by both advances in theory and practice and by regulatory requirements in Europe, North America, Australasia, South Africa and increasingly across Asia. This textbook, the first of its kind, provides for a state-of-the-art review of SEA theory and practice and promotes a more systematic approach to SEA. It is written for a wide student, professional and academic audience and aims particularly at supporting the development of SEA modules in undergraduate and postgraduate planning, environmental assessment, engineering, and law courses.
Urban Spaces. No. 5: Featuring Green Design Strategies
Edited by: John Morris Dixon
From the publisher: Featuring over 700 full-colour images, this work is a reference for urban planners, public officials, building committees, and professionals who are responsible for the planning, design, and construction of urban developments of all kinds.
Urban China in Transition
Edited by: John R. Logan
From the publisher: Using an innovative approach, this book interprets the unprecedented transformation of contemporary China's major cities. It deals with a diversity of trends and analyzes their sources. Every chapter is co-authored by an urban China expert and an "outside" expert on the wider topic. Together they offer a broad historical and theoretical comparison.
